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The Sopranos goes dark
Excerpt:
For his final trick, "Sopranos" writer/creator
David Chase made Tony Soprano disappear
without fanfare. In what may go down as the most
heart-stopping final scene of a drama series
in the history of television, Tony walked into
a restaurant, sat down at a booth, ate a few onion rings,
and . . . that was it. Roll credits.
As the screen went black in the middle of a line
from the song "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey,
it was hard not to wonder, Is Chase brilliant
for so thoroughly subverting our expectations,
or... is he just an asshole?
If only they would've shown more of Meadow trying to parallel park!
There was no way Chase could end this and make anybody happy.
The tension was very thick at the end. Sopranos episodes are usually
50 minutes or so
and this one clocked in at 63 minutes, so the last five minutes seemed
to take forever.
Tony, Carmella and their whining daughter A.J. sat there, eating onion
rings while
people kept coming into the diner - which one would be the shooter?
Some assface on CNN said if you go back and look at the closing credits
they tell you
the man at the counter in the Members Only jacket was Nicky Leotardo,
Phil's nephew..
But that's a lie - I looked and all the credits say is
PAULO CALONDREA played the man in the Members Only jacket.
But as the man walked by, Tony looked him right in the face.
If it had been Phil's nephew, I think Tony would've known/recognized
him.
And, remember how Michael joined the family business in The Godfather?
He got a gun from the bathroom shot the enemies of his father.
Isn't that what you thought was going on?
The guy in the Members Only jacket walked into the bathroom and one
theory says
the sudden blackness on your TV (How many people called their cable
company? )
was life from Tony's point of view going black when the bullet entered
his brain.
Remember in the season opener, Tony and Bobby talked in the boat on
the lake
about when the time's up, "You never hear
it coming."
But how did the shooter know where Tony would be?
One theory is Paulie the Rat.
Earlier in the episode, Tony said he liked the cat because he recently
ate a rat .
Paulie didn't like the cat because the cat didn't like Paulie because
he was a rat.
(That was so funny - Paulie and the cat - He's always been superstitious.)
Paulie was tight with the NY crew, he'd been feeding Johnny Sac info
that
caused a big ruckus - remember the joke about Sac's wife being fat?
And Meadow's inability to park? One theory says she heard thru her legal
connections
that Tony had just been indicted and she was rushing to tell him and
was agitated and
that's why she couldn't get the damn car parked. But if she had, and
gotten to the diner
a minute earlier, her big news might've changed the situation and saved
her Dad's life.
But all that is a guess and surely Chase will never tell. Since it ended
up in the air,
they could always do a Sopranos movie if everybody gets a big check.
Maybe my favorite Sopranos minute....
Christopher had been shot and when he woke up in the hospital, he told
Paulie that he thought
he had died and gone to Hell and met the Devil, but somehow was able
to come back.
Then Paulie explains the Catholic's great "points system" (which is
all true, swear to Koresh)
that he thought allows even the most brutal serial killers to get into
Heaven - a true classic.
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