The Sopranos Finale: A Second Coming

No More Fuckin' Ziti
by M.A. Fedeli

So, after waiting for my girlfriend to finally finish The Sopranos episode 86, "Made In America" (otherwise known as The Last Sopranos Episode EVER!), I can now write about the show's farewell. It was, how do you say, almost perfect? Without being a snob, I never could understand people's reactions to the show in general, especially in response to the series finale. People I know who loved the show for all its familial angst and anti-climactic wonders, not just the mob violence, were somehow still shocked and/or "miffled" after the final finale. It hurts to say, but if you didn't get why the show ended like it did, worse yet, if you didn't see it coming in the least, then you probably didn't really understand the show and where it has been going since the end of season 1.

I'm not going to re-cap the last episode or the famous ending, if you haven't yet seen it or heard about it you live in a hole where I do not wish to also reside. Needless to say, it was a fitting touchdown to the overall trajectory the show had been heading in: the focus on themes of hopelessness and existentialism that began at the beginning with Livia's poison moaning and Tony's first woe-is-me therapy session. No one kept this lingering to the finish line as well as AJ, who, after his suicide attempt, reminds us that Livia once told him there's no point in life and you die in your own arms. In The Sopranos, characters commit sins, apologize, and then commit them again with alarmingly consistent repetition. With these types of notions being floated week after week (like AJ explaining that you'd have to be crazy to think the world is not), how could anyone wonder why it ended like it did? It was absolutely appropriate, intelligent, and honest, three traits that have always been harder to achieve than just entertaining. A monkey with cymbals is entertaining.

David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, must surely believe that there is no real closure or satisfaction in life. The show has always been most effective as a work of art for those who closely shared his darker world views. AJ's thoughts, his shock at the horrors of the world, while naive and said with little eloquence, are the truth, and he submits to them fully. Tony, while sharing many of the same dark thoughts, is the lie. Frequently two-faced, he uses these dark forces to his advantage, manipulating those around him, many times even unknowingly, and dragging everyone down to pull his way up. How ironic is it then that in one of his most touching, real, and sensitive moments as a father, he lifts AJ up out of the swimming pool, begging AJ not to fight him. It's moments like this that make us love him, his sympathy for the innocent and helpless. Sympathies that are fleeting and extend mostly to animals because they don't really annoy him or get in his way, as evidenced by the quick return to contempt for his son in the therapy sessions shortly after the suicide attempt.

Everyday, tons of awful things in this world happen with what seems to be no reason, no moral, no sense, no validation. Tony Soprano gave us a glimpse of one person who is responsible for many of those things, and we loved him (because of it or in spite of it?). I would guess that Chase was delighted with our collective hypocrisy, which the ending played on as much as it played on our expectations. The circle turns and turns, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." To his friends and his family, Tony was oftentimes that rough beast that slouches toward Bethlehem to be born. Yet we rooted, in record numbers, for this man to succeed, to accomplish, to win. What does this say about us as a society, as a species?

Despite the cliche, life is definitely a journey, not a destination. It's the Myth of Sisyphus. Same goes for The Sopranos. This show has been a great journey for the better part of a decade, shame on those who put extra stock into the unrealistic notion of "how it all ends". It kept your heart pounding up until the last second and far beyond it, is that not enough? For the violence and action fans it killed off 3 major characters and handfuls of regulars in the last 4 episodes, seriously and violently injuring a few more. It also gave us the tragic end of Christopher, a vicious curb stomping, Phil Leotardo's squashed head, W.B. Yeats, and AJ's brilliantly orchestrated and heartbreaking suicide scene. Not to mention the continued brilliance of the writers, Edie Falco, and James Gandolfini with all things related to the revolving dynamics of Tony vs. Carmella.

In the very, very end we were treated to one of the most well-crafted scenes in the show's, if not television's, history, managing to present both subtly and effectively at least three separate themes:

1) It used the audience's knowledge that there were only a few minutes left of the show, and played hard on it, allowing us to feel Tony's paranoia of being murdered at any moment. Time was running out on us, that clock trickling past 10pm EST was a dire reminder. When the screen goes black, it was us who was murdered. Seeing as everyone expects something substantial in a final scene, can you do any better than that? Just because there wasn't a titanic melodramatic on-screen resolution in the last 5 minutes, does that ruin the fact that you were absolutely riveted just the same, or invalidate scenes that came before? That a TV show made you feel that engaged and alive is a gift. Any number of possible endings floated prior to the finale (Tony getting whacked, Carm or the kids getting hurt, Tony arrested/flipping, etc.) now seem silly in hindsight.

2) It was the artful whacking ending, repeating again the idea that you don't even hear it when it happens. This was referenced this season first by Bobby in the boat, then echoed by Silvio with the Gerry Torciano whacking, and finally in Tony's safe-house, last-night-on-earth flashback. Add to this the already present tension, the ringing bell, Meadow's erratic parking, and the diner characters who clearly are all meant to represent possible or past threats, and you have a wonderfully thick dramatic and psychological stew (not to mention the nod to The Godfather and the final black thought that maybe, just maybe, Tony's brains were bada-bing, blown all over Carm's nice, zip-up sweater). This interpretation was obviously intended and heavily alluded to, but in the end, it's delightfully uncertain because nothing ever exists outside of what's in the frame.

3) It was the life goes on and on and on and on ending, wholly validating the originally curious choice of (coincidentally named) Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" as the series' last song. This show, among other things, was about Tony and how his selfishness and insecurities could seriously affect everyone he ever got close to, and how he dealt with the fallout. But the show judged everyone equally. It called to task both of his "families", who were all far less than perfect, and who were hypocrites and liars themselves, right up until the end. AJ, Meadow, Carm, Janice, Paulie, Christopher, Melfi; no one was ever excused from being human. And so, the larger ending, the families, both of them, despite the years of threats and abuse, are still there, still repeating mistakes and living the same tortured lives they started at birth. And Tony, despite all the attempts (real or not) to better himself, is still there, still breathing heavy, still under constant threat. And the circle turns and turns and turns.

And that's the point. The build-up and the suspense are "the happening", they are the big finale. The journey is the event. When "Don't Stop Believin'" begins at around the show's hour mark, you think that the episode (and series) is going to end with a happy, upbeat song and a happy, upbeat family-gathering montage moment, as they have sometime done in the past. But this was the end of the show for all-time, and it just felt different. Action was rising, not falling. Drama was still being conducted. Most past episodes' final songs always played for a few seconds, but no more than a minute or so really, before the action noticeably winded down and the episode faded out to the credits. But as "Don't Stop Believin'" didn't stop and kept on going for 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, the tension was incredible. Absolutely white-knuckled. This had never been done on the show before; for anyone paying attention all these years, it was excruciating. Something HAD to happen; the longer the song played the bigger this "happening" was to be. And then, in a brilliant instant, in a big, big, way, it HAPPENED. It ended, with both a bang and whimper.

For years I've heard people complain viciously about the show yet never miss a minute of it. Makes you wonder what they thought about shows they didn't watch. Hyper-judgment seems to be the curse of the 86+ hour feature film for television that The Sopranos was. Keeping things interesting and revelatory, and keeping the standards up that high for that long borders on impossible. Especially in the face of our cynical, destroy-your-heroes world. The genius of the show, however, was the fact that it kept you glued, and no more so than in those final minutes. What more can you ask? If it were so easy to do and so common we'd love every TV show and movie and character out there; we'd be this collectively unnerved by their endings.

God bless David Chase and his balls for staying true to themselves and not being afraid to give us these entertaining doses of tough love. The overall final voyage of the show was philosophical and reflective, with characters constantly relishing and remembering the past (like they've always done). The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The last chapters of The Sopranos were cold, sometimes anti-climactic, and may have even seemed alienating and confounding. But so what? That's life. Just ask Livia. With every other show not doing this, we should be happy such a great show did. We were not cheated in the least, we were given something more artistic, thoughtful, and lasting than all the blood spatter and screams in the world. Chase has said that he was not trying to be cute with the ending, that everything he was trying to say is in the scene. Problem is, it was exactly what the audience didn't want to hear: "the show is OVER." Let's be honest, the lack of a bloodbath is not what angered people, having to think more than just observe with interest is what did it. Having to reconcile with the disappointment of the show ceasing to exist is what was frustrating even to people who loved the sudden and unsympathetic black-out, like myself.

But don't take it from me, just read these David Chase quotes:

"This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it."

And, "We don't have contempt for the audience. In fact, I think The Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience credit for having some intelligence and attention span. We always operated as though people don't need to be spoon-fed every single thing--that their instincts and feelings and humanity will tell them what's going on."

In a Season Two episode, AJ mentions an existentialist quote which says that life is a choice between boredom and suffering. These characters have chosen suffering. And so it continues, in their lives and in ours...