I didn’t see the show but apparently some folks are unhappy with the ambiguous ending. Who walked through the door? Meadow or a hitman? Did the whole family get whacked or do they live to carry on as ever - conflicted, suspicious, always slightly on edge?
I think I like the ambiguity of it, but it probably would have been just as satisfying for some to see the whole family taken out, which I’m going to assume is what happened, unless I hear differently.
Last year I wrote:
Commenters…are offering up their own ideas. One smart suggestion is that the series will end at Meadow’s wedding, with Tony receiving guests, ala The Godfather, which is clever. But this is opera. In Opera, Tony Soprano must die.
Wouldn’t it be great to see an opera made of this show? Tony and his shrink and their flirtatious duets, Tony and Carmella screaming at each other? Carmella and Furio’s passionate, dolce sotto voce asides. Adriana as a faux-operatic Miss Adelaide and Christopher and Paulie Walnuts in loud pinstripe suits? All of the men at the BadaBing singing en corps? Bada Bing! Bada Boom! Where da bad-asses loom, and da T-an’-A fly allll dayyyyyyy
I still like that idea…but it could not end in similar ambiguity - not in opera, no. We like the death arias.
Ed Morrissey is feeling unsatisfied.
Also writing:
Sister Toldjah
Charmaine Yoest
Also writing:
June 11th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Yes, but would Bryn play Tony?
June 11th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Tony Soprano: Conflict Resolution? Or How the Sopranos is Like a Spreadsheet…
Tony Soprano HBO Your Business Blogger and Charmaine are not happy with the ending of the Sopranos series last night. For the same reason that most entertainment today fails to entertain: Because of a failure… No, not to communicate…….
June 11th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Though I have not watched the Sopranos in ages, I thought a fitting ending to the show would have been to have Tony killed in a holdup at the restaurant. Coming through the door would have been two thugs who come into rob the restaurant. Tony being Tony can’t keep his ego in check (Do you know who I am? No! Why should I care? BAM!) and ends up getting shot.
As the robbers leave, the family gathers around Tony who is laying on the floor bleeding to death. The camera slowly focuses in on Tony’s face as his eyes, wide at first, slowly go dark as the scene fades out, both by the screen getting smaller and smaller and getting darker (Symbolic insignificane). In the end, after all the manipulations, power assertions, wacking of others, the big gumbo is killed by a common punk during a run of the mill robbery. It would have been so poetic, so perfect an ending.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Back when I had HBO, a few years ago, I thought that the series was an exercise in evil and redemption. From what I’m reading, I was imposing my own views on the show because it was apparently an exercise in nihilistic existentialism instead. There is no redemption, the essence of your life is what you yourself make of it, not what some Other makes of it, and in the end, all there is is nothingness, a fade to black. If that’s the end result of the story, then I guess that the end result of the series will be for it to fade into oblivion too, with few people wanting to sit through reruns or buy the DVDs.
Of course, instead of such a grand philosophical statement, it could be that the writers simply clueless, and they went out too far on too many limbs and couldn’t figure out a way back, a la Matrix III.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:53 am
THe lst epeisode is was brilliant. The last 10 minutes were tense as heck. I think people will enjoy the ending once they think it about it more.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:59 am
[...] Is Tony Soprano dead or alive? I didn t see the show but apparently some folks are unhappy with the ambiguous ending. Who walked through the door? Meadow or a hitman? Did the whole family get whacked or do they live to carry on as ever - conflicted, suspicious, always slightly on edge? I think I like the ambiguity of it, but it probably would have been just as satisfying for [...]
June 12th, 2007 at 8:43 am
[...] I’m starting to feel a little better about it, now that other people are ‘fessing up as well. It was Andrew Fergusen’s NRO column that ultimately made we [...]
June 12th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
[...] The Anchoress’ take is here. [...]