On the Whacking of Great Television

Let me take a moment to step away from all things "Lost" to bemoan the "lost" opportunity to properly inter a beloved TV series. Ah, David Chase, but your Sopranos finale left so much to be desired, and proved that, while you are truly a master of the medium, you also seem to harbor many of the same sociopathic tendencies as your protagonist/ anti-hero, Tony Soprano. In much the same nonchalant-and-therefore-disturbingly-cruel way that Tony snuffed the life out of beloved nephew/ captain Christopher Moltisanti because it was simple and convenient to do so, you have killed your baby in a manner that defied rhyme or reason. Mr. Chase, even in the mafia, there is an omerta governing who is to be killed, and under what circumstances. Your decision to end the final episode just as tension began to build, but before any particular set of events was actually set in place, was a cruel taunt to the millions of ardent fans who very truly felt you changed the face of television for the better.



Would it have killed you to add one small effect, the sound of sudden gunfire, after the final cut to black? You would have left things with a sense that something happened other than Meadow finally showing up at the conclusion of her parallel parking ordeal. The once-but-no-longer final episode of "Jericho" employed this technique to tremendous effect. Or you could have announced that Carlo's apparant turn had led to an indictment, but left it to the viewer to imagine how that would end up. Or, Paulie Walnuts, whose eventual betrayal has long been teased, could have finished the episode just walking and talking with Butch, the presumptive heir to Phil Leotardo's throne. Again, a suggestion, but not a resolution.



Just something more fulfilling than waiting for someone, anyone, to take the Sopranos' order at Holston's. That's all we ask. I'm not saying you have to mimic the absolute best finale ending ever, from "Six Feet Under," in which the eventual deaths of each and every cast member were depicted in juxtaposition to Claire's departure into whatever adventures would befall her on her route to that last moment of her death. Indeed, to be that complete in your wrap-up would have seemed derivative.



But should the finest resolution in Sopranos really be saved for Bobby Bacallieri? I think not. These characters deserved better. These fans deserved better. And all we got for the moment of terror in which we collectively thought our cable had gone out was the knowledge that somewhere you were probably cackling maniacally with the knowledge that you had pulled one over on your fans.

To be sure, there is a theory gaining traction that the cut to black was meant to signify Tony's suddenly getting whacked at Holston's, a nod to his birthday chat with Bobby in which the latter suggested you never see it coming, and the world just goes black. But if that were indeed the message behind the finale, it was too subtle, and rewarded too few fans - only those that hung on your every line of dialog across 85 episodes as though it were scripture to be memorized, chapter and verse. That kind of subtlety is fine for early reveals (a la Lost's Anthony Cooper being the real Sawyer), but not for the final resolution we all anticipated so fully.



We expected an end with someone getting whacked. Instead, we got an ending that was whack.