a late debut in the field of Sopranos blogging
Like everyone else I just finished watching the Sopranos finale. Judging by the reaction among the folks I was watching with, opinions vary on exactly what the ending meant. I feel pretty strongly that Tony got popped. The cut to black occurred in the instant when Tony died.
Otherwise, what's the explanation for the final scene? A slice of Tony's life before life goes on? Nah. That makes no sense. The camera following Meadow was there to put us in the moment and make us start thinking about each shot as an immediate document of what was occurring at that instant. Otherwise it would've been wasted time in an obviously important sequence. And why would the camera have followed the guy in the gray jacket? Just to distract us during the culmination of the series?
No, Tony's gotta be dead. In Kriston's comments I mentioned that I thought Tony getting killed by a random, unknown killer was a possibility, and that it wouldn't be satisfying. But I was wrong — it was a good ending. It served nicely to underscore what I consider to be one of the series' central ideas: that violence is available to every living creature at every moment, despite all our fancy institutions, customs and frontal lobes. Those things just make its application a little more complicated.
The episode felt rushed as I watched it, but in retrospect cramming so much in makes sense. We had to be lulled into thinking everything was fine, proceeding as normal — that Tony might get prosecuted, or not, but generally continue to go about the business of a depressed Jersey mobster as defined by the past six seasons. I was even lulled into expecting a happy ending! But they pulled the rug out instead. I had expected something different, but I'm not sure what — or whether it could've been any better.
UPDATE: There's a pretty good discussion of the ending over in Matt's comments. There are a bunch of folks interpreting the ending as intentionally ambiguous — a statement about Tony being condemned to live in perpetual suspense — but I don't really buy them. The camera laid things out in a pretty straightforward manner, I think. And my memory may be shaky, but I recall Tony being pretty relaxed in the final scene.
ALLIES: Ezra's commenters seem to mostly agree with the Tony-got-whacked hypothesis, and have some interesting theories about the episode title. More proof that the progressive blogosphere needs the fresh, objective eyes of a new generation and not the jaded establishment cabal represented by Yglesias and his ilk.
WHILE I'M AT IT: John From Cincinnati was really abysmal. I was predisposed to dislike it sheerly on the basis of how hard it is to spell — the content of the show didn't do much to invalidate that prejudice. It came off as an SNL parody of a typical HBO drama: a troubled family in a quirky subculture; mannered, unrealistic characters who speak exclusively in non sequiturs, expository dialogue or profound-sounding riddles; a dash of magical realism; and, of course, the requisite heroin addict. I do like watching people surf, but Charles already owns Blue Crush on DVD. I'll probably still watch the next few episodes though, if only because changing channels is hard (and mostly fruitless on Sunday nights).
Comments
I don't really understand why you think the camera laid things out unambiguously. That would be the case if the camera were looking from Tony's perspective. For the first-person to go black and silent while looking at Tony—if we're taking a this structuralist angle, which is peculiar anyway, since it's never been an aspect of the show—then we'd know that someone is dead but not Tony. And they could have done the ending you're reading, simply by ending on Meadow, the person whom Tony is ostensibly looking at.
I'd think you of all people would be sympathetic to the Schroedinger's cat reference.
Well, I've got to start by admitting that I lack the vocabulary to really talk about the cinematography in a clear way. But here's my shot at it:
First, it's made clear that the metaphysical action in the scene is the responsibility of the viewer, not the characters. Tony doesn't seem preoccupied with anything, and neither does his family. They're joking about onion rings; he's putting Journey on the jukebox (surely a sign of robust mental health if ever there was one). It's clearly not a revelatory moment for anyone except the audience.
Second, it's shot to build tension, which implies to me that something is about to happen. The camera cuts relatively quickly, recording mundane details in succession, implying that they're somehow important and conveying a sense of immediacy. More than anything I think the inclusion of Meadow's parking problem is significant. Why include the fact that it takes her three tries to parallel park? Why revisit her parking twice, with cuts to the restaurant interior in between? Why not just have her pull up late and get out of her car? Or arrive in the restaurant without any shot of her on the outside? The answer, I think, is because every second counts. The gears are in motion, the alarm's about to sound, and the exact position of every character is going to be vital to their future and how they deal with the aftermath of the trauma. It feels like the culminating scene of a heist movie. I felt an increasing sense of dread as it unfolded.
And, although I missed it the first time, there's the assassin-in-the-bathroom Godfather reference (I really know very little about those movies, I have to admit -- Charles pointed it out to me).
I also think Ezra's commenters make interesting points about the episode titles and the lack of music. And why the extended, discomforting period of black if not to imply the absence of something? The ambiguous/continued suspense reading isn't helped by that at all -- might as well go straight to the credits. But if Tony's been shot, it serves nicely as a reference to his conversation with Bobby about death.
Apparently the credits listed the guy sitting at the counter in the final scene as "Nicky Leotardo." Take from that what you will.
now that's pretty goddamn interesting.
I can buy most all those clues and I didn't mean to get all theory-head on you. It's the last item that sticks in my craw: Bobby says something like "it just goes black" about death, and readers seem to be saying that the abrupt cut to black indicates Tony's death because it shows the viewer what Tony sees—but that doesn't make much sense on its face, does it?
(I think instead it suggests the viewer death over the last few seasons. If I may quote A.J., "The darkness drops again; but now I know/ That twenty centuries of stony sleep/ Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle". . . .)
Well yeah, I agree that the idea that the absence of sensation==black formulation is silly, and that Bobby's comment shouldn't be taken seriously. But I also don't think anything on screen was a literal portrayal of Tony's perspective. You seem to be implying an actual first-person viewpoint, like in Being John Malkovitch (or Doom!). I think "it just goes black" is being used by Chase as a sort of slang -- he sets it up, saying "this is what it'll look like" and then a little while later he shows it to us.
Deadspin has some good stuff on this today. All the characters in the diner have appeared on the show previously, So it all ties together. Kinda.
i wish people would stop reffing the godfather "assassin from the bathroom" parallel.
that is a cheap, hackneyed ploy and is far too obvious for David Chase. He's better than that.
I would argue that the ambiguity of it all is the point. and i further encourage you all to stop trying to mine concrete answers out of it.
perhaps the screen went black to imply the death of the show as a whole entity - it was our final moment, as an audience, to observe this world we've been watching for so long.
in any case, this is all too much post-mortem for me. i will continue, as I always have, to enjoy the show for what it is, and "remember the good times."
http://coleslawblog.blogspot.com
/2007/06/seven-reasons-why-theories-that-tony.html
Crazy speculation to say he died, absolutely no basis for it. Members-only guy was credited as such, not as a Leotardo, Bobby never said it goes black, just that probably you don't hear it. Again, pure speculation and the burden is on those who maintain he was shot and they have no evidence. No one in the scene other than Tony's family ever appeared before, and Chase credits all appearances. When we last saw Tony he was alive, no one was near him who was a threat. Case closed.
It was a dream. Tony goes to sleep in his street clothes on a sheetless bed at the end of the penultimate episode, then wakes up in a nightshirt in a fully made bed at the beginning of the last episode. The last episode, where things suddenly go drastically *right* for Tony (and AJ, and Meadow, at least in Tony's eyes) after 6 seasons of slow decay, is his fantasy of things all working out.
Unfortunately, Paulie did betray him (since Phil specifically ordered Paulie not to be killed), and everything going black is Tony being killed in his sleep in the middle of the dream.
The "assassin in the bathroom" bit is Tony's paranoia creeping into the dream in a particularly cliched way.
What happened at the end of The Sopranos was so obvious, I'm surprised no one has gotten it:
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/06/last-sopranos-finale-review-ever.html