The Sopranos

[cine]

SPOILERS:

No need to defend this... or justify this... it was great.

so true. chase has said all along that he doesn't go for the conventional shit.. and for the sopranos devotees, we obviously know thats true. a "and they all lived happily ever after" closing shot is not his style.. but i still didn't expect that ending.

OTHER THINGS:

PHIL's death... "say goodbye to grandpa!!" fuck, no kidding.. i screamed and applauded. i loved it.

there was more comedy in this ep than the entire series combined. the cat stuff was hysterical..

i'll be buying the HBO box set of all of the seasons for sure.

[72teeth]

first i was all
but now im all

Spoils>
this was the most "grow-on-ya" ending ever. after letting it all sink it, i saw it again accepting sparrowhoffs "tony was killed" ending, i just got chills... so haunting...
 
my girlfriend also brought up something cool.
pop-culture references and paying homage were the glue of the show, and this ended with one of the biggest... without completely ripping it off, Chase basically ended it the same way the greatest mob-drama ends... with the daughter running in and witnessing her father get shot... this also comes into play with tony's killer waking into the bathroom first, ie young michael in Godfather I... if this is the case, chase is a genius.

Other cool things to point out:
The ford that ran over Leo was "Made In America."
"all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky"... and that wind was blowin awfully hard through the whole episode as if it was carrying him to the end as fast as it could....

And:
What were they doing in a "deny's"?
Was this just to accentuate the fact that all-in-all they were just another american family?
Were there 2 tony's in that diner?

i love you Sopranos, forever and ever...

[grand theft sparrow]

and, also, sparrowhoff, you said this was contemptuous towards its audience, which is also way out of line. the sopranos, as well liked by douchebags as it is, has always challenged its audience. david chase and co. rarely take the easy road to get to the answers the audience is waiting for. everybody should've been expecting something like this. i love the way the writers subvert expectations.

Fair point, but wouldn't the last episode be the time for answers, since these characters will never be seen again?

Like I said, I've only seen a handful of episodes and if I ever decide to watch the all the seasons, maybe my opinion will change but it just seemed like an ending that was designed to piss off almost everyone.  It seemed less challenging than manipulating.  Between what 72teeth's girlfriend pointed out, every drawn out thing that happened in that last scene (or was Meadow's shitty parallel parking a running gag in the show?) and also that Tony was eating an orange early on in the episode, it seems as if it was setting it up deliberately to make the audience would think that they would get exactly what they were expecting.  I'd be less inclined to call it manipulative or contemptuous if they didn't do all of that.  It was without a doubt one of the weirdest hours of TV I've ever seen.

But I will say one thing: "Don't Stop Believing" has been stuck in my head since last night.

EDIT: that john from cincinnati show is AWFUL! it was pretty stupid to air that right after the last episode of the sopranos. who the fuck is supposed to pay attention/care about something as insignificant as some stupid show about aging heroin addict surfers? (although brilliant casting with luke perry opening up the show. that gave me a good chuckle).

I was taking "the finale sucked" phone calls for at least half an hour into John from Cincinnati, despite the fact that I never really watched The Sopranos, and I realized that this show is fucked because no one was watching it (though the ratings will be decent since I'm sure a lot of people were too stunned by the Sopranos to change the channel) and anyone who was watching would transfer the residual anger from the finale over to this show.  I don't see it lasting. 

[Fernando]

SPOILERS

I couldn't figure out at first if I liked the ending or not, but now I realize it was the best way to end it, I didn't expected to be this way. What is great about it is that you either can have bon's theory of life goes on or the guy in the bathroom killing Tony.

Can't go on any details but I manage to watch this from where I live even though there is no cable network for american channels, anyway, when it cut to black at the end I thought we lost the signal and couldn't believe the timing of it. 

PHIL's death... "say goodbye to grandpa!!" fuck, no kidding.. i screamed and applauded. i loved it.

there was more comedy in this ep than the entire series combined. the cat stuff was hysterical..

I'm glad someone notice because I was laughing through out the entire thing, the cat stuff almost completely stole the show.

About Phil's, so glad he got whacked, I hated that ruthless bastard, but never thought his most close ppl would betray him, in the end this speaks volumes about them, they're best friends and the moment it isn't convenient for business guy has to go.


The HBO promo of the end of Sopranos with all the ppl of different shows not wanting them to go was great.

[diggler]

spoilers(even though if you read any publication you would know what happened)

the ending was the perfect way to split the argument between the people who understand the show and the people who are constantly frustrated by it. i'll admit even I sometimes wondered what the point of it all was, that last scene really summed it all up perfectly.  tony was ruined before the show even began, but he soldiers on and raises his family the best he can. every child gets both good and bad traits from their parents. AJ will always have his life handed to him, interesting since the second he begins to show some character his parents can't handle it and would prefer he retreat back into mindless consumerism (made in america indeed).  That scene between meadow and tony where she tells him the reason she pursued law was heartbreaking. you could see the massive disappointment in tony's face at first, which seemed to switch to acceptance that he at least raised a responsible daughter.

phils death was perfectly over the top, shooting him wasn't enough, he had to get squashed! haha.  i was happy paulie neither turned nor got whacked. he was always my favorite character.

[Fernando]

The HBO promo of the end of Sopranos with all the ppl of different shows not wanting them to go was great.

http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/

Click on video then Farewell Image Spot.

[killafilm]

F*cking loved it.  For a season that was up and down for me, well, Chase somehow wrapped it up in these last two episodes.  I figured, hoped, that it would end along the lines that it did.  Just in my head the ducks would have made a return.  But that ending, the tension was so high that my heart was pounding out of my chest.  I was so relieved that Tony lived.   

I pretty much want to re-watch the entire series immediately.  Feeling that everything will be so much richer now that I can see it from Beginning to Ending.  Mod won't read this for awhile, but I'm terribly jealous that he's been watching the series from Season 1 over the past couple of months.

[cron]

the ending was a filter for the stupid part of the fanbase this show has. hence the stupid negative reaction the ending's getting. in that aspect, it worked wonderfuly. i'm gonna miss this show. its use of music, its use of SOUND. even if some seasons weren't as satisfactory as these last nine episodes, the production values and performances were always enough to keep on watching. my heart will always remember this show because with it, i finally broke a silly and snobish paradigm and started taking television seriously. and then i found the wire

[martinthewarrior]

I was fine with the ending, didn't thrill me or annoy me, but I've heard arguments from very smart people who didn't like it. I don't think that camp is completely full of the "Stupid" fans who wanted to see mobsters kill each other. The only problem I have with it is that it was another example of the main flaw in the Sopranos, which is, sloppy endings to interesting plots. Maybe it's "deep" and "genius", but it seems like lack of fresh ideas to me. Or laziness.

[Kal]

I think the only thing that makes me hate the ending is the fact that it ended... I loved this show and its sad that its over. However, it was the best way to end it. Even for Sopranos standards, killing ALL the major characters was too much in the past few episodes and it wasnt the point. The point is that shit like Leotardo and stuff has happened to the Sopranos many times before... and they have survived... and life goes on.

It was great really.

On a side note, I wrote a script a while ago which I hope it will be a reality someday. However, and this is no bullshit, the final scene is a very similar scene to the ending of the show and with the same song. When I heard it and saw it ended like that I was shocked.

[ASmith]

spoilers(even though if you read any publication you would know what happened)

the ending was the perfect way to split the argument between the people who understand the show and the people who are constantly frustrated by it. i'll admit even I sometimes wondered what the point of it all was, that last scene really summed it all up perfectly.  tony was ruined before the show even began, but he soldiers on and raises his family the best he can. every child gets both good and bad traits from their parents. AJ will always have his life handed to him, interesting since the second he begins to show some character his parents can't handle it and would prefer he retreat back into mindless consumerism (made in america indeed).  That scene between meadow and tony where she tells him the reason she pursued law was heartbreaking. you could see the massive disappointment in tony's face at first, which seemed to switch to acceptance that he at least raised a responsible daughter.

Let me just try to add a couple things.  "Made In America" is certainly referring to a number of things, but more than anything it must refer to the main character, to Tony.  This episode was about how he was made and what he was made into.  Two long scenes with his dad (one with both dad and deranged sister) and a therapy scene showing him still not over his issues with mom (including a hard gaze from an unsympathetic wife) highlighted the disturbed character that Chase has been building for years.  This aspect of the episode summarized how one gets into the state Tony was in.

The rest of the episode was results.  The results of a profoundly disturbed person trying to create something of their own.  Family, business, friendships, whatever it may be, the disfunction bled through.  While Tony and Carmella are discussing their latest and "greatest" parenting decission with AJ, a man potentially is preparing to gun down Tony, and Tony is clearly thinking about the legal implications of news he has just been given, Meadow is just outside of this whole situation with a minor one of her own.  She is busy trying to park the car as everything is going or about to go down, but at the last second she makes it in.  While she is the most functional one in the family, the not-so-unique brand of Soprano neurosis have not passed her by.  We are either literally told that her life will be marred (if she witnesses her family gunned down) or metaphorically (by walking in late and only having to deal with her family's problems in a small dose, and from a distance).

i was happy paulie neither turned nor got whacked. he was always my favorite character.

I feel like maybe Paulie's true character was not revealed.  After tony asked him to run the crew we see Paulie leave the club and pause for a moment to take a deep, reflective, but anxious breath.  Later, when he finally accepts Tony's offer outside their restaurant, Tony walks away and again he looks reprehensive, despite accepting Tony's offer to his face in a very confident manner.  All that over supposedly being afraid of the new job seems like a stretch.  What does Paulie know that Tony and the audience does not?

Or you could say that Paulie has mommy/daddy issues of his own and is compelled to please Tony against his own better judgement. 

This last season has been all about abnormal psychology, the tragedy of people crapping out children just to pass on their neurosis, neglect of one's own mental health, and how treatment may not even be that effective.  Considering how much story the finale was tasked with concluding, I thought it was perfect.

Edit: yet somehow through all that discord the message is ultimately positive.  "Don't stop."

[JG]

Working hard to get my fill,
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

[grand theft sparrow]

A friend of mine e-mailed this to me, which he found on someone's myspace blog.  I guess I really am going to watch the show after all... 

So here is what I found out. The guy at the bar is also credited as Nikki Leotardo. The same actor played him in the first part of season 6 during a brief sit down concerning the future of Vito. That wasn't that long ago. Apparently, he is the nephew of Phil. Phil's brother Nikki Senior was killed in 1976 in a car accident. Absolutely Genius!!!! David Chase is truly rewarding the true fans who pay attention to detail.

So the point would have been that life continues and we may never know the end of the Sopranos. But if you pay attention to the history, you will find that all the answers lie in the characters in the restaurant. The trucker was the brother of the guy who was robbed by Christopher in Season 2. Remember the DVD players? The trucker had to identify the body. The boy scouts were in the train store when bobby got shot last week and the black guys at the end were the ones who tried to kill Tony and only clipped him in the ear (was that season 2 or 3?). Car jack episode

Absolutely incredible!!!! There were three people in the restaurant who had reason to kill Tony and then it just ends. This was Chase's way of proving that he will not escape his past. It will not go on forever despite that he would like it to "don't stop". Not the fans!!! Tony would like it to keep going but just as we have to say goodbye, so does he. No more Tony and I guess we are supposed to be happy that Meadow didn't get clipped as well (she would have been between the shooter and Tony) since she is the only one worth a crap in that family.

[MacGuffin]

Sopranos creator: movie no sure thing

"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 Member's 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."

[Weak2ndAct]

A friend of mine e-mailed this to me, which he found on someone's myspace blog.  I guess I really am going to watch the show after all... 

So here is what I found out. The guy at the bar is also credited as Nikki Leotardo. The same actor played him in the first part of season 6 during a brief sit down concerning the future of Vito. That wasn't that long ago. Apparently, he is the nephew of Phil. Phil's brother Nikki Senior was killed in 1976 in a car accident. Absolutely Genius!!!! David Chase is truly rewarding the true fans who pay attention to detail.

So the point would have been that life continues and we may never know the end of the Sopranos. But if you pay attention to the history, you will find that all the answers lie in the characters in the restaurant. The trucker was the brother of the guy who was robbed by Christopher in Season 2. Remember the DVD players? The trucker had to identify the body. The boy scouts were in the train store when bobby got shot last week and the black guys at the end were the ones who tried to kill Tony and only clipped him in the ear (was that season 2 or 3?). Car jack episode

Absolutely incredible!!!! There were three people in the restaurant who had reason to kill Tony and then it just ends. This was Chase's way of proving that he will not escape his past. It will not go on forever despite that he would like it to "don't stop". Not the fans!!! Tony would like it to keep going but just as we have to say goodbye, so does he. No more Tony and I guess we are supposed to be happy that Meadow didn't get clipped as well (she would have been between the shooter and Tony) since she is the only one worth a crap in that family.

Not true.  This internet rumor has spread faster than 9/11 conspiracy theories.