Soprano's Finale

[Guest avid]

Talk about a let down !!!.

I thought the Soprano's finale was one of the most boring episodes of the entire series.  The only thing that made it exciting was the fact that I kept expecting SOMETHING to happen.  Ok so Phil got whacked, and Tony has a turncoat in the family.......This is something new??????????

I was totally disappointed.

It seems to me like they aren't really sure that they want to end the series so left it completely open to pick up right where they left off.

A huge Avid  

[Hookemdown.]

I know what you mean avid.  Every second of the finale I was expecting something unexpected.  I guess we'll never know what happened next.

[.ghoti.]

I've been a fan since day one, but this has to be the lamest excuse for an ending I've ever seen. Everthing is wide open for a return. Last episode ever my aching arse. I'd say the money has spoken, and new episodes are already being written.

[bassdocktor]

Yeah it was a major let down. Actually, the way the built up the last few episodes they kinda seemed like a let down too.

[HomersTomaco]

Quite possibly the best ending ever in tv history.  David Chase is a genius.  He created possibly the best drama since Shakespeare, full of imagery, foreshadowing and suspense.  The ending was perfect.... the way Tony dies at the end.

Cut the music, cut the visual, tony is dead the show is over.

[Rattlinrogue]

I'm sitting there waiting for Tony to get whacked.Suddenly,the screen goes black.I'm thinking that my Dish Network had gone out(which it does from time to time)...And it looks just like the blackout at the end of last night's episode when it happens.I told my wife moments later that half the homes in America had someone sceaming,S%#&T.at the same time.At least I was.I was disappointed with the ending,also.

[Guest avid]

the way Tony dies at the end.

did I miss something?

You are assuming that the screen going black was symbolic for Tony's execution?

Well, I guess I'm not that clever.  To me it looked like they wanted to end it in a way that left people wondering.  

There was no sense of closure for me.  And by the way, he had made peace with Phil's family.   They practically set him up for Chrs' sake.  So who were the so called whackers and why were they wacking?

Nope, if you found brilliance, then I *** you.  I found disappointment and a way to resurrect the show or create a movie a la "sex in the city"

[KU_Bassmaster.]

the way Tony dies at the end.

did I miss something?

You are assuming that the screen going black was symbolic for Tony's execution?

Well, I guess I'm not that clever. To me it looked like they wanted to end it in a way that left people wondering.

There was no sense of closure for me. And by the way, he had made peace with Phil's family. They practically set him up for Chrs' sake. So who were the so called whackers and why were they wacking?

Nope, if you found brilliance, then I *** you. I found disappointment and a way to resurrect the show or create a movie a la "sex in the city"

That's what I thought initially.  Tony capped in the head .... no more music, screen goes black.  At first I  thought it was good ..... then started feeling like most of you.  That's what I think, but I guess I don't know for sure and that's what bugs me.

There were soooooooo many ways it could have ended.  That I can see being brilliant.  Just think about the last few minutes how many endings were being foreshadowed.

-Suspicious people all over that place that could have whacked Tony

- Tony talking about the onion rings .....maybe a heart attack

- All the talk about terrorism those last few episodes, maybe the restaurant blew up when Meadow walked in the door

- Maybe that suspicious guy put a bullet in Tony's head just as Meadow walks in the door for the whole family to see

- Maybe nothing happened and when it comes down to it, they are just a boring family most of the time (but that's not what TV is about :) just like the rest of us

A lot of maybes

One thing is for sure, there is A LOT of talk about the ending.  I am going to assume more so than if there was a definite "closing ending".  It will be interesting to see what Chase has to say about this in the hopefully near future.

[Jimzee]

Quite possibly the best ending ever in tv history. David Chase is a genius.

I have to agree. Don't you guys remember when Tony was talking to Bobby when they were in the boat. Bobby said, "When it's your turn, you don't hear it coming. Everything goes black." I think you were seeing the last moments through Tony's eyes. Hence the silence and blackness. We lived through Tony's eyes and now we died through Tony's eyes. Brilliant writing and ending!!!!

[Long Mike]

Sorry to report that it was not a let-down for me. I've never watched it.   For once, Avid and I do not have something in common.

[Guest the_muddy_man]

I watched 2 episodes b/c Elaine was entralled by all of this. I grew up around some of these guys They are ruthless,bloddsucking and violent. Just like our Oil Companies

First they prayed on their own people in the 20's to the 40's then society at large. Shaking people down for protection and corrupting any union they could get their hands on.

They deal drugs(despite what the myth is, they owned all the heroin coming here from the Golden Triangle in the late 60's to the mid 70's) they let people gamble thier ways into corners to lend them money they can't repay to get those peolpe to do whatever just to stay alive, they kill and maime and in real life only the captins and above make any real dough.

I was raised to respect these guys. My daughter was raised to respect: Da Vinici,Michaleangelo, Dante and Fermi and such. What some of you think is entertaining has ruined countless lives where I was born and raised. There ain't no romantizing this crap for me. :-/

[Guest avid]

We lived through Tony's eyes and now we died through Tony's eyes.

I don't want to beat a dead horse.  I thought the ending sucked.  The fact is we didn't live through Tony's eyes.  He was the principle character but not the narrator.  The camera lens was an "omniscient observer" not Tony's eyes, no the camera going black does not indicate to me that Tony was killed.  It means they ran out of film (j/k)

And to have him whacked by characters who were never involved in the story is just plain cheesy.

Kind of like a cheap mystery novel where the killer is first introduced into the story in the last chapter.

It kinda reminds me of the monkey who dribbled paint on a canvass and people thought it was a Jackson Pollack and said it was "brilliant".

If I were a gambling man I would bet that we have not seen the last of the Soprano's

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Hey Avid you hit the nail on the head bettcha SPRANO"S THE MOVIE!!!!!

He just kept everybody ticked off and he will check out what is written and said and he can plot the Movie based on all that

[flyphisher #]

Muddy, i dont see it as romantizing crime. Its a well written,clever, and  entertaining show that shows the full spetrum of the character who just so happened to be a fictional mob boss. The reality on TV far more glorifies violence,sex and crime more than the sopranos. It was more real than the Godfather or Goodfellas, showed  what toll the life really had on them, took away the heroic villian aspect of the movies. There were alot of things about the characters in the sopranos that regular people could relate with in many ways, made them human so much more than most any tv show ever, which is why there was so much interest in the show....

Awesome ending,completely brilliant ended very similar to some of my favorite books. Chase's writing influences shine thoughtout the show and he ended it in the best way possible. A bloodbath would have been pretty cheesy.

One angle is Tony got whacked, I had forgot about the talk with Bobby.then there was the Scarface-esque tease with tony upstairs with the M16 in the episode before....One of the guys in the diner was Phil's cousin, the other was a relative of someone Chris whacked at some point.

Then i look at it like the show was meant to show the most turbulent/profitable time in a mob boss' life and everything came full circle, even Tony had on the shirt he wore in the first episode in the last scene. Janice turned into her mother, AJ was back to his old self......just the most interesting time period in the characters lives, ending the way it did left us to debate what happened and think what we want to. There are clues in the last 2 episodes that there prollie want be a movie or it could be to throw us off. One was how tony thought of chris' movie, AJ the flunkie gets a job in movie production,remarks about the disposablity of writers and few others show Chase's opinion of the movie industry. but a rumored $50,000,0000 offer to write and help make the movie might change his mind after he thinks about it..

[largemouthslayer]

We lived through Tony's eyes and now we died through Tony's eyes.

I don't want to beat a dead horse. I thought the ending sucked. The fact is we didn't live through Tony's eyes. He was the principle character but not the narrator. The camera lens was an "omniscient observer" not Tony's eyes, no the camera going black does not indicate to me that Tony was killed. It means they ran out of film (j/k)

And to have him whacked by characters who were never involved in the story is just plain cheesy.

Kind of like a cheap mystery novel where the killer is first introduced into the story in the last chapter.

It kinda reminds me of the monkey who dribbled paint on a canvass and people thought it was a Jackson Pollack and said it was "brilliant".

If I were a gambling man I would bet that we have not seen the last of the Soprano's

Sorry you should really watch it again.... look at all the people in the resturant..boy scouts in the train store when Bobby got it ...bartenter relative of Phil's ...Hit man Phil,s ...cousin still need to watch it a few times...i think we will find more of this if we watch it again...Van Zant said in an interview when (when Tony was in a coma and he was a traveling salesmen is the key to the whole thing.) I really believe that the end was?... well till I put all the pieces together I don't know just freaked me out.

[largemouthslayer]

I watched 2 episodes b/c Elaine was entralled by all of this. I grew up around some of these guys They are ruthless,bloddsucking and violent. Just like our Oil Companies

First they prayed on their own people in the 20's to the 40's then society at large. Shaking people down for protection and corrupting any union they could get their hands on.

They deal drugs(despite what the myth is, they owned all the heroin coming here from the Golden Triangle in the late 60's to the mid 70's) they let people gamble thier ways into corners to lend them money they can't repay to get those peolpe to do whatever just to stay alive, they kill and maime and in real life only the captins and above make any real dough.

I was raised to respect these guys. My daughter was raised to respect: Da Vinici,Michaleangelo, Dante and Fermi and such. What some of you think is entertaining has ruined countless lives where I was born and raised. There ain't no romantizing this crap for me. :-/

Muddy I understand where you are coming from and truly respect you for saying what you did ...but i have watched every episode and have not once have I seen where they make these guys out to be romantized , if anything you truly see how f_ _ __d up they really are. I think this is why people can relate and the show has been such a hit. "With all due respect" just my 2 cents worth.

[Cigarlover 1]

NEWARK, N.J. - Sopranos fans who thought the series' open-ended conclusion was a setup for a movie may be in for disappointment: Creator David Chase says it isn't so.

Chase went to France before the airing of the much-debated finale of the HBO series because he wanted to avoid what he called all the Monday morning quarterbacking. But like a true New Jersey loyalist, he granted one interview to The Star-Ledger of Newark, which posted his comment early Tuesday on its Web site.

I don't think about (a movie) much, he told the paper. I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, Wow, that would make a great movie,' but I doubt it.

I'm not being coy, he added. If something appeared that really made a good Sopranos' movie and you could invest in it and everybody else wanted to do it, I would do it. But I think we've kind of said it and done it.

Chase said he would leave it to fans to interpret the show's last scene for themselves. It featured the members of the Soprano family arriving for dinner as Journey's Don't Stop Believin' plays. Others in the restaurant include a man in a Members Only jacket who goes to the bathroom, which some fans have interpreted as a nod to the scene in The Godfather in which Michael Corleone retrieves a gun from the bathroom before a shooting.

As the music and tension build, the screen suddenly goes silent and dark.

I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there, said Chase, 61, who grew up in North Caldwell.

People get the impression that you're trying to (mess) with them, and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them, he said. Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there.

Another problem with a movie is that so many characters died in the last season. Chase said he has considered going back to a day in 2006 that you didn't see, but then (Tony's children) would be older than they were then and you would know that Tony doesn't get killed. It's got problems.

Chase also elaborated on how he decided to make the Journey classic the last music played on the series.

It didn't take much time at all to pick it, but there was a lot of conversation after the fact. I did something I'd never done before: In the location van, with the crew, I was saying, What do you think?' When I said, Don't Stop Believin',' people went, What? Oh my God!'

I said, I know, I know, just give a listen,' and little by little, people started coming around.

[Fishing Doug]

I have mixed emotions on the ending. I missed a few episodes here and there so I am far from an expert. Below is a bit of text I pulled from a review. NOTE: this is simply the way one person perceived the ending, so take it for what it is worth.....

"Tony Soprano is dead....

in fact, the ending was genius if you've paid attention to the show or are just a fan of well developed, well thought out plots that all tie together and have the memory of a champ to remember it all

the ending was simple, he got killed, but let me tell ya why and

explain in detail... There were 3 people in the room total who had a reason to kill tony.....

the two black guys, they were paid before to kill tony but he was only shot in the ear, this was in one of the earlier seasons

also in the earlier seasons, the trucker who was sitting at the bar

stool, who the camera kept focusing in on, is Nikki Leotardo, Phil

Leotardo's nephew. he was in one of the early season episodes where Phil and Tony have a sit down....

heres where the genius comes in....

when Tonys walking in the diner, you see the camera focus on him, then it switches to his perspective, and you see him looking @ the booth he's gonna sit at...

then the camera switches back to tonys face, then it once again

switches to his perspective, and it shows him looking @ the door and looking @ the people come in.....

everytime the door opens the Chimes sound....... Carmela walks in, Chimes, AJ walks in Chimes, this when Meadows parallel parking, still trying to get inside the restaurant....

at this point the camera switches back to the trucker who goes in the bathroom......

then it goes to a scene where Meadow finally parks and starts running in the diner....

the doors about to open, Tony looks up....

and No Chimes......................

No Music............

Everything just goes black...............

In one of the early Season 6 episodes of the Sopranos, Tony is talking with Bobby about what it must feel like to die..

Bobby says "at the end, you probably dont hear anything, everything just goes black"

part of that was revisited in the second to last episode during the

last seconds of it, when Tonys about to go to sleep and he flashes back to the memory of him and Bobby on the boat... "You probably dont hear anything everything just goes black"

so in the end, the Journey song was playing, the chimes on the door sounded but when Meadow came in, the guy in the trucker hat (Nikki Leotardo) came out of the bathroom and killed Tony...

It's the reason you don't hear, or see anything when he died.... it was from his perspective.... and everything went black, then the credits rolled."

[HomersTomaco]

at least someone else understood it and just how good it was.

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Did theyshow the crew handeling kilos of cocaine or heroin or did the oldest member not want to deal drugs? TV/Movie romatization one: Older mob guys didnt want to get in the drug business. Since Lucchase they have been into it up to their ears.

 Did they show you dealing with a guy so jammed up in interest on Shylocked loans and gambeling debts that they turn them. For example Paulie over here will not break your bones , we see you work in a car dealership. If you and your family do not want to get hurt make us some duplicate keys and your out of the corner on the interest  BUT THE GUY IS STILL IN FOR THE PRINCIPLE so 3 months later hes at the same place. The Fed's catch on ( they have seen it 1000 times) Question him on a Wed that Fri he is never seen from again

They hit,beat and maime Women,children,police officers and Judges.

What episode did they show any of this

 Yea they hang out in clubs, =wear jewlery and say a lot of funny suff, that is what they show you

 How about selling automatic weapons to potential musluim terrorist they ever show that!

 All this is from documented cases and what i saw growing up

So until they show this, in graphic brutal detail and don't put these guys off as some kinda shady sided but likeable family guys TEHY ARE ROMANTICIZING IT!!! :-[

\ PS the realist look I ever saw was Donnie Brasco

[largemouthslayer]

Did theyshow the crew handeling kilos of cocaine or heroin or did the oldest member not want to deal drugs? TV/Movie romatization one: Older mob guys didnt want to get in the drug business. Since Lucchase they have been into it up to their ears.

Did they show you dealing with a guy so jammed up in interest on Shylocked loans and gambeling debts that they turn them. For example Paulie over here will not break your bones , we see you work in a car dealership. If you and your family do not want to get hurt make us some duplicate keys and your out of the corner on the interest BUT THE GUY IS STILL IN FOR THE PRINCIPLE so 3 months later hes at the same place. The Fed's catch on ( they have seen it 1000 times) Question him on a Wed that Fri he is never seen from again

They hit,beat and maime Women,children,police officers and Judges.

What episode did they show any of this

Yea they hang out in clubs, =wear jewlery and say a lot of funny suff, that is what they show you

How about selling automatic weapons to potential musluim terrorist they ever show that!

All this is from documented cases and what i saw growing up

So until they show this, in graphic brutal detail and don't put these guys off as some kinda shady sided but likeable family guys TEHY ARE ROMANTICIZING IT!!! :-[

\ PS the realist look I ever saw was Donnie Brasco

So there you have it boy's and girl's A true man that speakes from the heart. ....Back at you Muddy...I'm truly sorry and like a Man I'm saying it. I have never lived and or could understand what it is really like . So you are right and please understand......I'm sorry!

[Guest the_muddy_man]

SIR PLEASE NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE, MY FEELINGS AREN'T HURT ! i JUST WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS REALLY LIKE. nOT THAT i WAS EVER AROUND THE BIG GUYS BUT FROM ALL THE YEARS I SPENT IN SALOONS AND GAMBELING I SAW FIRST HAND THE RUINATION THEY CAUSE. I ALSO GET TIRED OF ALL ITALIANS BEING HELD UNDER SOME KIND OF SUSPICION JUST BECAUSE THEIR NEAME ENDS IN A VOWEL

ITS ALL  GOOD 8-)

[Guest avid]

Brilliant?

I still say monkey dribble with an eye to the future.

Avid has spoken