The Sopranos

[Y2HH]

Actually my point is valid. Chase was never asked to write for the masses, Shakespeare was told how to end his shows. Chase was given free reign. The masses followed him. Whether or not you like that style is entirely up to you.

 

My original post was never intended to sway opinion, it was just mine. You took it personally.

 

But I will carry on and never stop believin'

 

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Sopranos...but during the first few seasons the writing seemed tighter and with purpose...the last few seasons were very hit or miss for me.

 

Although the ending got people talking -- it wasn't a true ending. I just dislike the fact that "life goes on"...I get that, as in real life this is how it works...but I don't need a mob-themed television show to tell me something so obvious.

 

For the record, I'm glad (at least IMO) that Tony lived through it all. I wasn't necessarily looking forward too the Goodfellas or Casino endings (flip or murder), since I've already seen those movies -- and I liked them the first time around and didn't want Sopranos doing it all over again.

[SoxFan562004]

I'm kind of in the middle on the finale, but tending towards liking it. I think I saw a lot of interviews with Chase where he said it would not have a typical ending, so I was prepared for that. The thing that bugs me the most was the quick cut to black, I didn't like thinking my cable went out, I think it lost its impact.

 

I read it as a "life goes on, and this is the life Tony chose" which I'm fine with.

[Steff]

I'm kind of in the middle on the finale, but tending towards liking it. I think I saw a lot of interviews with Chase where he said it would not have a typical ending, so I was prepared for that. The thing that bugs me the most was the quick cut to black, I didn't like thinking my cable went out, I think it lost its impact.

 

I read it as a "life goes on, and this is the life Tony chose" which I'm fine with.

 

 

It's funny you mention that. I have heard from a ton of folks that if the screen had slowly went to black they would have been happier with it.

[southsider2k5]

It's funny you mention that. I have heard from a ton of folks that if the screen had slowly went to black they would have been happier with it.

 

It left an abruptness that just left the feeling that something was happening... Even something as subtle as that changes the tone of the scene, because it would have given the feeling that nothing was going to happen at that moment. You are left feeling like something just happened, and you have no idea what it was.

[Steff]

It left an abruptness that just left the feeling that something was happening... Even something as subtle as that changes the tone of the scene, because it would have given the feeling that nothing was going to happen at that moment. You are left feeling like something just happened, and you have no idea what it was.

 

 

To you.

[southsider2k5]

To you.

 

Hey, Ang felt the sameway!

[SoxFan562004]

It's funny you mention that. I have heard from a ton of folks that if the screen had slowly went to black they would have been happier with it.

I agree with that, I don't mind the black ending, but like i said, to literally think "oh shoot, my cable f'd up" took me out of the great tense scene.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I agree with that, I don't mind the black ending, but like i said, to literally think "oh shoot, my cable f'd up" took me out of the great tense scene.

 

I think it needed to be abrupt rather than a fade down which subconsciously puts the viewer at ease. Maybe it didn't have to be a cut to black that made everybody curse their cable providers momentarily – I guess abruptly cutting to white or to the HBO 'TV snow' would have still dun the job, but pulling back and fading down would have given the viewer room to breathe which I think they wanted to avoid.

[KipWellsFan]

How so? Are you seriously asking that? And maybe it's you that doesn't know much about David Chase, or anyone else that likes money in the world. Seriously, I cannot believe you made that statement...it's just so beyond arrogant. Yea...and you're David Chase's best friend, right?! I guarantee Chase likes money...or he wouldn't have kept stretching the show as HBO request he do.

 

How so because Sopranos was meant to be 3 seasons, NOT 6. It was S T R E T C H E D! Why was it stretched? Money. Ratings.

 

Seriously, I know the episodes that CHASE wrote or co-worte have a LOT of good stuff in them, I'm not saying they don't...but don't for a second think it wasn't money driven.

 

Chase never wanted the show to go on this long, neither did a lot of the actors. But...money talks. And BS excuses walk.

 

Yah, Chase probably didn't want to go this long but whatever, and thank heavens for capitalism because I sure am happy that the show went 6 instead of 3.

[Steff]

Hey, Ang felt the sameway!

 

 

 

She doesn't count. Her mind is cloudy with raging hormones right now.

[southsider2k5]

She doesn't count. Her mind is cloudy with raging hormones right now.

 

[props up mirror and runs away]

 

[RockRaines]

She doesn't count. Her mind is cloudy with raging hormones right now.

I never thought I could read mood swings through a message board before........

[Steff]

 

[props up mirror and runs away]

 

 

 

Ya.. right...

 

The day this kid controls anything is the day hell freezes over.

[southsider2k5]

Ya.. right...

 

The day this kid controls anything is the day hell freezes over.

 

yeah I remember thinking the same kind of dillusions before Madison got here...

[jheath160]

Just found this site on a quick google search.

It's worth a look:

www.tonyisdead.com

 

Nice blog, discussions, etc.

[Steff]

yeah I remember thinking the same kind of dillusions before Madison got here...

 

 

Men are weak.

[tonyho7476]

Article on CNN today...'Think Tony Soprano's Dead? You may be right'

 

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Fans of "The Sopranos" are seizing on clues suggesting the controversial blackout which abruptly ended the TV mob drama meant that Tony Soprano was rubbed out, and HBO said Thursday they may be on to something.

 

One clue in particular, a flashback in the penultimate episode to a conversation between Tony and his brother-in-law about death, gained credence as an HBO spokesman called it a "legitimate" hint and confirmed that series creator David Chase had a definite ending in mind.

 

"While he won't say to me 100 percent what it all means, he says some people who've guessed have come closer than others," HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer told Reuters after speaking to Chase.

 

"There are definitely things there that he intended for people to pick up on," Schaffer said. (Watch viewers try to make sense of the end )

 

Chase himself suggested as much in an interview Tuesday with The Star-Ledger newspaper of New Jersey when he said of his end to the HBO series, "Anyone who wants to watch it, it's all there."

 

In the final moments of Sunday's concluding episode, Tony, the conflicted mob boss who has just survived a round of gangland warfare, sits in a diner with his family munching on onion rings as the 1980s song by rock band Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'," blares from a juke box.

 

Tension builds as a suspicious man wearing a "Members Only" jacket eyes Tony from a nearby counter before slipping into a restroom. Then, as Tony looks toward the restaurant's entrance, the screen abruptly goes blank in mid-scene -- with no picture or sound for 10 seconds -- until the credits roll silently.

 

Stunned viewers, many initially believing something had gone wrong with their cable TV reception, were left wondering whether Tony ended up "whacked" or whether his sordid life went on as usual.

 

Even star James Gandolfini wasn't sure.

 

"You have to ask ('The Sopranos' creator) David Chase that. Smarter minds than mine know the answer to that," Gandolfini told the New York Daily News. "I thought it was a great ending. You decide."

 

The jarring, fill-in-the-blank finale, concluding a show widely hailed as America's greatest television drama, sparked a furious debate about whether Chase had conceived of an actual ending and whether he left the audience any clues.

 

The biggest hint, according to a consensus taking shape on the Web, is a scene from an earlier episode in which Tony and his brother-in-law, Bobby "Bacala" Baccalieri, muse about what it feels like to die.

 

"At the end, you probably don't hear anything, everything just goes black," Bobby says while they sit fishing in a small boat on a lake.

 

That scene is recalled briefly in a flashback played at the end of the penultimate "Sopranos" episode, as Tony is lying in the darkened room of a safehouse clutching a machine gun to his chest in the midst of a mob war.

 

"I think that is one of the most legitimate things to look at," Schaffer said when asked about theories that the Bobby Bacala flashback was meant to foreshadow Tony's death.

 

Moreover, he said the man in the "Members Only" jacket could be interpreted as a symbolic reference to membership in the mob. "Members Only" also was the title of the episode in which Tony's demented Uncle Junior shoots him in the gut.

 

The "Members Only" guy was played by the owner of a real-life pizza parlor, Paolo Colandrea. Schaffer denied reports that Colandrea had appeared earlier in the series as the nephew of Tony's New York gang rival, or that there ever was such a character. He also dismissed reports that Chase had filmed more than one ending to the finale.

[Steff]

CNN is a little late to the party. All this info is recycled.

[southsider2k5]

The scary thing is if Tony is really supposed to be dead, who takes over the Jersey family? Paulie is the top guy left over, right? Yikes.

[Controlled Chaos]

Final opinion: Made in America

Posted by Alan Sepinwall June 15, 2007 7:50AM

Categories: The Sopranos

First things first on what looks to be the final day for this here Sopranos blog:

 

Thank you.

 

Over the last few days, I've arrived at the office hoping to spend a good part of the day writing back to each person who's written me over the last few weeks, but the e-mails and comments kept coming in so fast and in such detail that I could barely find the time to read all the new ones, let alone start writing back to everybody. So, unless I want to be like Ringo Starr in that "Simpsons" episode where he was still replying to 25-year-old fanmail, my only choice is to say one blanket thank you to everybody.

 

The response to these columns has been tremendous, and speaks not only to the popularity of "The Sopranos," but the depth of it. There's so much going on in each episode -- especially this last batch of nine, I think -- that we could spend a lifetime trying to discuss it all. And when I've missed out on certain items, one or many of you have been there to point them out to me. Your passion and enthusiasm for discussing this show has been really gratifying, and proof that TV doesn't have to just be that thing you turn off your brain to watch.

 

Doing these columns has been a lot of work, but all your responses have made it worth it.

 

End schmaltzy farewell. Moving on, I want to address some leftover theories and complaints about "Made in America":

 

The myth of the shirt

 

The e-mails keep pouring in with people convinced that Tony switched shirts in between his visit to Junior and his trip to Holsten's, or even in between when we see him enter Holsten's and when he sits down, and they've taken that as proof that the final scene is some kind of dream sequence.

 

I've rewatched both scenes in high-definition several times, and while I can't say with 100 percent certainty that he has the same shirt on at the mental hospital that he does at Holsten's, I would bet the cost of moving Vito's widow and family to Maine on the fact that Tony's shirt is the same for the entire Holsten's sequence. (Confusing matters is the fact that, in some of the publicity photos -- including the one that accompanied my review in Monday's paper -- Jim Gandolfini is wearing a different shirt in the Holsten's booth, but I expect they snapped the pictures early and that David Chase or someone else decided he'd look better in something else. (Episodes aren't shot in sequence, so the Junior scene could have easily been filmed after the Holsten's trip.) Even if the shirt's different between the hospital and the restaurant, I don't think it's a big deal. As with Tony going to sleep on a bare mattress at the end of last week and waking up on a made bed this week (which suggested Tony had been hiding out for a while), there's no deeper meaning. He may have just changed before dinner (he was already wearing a different jacket before he went to the hospital).

 

And I've now just devoted nearly 200 words to discussing the implications of Tony's shirt.

 

The myth of "everything goes to black"

 

I feel like I dealt with this in the blog a couple of days ago, and yet unlike the Nicky Leotardo theory, this one keeps gaining credence, to the point where even an HBO spokesman suggested it might be right.

 

One rather large problem, which I feel I must repeat: Bacala never says anything about it all going to black. The exchange is:

 

Bobby: "You probably don't ever hear it when it happens, right?" Tony:" Ask your friend back there. On the wall."

That's it. You can check yourself if you don't believe me. I think Quentin (the HBO spokesman in the article) is just having some fun with what I'm sure are hundreds and hundreds of media requests for an explanation of what happened.

 

I'm not saying that the Tony Is Dead people are wasting their time. It's as valid an overall theory as any, even if the evidence is sketchy. But argue your point only with the evidence that exists, not the evidence that you wish existed.

 

The myth of the non-closure

 

It seems from reading the e-mails and comments that a decent portion of the people who hated the finale on Sunday night or Monday morning have come around throughout the week. For those of you who still hate it, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. Art is subjective. We like what we like, you know? But the one reason for hating it that I'm having a trouble abiding is this notion that David Chase screwed everyone over by leaving us hanging.

 

Let's take the Holsten's scene out of the equation for a minute, okay? Now what's left hanging? The war's over, and Phil is dead. Paulie takes over the old Altieri/Aprile/Ciffaretto/Spatafore/Gervasi construction crew. Sil's in a coma, never to recover (though, shockingly, his hair turns out to be real). Butchie runs New York, Tony runs what's left of New Jersey, and while Carlo is probably talking to the feds, plenty of captains and high-level hangers-on have cooperated before with little consequence (see Jimmy Altieri, Pussy, Ray Curto, Jack Massarone, Adriana, Eugene, etc.).

 

On the lower-case family side, Janice is preparing to "make it work" with Bobby's kids, even if they have no interest in that. Carm's real estate business is going well. Meadow's engaged to Patrick Parisi and preparing to sell her soul to a big-ticket law firm. AJ has already sold his soul for a dual-exhaust BMW and the promise of a career in showbiz or club management. (And I like how Tony's real son has now taken part of the career path of Tony's surrogate son Chris.) Junior is locked away from both the civilized world and his own memories.

 

That's more closure than any "Sopranos" finale has ever provided, by a long stretch. There are some loose ends here and there, mainly having to do with Carlo and the feds, but everything else is as wrapped up as this show has ever done, since Chase usually hates wrapping things up into tight, neat packages.

 

So that only leaves the question of what, if anything, was happening at Holsten's, and we can have fun debating that for the next few decades -- or at least until Chase or one of the writers gets fed up with all the speculation and breaks omerta on it.

 

Feel free to keep discussing all of this on any of the blog entries, or in e-mails to me -- so long as, in both places, you keep things civil -- but I'm a little talked out on the subject right now. Again, thank you all.

[RibbieRubarb]

Richard Roeper gives the Sopranos finale a HUGE Thumbs up.

 

http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/

 

Click on the on-line exclusives.

[Steff]

Richard Roeper gives the Sopranos finale a HUGE Thumbs up.

 

http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/

 

Click on the on-line exclusives.

 

 

 

He just about messed himself talking about it on Howard the other morning.

 

He also told some funny stories about him and Ebert. Ebert can't speak well, if at all, anymore and sometimes when RR talks to him he yells and Roger writes him a note saying "I'm not deaf stupid".

[KipWellsFan]

Yah I totally agree with Sepinwall on the Baccala quote. I'm amazed the amount of times I've seen the media misquote what he actually said.

[RibbieRubarb]

You know...

 

Whether you liked the ending or not...David Chase STILL has everyone talking about the Sopranos to this day because of that final scene. It makes you wonder if he ended it like a normal show, would people still be talking about it?

[SoxFan562004]

like I said earlier, I was fine with the ending, because it was along the lines of what I was expecting. However, if it comes out that Chase really meant all of us to get that Tony died, I would be annoyed. I have no problem killing him, but I would have preferred us seeing who did it.

 

Now, people may say something along the lines of "the show was from Tony's perspective, so he wouldn't know who killed him." However, I feel the show is not 100% from Tony's perspective, things happened on that show that Tony never knew about.

 

Oh well, like I said, I read it as a "life goes on in a f'd up matter" ending, and I am fine with that