End of the Sopranos: The Mifflement Goes On and On and On ...

Yegods! Okay: David Chase is both brilliant and sadistic. And way cynical. (takes one to know one I guess!)

I've gone back and forth but in the end I think the viewer is whacked — we really don't hear it coming. The P.O.V. of that last shot looking at Tony as he looks up is ours (okay, arguably AJ or Meadow's). But for those of us who don't so much get all the symbolism and self-referential 'in-jokes' -- it always has been about us, we the viewers, being the voyeurs, projecting, identifying with, yearning to be part of 'the family', 'the action.' Thinking we know what we would do in that situation.

So in the end Chase finally allows us to transcend voyeurism to participation.

We got whacked.

I think the onion rings do represent communion. At the time there are only three at the table: Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Carm as the Holy Spirit? Interesting choice). Does Meadow represent the virgin, about to give birth?

Meanwhile, Tony and his families go on and on, the banality and venality of his children following in father's footsteps (and mom's all-too convenient self-delusion and denial) seem well on the way to fruition ... and there still exists the possibility of a Sopranos movie just in case they're ready a few years from now to make a new sh*tload of money.

End of the Sopranos: Is that all there is? (follow up to initial reactions to Made in America)

One Final Post Script (follow up to the previous post which includes an mp3 of Miss Peggy Lee singing"Is That All There Is?"

Chase's brilliance seemingly remains intact after all is said and done. After all, so many of us Sopranos afficionados are still chewing it over, taking second and third and continuing bites from the apple....revisiting, re-thinking, re-analyzing (probably re-watching the repeats?) ... it's even more complex and confounding the more I think about it. More depressing in some ways, in fact.

The final scene: Tony looks up, immediately fade to black, we hear the tinkling of the door as presumably Meadow walks in. Nothing. More. Only dark silence. Was Meadow the last thing Tony saw? Was the tinkling bell Tony's last conscious sound on earth?

Didn't Bobby ask in the first episode of this final season, (a memory Tony recalled just previously in The Blue Comet) while they were sitting in the boat on the lake, something along the lines of "You probably never even hear it when it happens to you do you?" ... In other words, Life fades to black. Period. Shades of Livia. Rebuttal to Tony's peyote-induced claim to Melfi that "there's something else beyond this."

So maybe there is no Sopranos movie after all. Maybe the menacing guy going into the bathroom was an homage to Michael Corleone's initiation into becoming a 'made' guy, committing his first 'official' blood ritual murder in the unforgettable restaurant scene in the Godfather, when Michael the American War Hero became made into his father's family business by retrieving a hidden gun from behind the toilet in the men's restroom, going back into the restaurant and blam! He blows the corrupt police captain and the other mobster guys away. Michael becomes made in America.

Or maybe the title "Made in America" is a sly insider riff on the Sopranos eating out -- for the first and only time I can remember -- in an all-American style cafe -- they're not eating Italian dishes: ziti, chicken parm, pasta with gravy, gabagool -- nothing remotely Italian. It's 'made in America' hamburgers and onion rings at a juke joint (actually an ice cream parlor from what I've read). And earlier, during the discussion about Carlo (insignificant in mytharc, another Chase 'trick'), Tony and his lawyer were eating burgers and fries from the Bada Bing (or wherever they were meeting). And Bobby's funeral -- weren't all the catered dishes shown 'American' only?

But then whaddo I know? Except that the desire to 'get it' to truly understand the point of it all continues for now. Was this a worthwhile JOURNEY* after all? Yeah, sure it was. What is the point if not the journey, the voyage, not merely the destination? Did Chase answer all -- or any -- of our questions? Leave us hanging sadistically? Or encourage us to consider whether the point of the mundane daily struggle is to do more than just exist, more than merely survive while hoping for more than the nihilistic cynicism of Livia Soprano's legacy. Or is Chase's point simply that the mundane IS all there is? And if so that we simply find myriad ways to entertain ourselves, to waste our lives, waste our time on frivolous entertainments? While the David Chases of the world laugh all the way to the bank (and to France, Italy, wherever they buy their European mansions). Who can say?




*(Journey was the band playing on the jukebox -- Carm and Tony's special song from High School if I recall from a long ago episode; the final one ending with the words "Don't Stop" as Tony sharp-cut fades to black)

What if Tony has a conscience after all?

After pondering the End Times aka The Sopranos Series Finale on HBO, entitled "Made in America" -- like so many others who have been on the journey over these past years, what would the most unexpected ending, the least clichéd, least predictable outcome be? After all isn't The Sopranos a brilliant allegory for US -- we the people, the USA?

Yes, it has regional and cultural specificities along with national and universal truths. But with its overarching themes of power, violence, greed, corruption, anxiety, depression, hubris, sex, dreams, hopes, family, lying, self-delusion, the banality of evil, (and so much more) -- hasn't it been entirely American while supremely universal?

Brecht suggested that great art both shapes and reflects. I think it's pretty clear The Sopranos has done both -- not always in positive ways, but not all in negative ways either, not 100% of the time has it been discretely successful moment by moment or story by story, but overall it has indeed illuminated, enlightened and shaped us, US, the USA more than any other.

At the end, I'm not sure Chase & Co can avoid some clichés and some very expected denouement. The Blue Comet proved to have both moments of sharp brilliance and moments of overplayed cliché, and yet it burned brightly and memorably despite some of those shortcomings (see James Wolcott's blog which includes a critique of that episode some of which I completely agree with, but not all -- proving again how subjective it all can be).

Universal themes in art, literature, film...sometimes do reflect the completely expected and anticipated as well as the unanticipated or shocking -- and sometimes human nature is just so damn (depressingly) predictable -- part of what got Tony into therapy in the first place.

And so what about the capacity for redemption? The need for hope in order to continue slogging through the difficulties of life, family, work, relationships, the world. Isn't that part of Tony's life-long struggle? (That maddening struggle -- seven years of which we've witnessed and pondered along with Dr. Jennifer Melfi, the incredible Lorraine Bracco).

So what if in the end (or at this point in the journey) Tony chooses change? Rejects the destruction of violence, the narcissism of sociopathy and decides his conscience is prodding him toward hope, redemption, non-violence, putting others first, protecting his family in a way that puts their complete well-being first now instead of on a quasi- (ostensibly and arguably) equal parallel track with The Family? What if The Family fades into the past and Tony moves into a different future? Can people ever stop lying first to themselves and then to others? Can people with a barely registerable conscience really change? Does Tony have a conscience after all? If so, can Tony Soprano of all people actually change at the deepest level? Were the insights gained and shared with Dr. Melfi REAL or an illusion? Was he merely honing his sociopathic skills or growing his severely developmentally delayed, under-developed conscience?

Who knows? I guess Chase will tell us tonight what his outlook and belief system entail -- for Tony at least. But what about the rest of us? Is Tony's fate our fate too?

I'm not predicting the unexpected. Merely pondering it. And on some level hoping it's possible for T., for Carm, Meadow, AJ -- for US all after these past seven years.








P.S. Wasn't that Yochelson study about incarcerated prisoners? Of course they are motivated to hone their survival (and exit) skills. If I recall correctly, the study was Not about wiseguys initiating and self-seeking therapy. Doesn't that shade things at least somewhat in favor of Tony having something going on deep inside? We shall see.