posted
If you have not seen the last episode, read no further. ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' What did you think was the ending? I thought it was brilliant, after my first "WTF." Life goes on, and he either will or will not survive. His family will be in crisis...or not.
I have not felt this sad to see a show end since Star Trek: TNG.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I wasn't expecting any moral comeuppance, but nonetheless I was disappointed it didn't happen. I really, really wanted Tony to be killed.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Heh, you're right. I didn't mean for those two statements to be linked.
I just lost the last vestiges for like/appreciation for Tony Soprano when he murdered Christopher in cold blood, and then went on to celebrate it. Don't get me wrong, totally in-character, makes for a good story. But after that happened, I wasn't able to bring myself to care about or notice the elements of normalcy and humanity in his life.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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What a massive waste of time. It was like the "Seinfeld" version of Sopranos...a show about nothing.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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When they cut to black we thought our DVR had cut out just before the end. Then the credits started rolling. We got no climax.
I thought it was the worst finale ever (/comicbookguy)
The way Phil died was classic but the rest of it was obligatory visiting with all the characters who were still alive from the previous shows. It was like, in a prequel, where you have to show all the characters meeting eachother for the first time. Except they were tieing up things that, in some cases, didn't need to be tied up.
The editing was choppy. I felt like I was watching it in fast forward. Like the writers had said "Oh CRAP! We have ONE SHOW LEFT! We better cram in some plot points." But at the same time they lingered in places they shouldn't have. Like did we need two visits with Uncle Jun for everyone to see that he was now completely senile?
And the show that came on after it, John from Cincinatti.. that was lame too. Let's hope that Big Love (season 2) that starts tonight will be better.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I like how AJ reacted to his SUV blowing up. The look in his eyes reminded me of Season 1 Tony when Tony snapped out of depression by evading a hit.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Rakeesh, Tony's killing of Christopher was nasty, but it is that weird Mafia thing. Christopher broke the "rules" over and over, and had become a liability. (I am not a Tony apologist, I am just looking at this as a messed up subculture with specific rules, and I think it is rather fascinating.)
What hit me hard was when Carmela went into therapy and the therapist basically said, "You are no better, in fact you are worse, than your husband."
So, why do I think the ending was brilliant? I think it was brilliant because of its choppiness, because of its play on all our "will he die, how will he die, will he go into witness protection," etc, conjectures. It always was about Tony Soprano and his family, and it ended with his family torn apart, and pieced back together again, never really wholesome, but connected. It leaves the future open. The same things will happen, why do we have to see it? Tony will always be in danger of being killed, his son will be in danger from being a whacko, his family at large will be in danger of being indicted.
I just loved it.
On and on and on and on.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Rakeesh, Tony's killing of Christopher was nasty, but it is that weird Mafia thing. Christopher broke the "rules" over and over, and had become a liability. (I am not a Tony apologist, I am just looking at this as a messed up subculture with specific rules, and I think it is rather fascinating.)
What hit me hard was when Carmela went into therapy and the therapist basically said, "You are no better, in fact you are worse, than your husband."
So did Tony, though. Tony wasn't Old Guard Mafia by any means, either. Granted, Christopher's deviations were more serious than Tony's...but Christopher didn't murder Tony in cold blood and then mourn at his funeral, either.
Mack, yup. Christopher was driving and Tony was with him, and there was an accident (substance abuse was involved, if I remember correctly). Both were injured in the accident, but Christopher more seriously. He was beginning to suffocate on his own blood, I think, but he might still have lived. Tony suffocated him himself by blocking his airways.
Elizabeth, I haven't seen that episode...but I dig that quote. I've never really liked Carmela, she has always reeked of hypocrisy to me. Strangely enough, I think I liked AJ the most, perhaps because he always seemed like such an idiot that he lacked the self-awareness of the other members of his family. I could at least believe that, with him, he wasn't so consciously being a hypocrite as Tony, Carmela, and Meadow (and Meadow's stirring civil-rights rant about her father being mistreated by law-enforcement, for example. HA!)
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dang, that girl is clueless. She thinks these guys are harmless teddy bears when they are really grizly bears who tear everyone to pieces all the time.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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"So did Tony, though. Tony wasn't Old Guard Mafia by any means, either. Granted, Christopher's deviations were more serious than Tony's...but Christopher didn't murder Tony in cold blood and then mourn at his funeral, either."
Well, he was more P.C. mafia. New age mafia. Ha.
I think part of his true anger with Christopher was the fact that he kept bailing him out, and then Chris made the movie abuot him. I think he also sensed that Christopher would have turned. In fact, I had thought Christopher might be the one to get Tony.
Really, though, it is like saying which poop smells worse, cow or horse.
And wasn;t it weird, the one episode where they had the Meadow stand-in? She looked just like her, but had none of her oomph.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I don't watch The Sopranos, but I received the following in an email forward:
quote:Tony Soprano was killed....
In fact, the ending was genius if you've paid attention to the show or are just a fan of well developed well thought out plots that all tie together and have the memory of a champ to remember it all the ending was simple, he got killed, but let me tell y'all why and explain in detail... There was 4 people in the room total who had a reason to kill tony.....
The two black guys were paid before to kill Tony when his mother put a hit out on him but he was clipped in the ear in Season One.
The trucker at the booth near Tony was the brother of a Trucker, Christopher killed in DVD player robbery. We last saw the brother when he went to identify his dead brother's body.
And lastly, from the earlier seasons, the Italian man who was sitting at the counter stool, who the camera kept focusing in on, is Nikki Leotardo, Phil Leotardos nephew. He was in one of the early season episodes where Phil and Tony have a sit down....
Here is where the genius comes in....
When Tony walks into the Holston's, you see the camera focus on him, then it switches to his perspective, and you see him looking @ the booth hes gonna sit at...
Then the camera switches back to Tony's face, then it once again switches to his perspective, and it shows him looking @ the door and looking @ the people come in..... Everytime the door opens the chimes sound.......
Carmela walks in, Chimes. AJ walks in, Chimes.
This all happens while Meadow is parallel parking, still trying to get inside the restaurant....
At this point the camera switches back Nikki Leotardo who goes in the bathroom...
Then it goes to a scene where Meadow finally parks and starts running into the diner...
The door is about to open, Tony looks up...
and No Chimes...
No Music...
Everything just goes black...
In one of the early episodes of the Sopranos, Tonys is talking with Bobby about what it must feel like to die.
Bobby says, "at the end, you probably dont hear anything, everything just goes black!"
This idea was revisited in the second to last episode during the last seconds of it, when Tony is about to go to sleep and he flashes back to the memory of him and Bobby on the boat... "You probably dont hear anything everything just goes black"
So in the end, the Journey song was playing, the chimes on the door sounded but when Meadow came in, someone killed Tony.
This is the reason you didn't hear or see anything when he died.... it was from his perspective... and everything went black, then the credits.
posted
This is wrong. The guy at the bar hadn't ever been in an episode. At least one of the guys who shot Tony in the ear died. David Chase has flat out denied that anyone in the diner is supposed to be known to the audience.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I like ambiguous endings when they're handled well. I have mixed feelings about the Soprano's ending, I'm going to watch it again and think about it. On one level, this ending works better than Tony getting hit, or another dramatic climax. But it seemed too contrived, in contrast to the fittingly ambiguous ending of Pan's Labyrinth.
It's funny that the guy with the "memory of a champ" forgot that at least one of the two black guys Uncle Jun hired were killed in the attack.
quote:Originally posted by Strider: I don't watch The Sopranos, but I received the following in an email forward:
quote:Tony Soprano was killed....
In fact, the ending was genius if you've paid attention to the show or are just a fan of well developed well thought out plots that all tie together and have the memory of a champ to remember it all the ending was simple, he got killed, but let me tell y'all why and explain in detail... There was 4 people in the room total who had a reason to kill tony.....
The two black guys were paid before to kill Tony when his mother put a hit out on him but he was clipped in the ear in Season One. etc.
posted
I know that this thread is more about the finale than Tony killing Christopher, but I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the implied noble (by Sopranos standards) motivation for the murder. Tony was fixated on the fact that Christopher was obviously high, and the fact that a branch pierced right through the empty child seat. If Tony has a soft spot for anything, it's the harming of what he perceives to be innocent life, ie. babies and animals. I think he knew in his heart that Christopher would keep screwing up like this, and the next time, there's a good chance that his daughter would be in that seat. He killed Christopher to protect his daughter from future harm.
So as twisted as it sounds, to me, this act actually highlighted one of Tony's redeeming qualities, though you have to look at the morality from his sociopathic perspective.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Is Tony really a sociopath? I don;t see him as that. He has remorse, he follows rules(a subculture's rules, but he was raised in that subculture)
He can be empathetic, and this gets him in trouble many times. Phils really hated his soft side, especially over Vito.
He loves.
He is conniving, and flouts the law, lies easily, and many other things sociopaths do, but in the end, I think he is an immoral man, not a sociopath.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
The Pixiest, you are right. It was almost like he was putting a baby to sleep. Baby. Car seat. The way Christopher looked at him was like a baby looks at its parent, holding tight to consciousness with its eyes on its parent's face, and then it lets go. Nothing is random in that show. And the cat which "steals breath" shows up in the next to last episode and stares at Christopher. What are other symbols/metaphors/legends about stealing of breath?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Oh, I did, too. I think it was a gigantic cop out and completely lame.
However, I am not into the Sopranos in the first place, so it doesn't matter to me. Harry Potter I care about.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I mean, how can you have an SUV with toddlers in it roll over a guys head in one scene and have a blackout on another.
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) but... Rakeesh, Tony killed Christopher!?![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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