This morning, Rickey’s taking a time out from ranting about 24 to discuss that other television show he’s invested roughly 80 hours of his life in: The Sopranos. Since we’ll be discussing the finale, those moronic few who recorded last night’s episode and haven’t yet seen it should avert their eyes from the screen at this point. And good luck not running into someone foaming at the mouth with rage over the ending.
Yes, it was anticlimactic. And Rickey didn’t like the lack of closure either at first. But after waking up this morning and re-watching that final scene, Rickey’s attitude on the subject has shifted considerably. The decision to set the final scene in a new, previously unseen location was jarring, but we kind of liked the New Jersey version of a Norman Rockwell family gathering. (Rickey would've chosen "The Kosher Nosh" in Ridgewood however). While watching this mob family munch on onion rings, it occurs to you that very little has changed in these characters over the course of the show.
A.J., despite being given a leg up by his family, is still a complete and utter flake. Carmella is still the wife who refuses to judge her husband’s profession as long as he periodically comes home with a sparkly bauble of some sort. Meadow is still the know-it-all girl trying to come to grips with her Italian roots. And Tony is completely and utterly doomed. Even though we don’t precisely know what happens to him, there’s a short list of possibilities that await him: death, jail, or more existential unhappiness. The fact that Tony orders the onion rings (greasy fried food) underscores the theme that he's always provided for his family ...but badly.
For Rickey, the most moving part of last night’s episode was Tony’s scene with Junior. Confronting his nemesis at a state run nursing home, Tony is left wanting. All his life accomplishments are laid bare when Tony informs an incoherent Junior that he and his father used to run North New Jersey. Junior’s response: “that’s nice.” Tony’s walks out disgusted, feeling hollow and empty. So much for fame and glory. And as the scene with A.J.’s therapist indicates, the therapy with Dr. Melfi has gone nowhere and Tony is once again looking for a female to vent his emotional scars to. So much for a peaceful night’s sleep for Tony Soprano.
But getting back to the closing… In the very last scene, Chase slowly moves all the pieces into place. He sets us up with a nervous Tony gazing anxiously at the door as potential assassins walk into the restaurant. We see the Soprano family slowly meet up: the screw-up son, the complicit wife, and the arrogant daughter who cannot parallel park all assemble one by one. They even set up The Godfather homage with one stranger walking into the bathroom to potentially emerge with a weapon to kill off Tony.
And then, with that “Don’t Stop Believing” song by Journey playing, Tony looks up, and nothingness washes over the screen. They suddenly cut to black, thus causing Rickey to scamper into another room, fearing that his television is broken. (You gotta love it when a show pulls an Andy Kaufman-esque joke on you like that).
Pissed off? Well, in case you were unaware, this is your Tony Soprano. It’s up to you to decide if he dies, spends the rest of his life in jail, or lives happily ever after. By suddenly fading to black, Chase doesn’t kill off Tony, he does something much better, he kills off the whole damn show, along with any lingering hope you might have had for conventional resolution.
The decision to end it in that manner is the cinematic equivalent of a bullet to the back of the head. You never see it coming. Just sudden blackness. It conveys the experience of some Jersey mobster sneaking up behind your couch and wacking you. As Bobby said to Tony in the boat in the season premiere, “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” It’s bleak, powerful stuff, and Rickey’s probably in the minority in stating that he liked it. Disagree? Tough luck, it’s fun to be contrarian.
Ok, maybe Rickey would’ve changed a few things. Perhaps ending with Journey’s “Anyway You Want It” playing over the jukebox, with Rodney Dangerfield and the show’s entire cast dancing in the restaurant. That also would’ve worked. Now if you’ll excuse Rickey, he needs to go write hate mail to David Chase for putting that “Don’t Stop Believing” song in Rickey’s head… Anyone up for a road trip to that diner in Bloomfield for onion rings and Journey?