Television
'The Sopranos' ends, not with a bang
By Toni Fitzgerald
Jun 11, 2007 - 8:31:35 AM

Last night’s much-hyped series finale of “The Sopranos” delivered no shocking twists, no moral lessons and no big death scene for Tony Soprano, the mob boss who went into hiding in the penultimate episode after a rival Mafioso put out a hit on him.

Instead, the HBO series ended simply, with a scene of Tony and his family gathering for dinner at a local diner. The closing of the much-anticipated finale has left some critics irate and yet other praising the show's creators.

We see Tony as he arrives at the diner early, and we watch nervously as every new customer enters, with just minutes to go in the finale.

Is he going to be hit, as so many had been speculating since before the sixth and final season even started?

Or is this simply a family dinner with the four characters who made up the show’s core since its 1999 debut?

The tension is building, and it continues to build as the family members arrive.
We see daughter Meadow struggling to park her car out front.

A man near the counter gets up and moves toward the restroom. Tony, his wife and son are talking, seemingly oblivious. We hear the tinkle of the diner's front door bell as someone enters. 

Then the screen goes black. It's over. The series ends.

What happened? Was it Meadow coming through the door, or a hitman? Did the sinister man in the restroom take out a gun?

We will never know. Creator David Chase left that to the audience’s imagination, refusing to tie up almost any loose ends in the finale.

But we are left with the sense that life for the Sopranos will go on anyhow, and that may be the point.

Malcontent A.J. lands what seems like a dream job on a new movie but remains whiny as ever. Mobster Paulie is still alive, despite speculation that he too would be whacked, and he's agreed to stay with Tony despite his desire to get out.

New York rival Phil Leotardo, who put the hit out on Tony, did get whacked, in typically grisly “Sopranos” fashion. Tony’s lieutenant Silvio remains in a coma, and Tony himself learned he would most likely be indicted after years of dodging the feds.

But in New Jersey, in that world, that's life as it's lived every day. And for a show that was praised for its true-to-life presentation, that was perhaps the most honest way to end the story.

Here’s what critics are saying about last night’s finale.

Nikki Finke, Deadline Hollywood
The line to cancel HBO starts here. What a ridiculously disappointing end lacking in creativity to The Sopranos saga. But if you're one of those who found it perversely interesting, then don't bother to read on.

Even if David Chase, who wrote and directed the final episode, was demonstrating the existential and endless loop of Tony's life or the moments before the hit that causes his death, it still robbed the audience of visual closure. And if it were done to segue into a motion picture sequel, then that kind of crass commercialism shouldn't be tolerated.

There's even buzz that the real ending will only be available on the series' final DVD. Either way, it was terrible.

Tom Shales, Washington Post
It may have been the greatest double-take -- by the audience -- in the history of American television.

Millions of viewers who might have thought something had gone wrong with their TV sets or cable systems last night were mistaken. When the picture vanished at the end, the very end, of "The Sopranos" and the screen went black, that was producer David Chase's unorthodox and arguably ingenious way of ending the series and dispatching the Soprano family to eternity.

Robert Bianco, USA Today
Mother of mercy, was that the end of Tony?

After eight years and six seasons, HBO's landmark Mob saga The Sopranos didn't so much end as stop. When last we see Tony, he is alive and well — sitting with Carmela and AJ in a diner and waiting for Meadow to finish a fraught-with-meaning parking job and join them. Then the door opens, and the screen goes blank.

And among Sopranos fans everywhere, no doubt the debate began.
Always one to tell his story his own way, creator David Chase chose to wrap up his show with an episode that felt more like one from the center of the run than at its culmination.

David Bianculli, New York Daily News
There wasn't much closure in what was one of the most hotly anticipated series finales in television history. Sunday's episode cut abruptly to black as Tony, Carmela, A.J. and Meadow sat down for a family dinner at Holsten's and some menacing -- or maybe completely harmless -- people hovered nearby. Did they enjoy dinner together? Or were they wiped out in a hail of bullets? The answer is unclear. …

[At] the restaurant, as Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" played on Tony's tabletop jukebox, we heard the lyrics "Don't stop" repeated over and over.

But by shifting jarringly to black and going totally silent, "The Sopranos" stopped anyway.

Paul Brownfield, Los Angeles Times
It was an ending that, if nothing else, had millions on their feet. In what may be the first case of finalus interruptus, David Chase, faced with deciding between a bang and a whimper, chose neither. Instead the creator of “The Sopranos” decided to fool millions of Americans into believing their cable had gone out for possibly the most important moment in the history of televised drama. ...

For several agonizing moments, America was united ... in uttering every profanity known to man as millions of hands reached for millions of remotes, while partners and friends yelled, “No, no, don’t touch it!”

Then, silently, the credits began to roll and somewhere Chase was, no doubt, having a pretty good laugh.

Linda Stasi, New York Post
In a finale that was spectacularly disappointing, creator David Chase delivered just one hit.

After making us think for the last five minutes that Tony was about to get killed . . . nothing. Dead air. Chase will have to live with what he did last night.

Barry Garron, Hollywood Reporter
The integrity of "The Sopranos," from its first episode in 1999, made it impossible for Tony to simply flee the country or go into witness protection. For guys like Tony, there's only one way out. Still, by stopping short of what appeared to be an imminent bloodbath, Chase neither dodges reality nor dashes our hope that somehow, some way, Tony survives, that he merely uses up one his nine lives, much like the cat he befriends in the finale.