No Easy Ending For "The Sopranos"

Fans Hold Their Breath As Mob Hit Screeches To Halt After 8 Years

(AP)  WARNING: Spoiler Alert!

Tony Soprano carries on.

The much-awaited conclusion of HBO's "The Sopranos" arrived Sunday night in a frenzy of audience speculation. Would New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano live or be killed? Would his family die before his eyes? Would he go to jail? Vanish into the shadows of witness protection? And would Brooklyn boss Phil Leotardo, who had ordered a hit on Tony, prevail?

In the end, the only ending that mattered was the one masterminded by "Sopranos" creator David Chase. Playing against viewer expectations, as always, Chase refused to stage a mass extermination, put the characters through any changes, or provide his viewers with comfortable closure. Or catharsis. After all, he declined to pass moral judgment on Tony — he reminded viewers all season what a thug Tony is, then gave him a pass.

But Chase was true to himself, and that's what made "The Sopranos" brilliant on Sunday night, and in the 85 episodes that went before. The product of an artist with a bleak but illuminating vision, "The Sopranos" has always existed on its own terms. And it was seldom tidy.

The only neat development in the finale was that Leotardo was crushed. Otherwise it was perversely non-earthshaking — just one last visit with the characters we have followed so devoutly since 1999.

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Photos: Sopranos' Swan Song

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Here was the funeral for Bobby Bacala, Tony's soldier and brother-in-law, who was shot dead on Leotardo's orders last week. Here was Tony (series star James Gandolfini) paying a hospital visit to his gravely injured consigliere, Silvio Dante, also targeted by Leotardo.

Tony's ne'er-do-well son A.J. (Robert Iler) continued to wail about the misery in the world, and voiced a fleeting urge to join the Army and go fight in Afghanistan (Tony persuaded him to get involved in filmmaking, instead). Daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) harped on her plans to be a lawyer.

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"The Sopranos": This Thing Of Theirs

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Tony visits his senile Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) at the nursing home. "You and my dad, you two ran north Jersey," Tony prompts him.

"We did?" said Uncle Junior with no sign of recognition. "That's nice."

Despite suspicions to the contrary, neither Paulie Walnuts nor Patsy Parisi sold Tony out. And neither was whacked. Dr. Melfi, who kicked Tony out of therapy last week, made no last minute appearance.

Sure, headaches lie ahead for Tony. The feds are still after him. And Meadow's fiance, Patsy Jr., is a lawyer who may well be pursuing cases that intrude on Tony's business interests.

So what else is new?

2The finale displayed the characters continuing, for better and worse, unaffected by the fact that the series is done. The implication was, they will go on as usual. We just won't be able to watch.

Leotardo (Frank Vincent) hit a very dead end after Tony located him with the help of his favorite federal agent. The execution was a quick but classic "Sopranos" scene: Pulling up at a gas station with his wife, Leotardo made a grand show of telling his two young grandchildren in the back seat to "wave bye-bye" as he emerged from his SUV. The next moment he was on the pavement, shot in the head.

Then you heard the car roll over his head. Carunnnchh! Quick, clinical, even comical, this was the only violence during the hour.

Not that Chase (who wrote and directed this episode) didn't tease viewers with the threat of death in almost every scene.

This was never more true than in the final sequence. On the surface, it was nothing more momentous than Tony, his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco), Meadow and A.J. meeting for dinner at a cozy family restaurant.

3When he arrived, Tony dropped a coin in the jukebox and played the classic Journey power ballad "Don't Stop Believing." Meanwhile, every moment seemed to foreshadow disaster: Suspicious-looking people coming in the door or seated at a table nearby. Meadow on the street having trouble parallel parking her car, the tires squealing against the curb. With every passing second, the audience was primed for tragedy. It was a scene both warm and fuzzy yet full of dread, setting every viewer's heart racing for no clear reason.

But nothing would happen. It was just a family gathering for dinner at a restaurant.

Then, with a jingle of the bell on the front door, Tony looked up, apparently seeing Meadow make her delayed entrance. Or could he have seen something awful — something he certainly deserved — about to come down?

Probably not. Almost certainly a false alarm. But we'll never know. With that, "The Sopranos" cut to black, leaving us enriched after eight years. And flustered. And fated to always wonder what happened next.

[garsh548]

I found my heart rate going up and down through out the final show. During each scene, my mind wonder what was going to happen. It was hard for me to anticipate what was going happen. With every scene I was looking for someone to die. This was very suspenseful and I think Mr.Chase achieved his goal. We are left wondering about a lot this possible of things that could have happen. This was a very brilliant way to end eight years. I'm left creating many scenes in head of what could have happen and how it could have ended.

[citizenusa-2009]

After investing my time in this series, I am insulted at the unimaginative (to say the least) and unfulfilling finale. A high school sophmore could have written a more fitting ending to this "ground breaking" series. Same on you Chase, you let the viewers down. The joke is apparantly on us...P.S. I planned on purchasing the entire set of DVD's (as I did with the brilliant Six Feet Under Series), but I now have absolutely no interest in reviewing your High School experiment in directing.