Week Of June 4, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri

June 11 , 2007

Sopranos On Ice

[ SOPRANO SEASON END SPOILERS ]

The finale of The Sopranos reminded me, first and foremost, of The Matrix Revolutions.

Huh?

Yes.  In about two hours more airtime than both the Matrix sequels, David Chase did pretty much what the Wachowskis did with their sequels.  He took the core, in his case seasons of the series, and went to the farthest reaches he could while still keeping hope (Tony) alive ... and then, in the finale, he simply offered the Buddhist notion that, essentially, life does not end, but continues in other forms based on karma.

This is what so frustrated people about Matrix Revolutions ... and now frustrates many about the Sopranos closer.  I will admit, without any need to push, that Chase's take on this ultimate theme was more skillful than that of the Wachowskis, who went over 5 hours to do it with far fewer characters, demanding a lot less clean up.  Of course, they also felt compelled to offer major effects extravaganzas in each of the last two films that distracted from the themes, riffing on Christianity in Reloaded and then leaning more towards Buddhism in Revolutions.

But back to The Sopranos ...

I loved this season, to the very end.  The coming of the end - of the series, not the lives of this NJ mob family - created a tension that coursed through every episode of this season.  Obviously, the decision to kill off some of the major characters was a mighty bat to feel free to swing.  But for me, it was the deeper intimacy of this season.  Tony got healthy enough in his therapy to really consider the issues he had been trying to avoid. 

And Chase & Co.  got in a brutally rough slap at psychiatric professionals, peaking with Melfi's ego-driven abandonment of her patient.

AND Chase & Co. got in their shot at "the good guys" who get so caught up in a long relationship that they barely can stop themselves from taking sides ... and do in the final episodes.

The season was set up with Tony's arrest on a hopeful gun charge, leading to the beautiful banality of Tony & Carmela's trip to Bobby and Janice's summer place, which had Tony deeply questioning whether he was, as Shane Black once fatefully wrote, getting too old for this shit.  And the hits kept coming, with Tony's first kill being dug up, the constant threat of asbestos dumping that Tony didn't even know about, etc.

Phil Leotardo had a different problem with maturity.  Getting out of jail, he was unable to control his anger anymore.  While Tony kept the personal and professionally illicit separate, Phil blurred the line murderously.  He consolidated his power, killing to take Johnny Sack's place and was then sold out by his sidekick, Butch ... a relationship that also mirrors Tony and Paulie Walnuts.

There was also a dyad working in the older group, as Johnny Sack slowly moved towards his death, not powerful enough to survive his unavoidable end, while Junior Soprano went into his good night, alive but lost from any sense of who he once was. 

Among the made younger players, we saw Bobby lose his cherry as a murderer and Christopher unable to control his addiction in the face of "the lifestyle" (amusingly able to walk that line in the low-rent movie business), leading as much to his death as Tony's fat fingers.

Ray Abruzzo, as Carmine Lupertazzi Jr,, also in the younger crowd, embodied lifestyle aspirations for Tony.  ("It's not about being boss ... it's about being happy.")  Meanwhile, Tony tested his own limits with gambling and borrowing, leaning like a 10-year-old testing a parent on Hesh until real life, the death of Hesh's woman, woke him up to his responsibility.

In the core group, Paulie Walnuts spent the season slowly losing his shit in an ongoing struggle with tradition, superstition, and the future ... including Tony having to decide whether or not to kill him for being potentially disloyal.  And wasn't it beautiful that the same "hints" that Paulie might be ratting out Tony were offered yet again in the finale.  That same confused look.

Silvio seemed to step up into a greater leadership role, as Bobby also ascended.  By the end of the season, it seemed that Silvio would be the obvious person to step up into Tony's role were Tony to exit violently or incarcerationally.  That safety net was taken away, though he still may make it ... in whatever unofficial Sopranos future there is. 

The Soprano kids were more prominent again this year, as Meadow became absolutely stable for the first time... in a serious relationship with Patsy Parisi's son.  Patsy, of course, had his brother killed via Tony and ended up seeking his revenge by peeing in Tony's pool.  Now they look to be in-laws.  And AJ went from depressed loser to being in love to being even more depressed to finding his way out - to some extent - mostly by tough love ... or at least toughness.

It was also a great season for outsiders.  Sydney Pollack as the brilliant oncologist who just had to kill his wife for cheating one day ("I killed her aunt too ... but I didn't know she was there ... And the mailman ... and at that point, I had to fully commit.").  Tim Daly as a hack movie writer and 12-stepper, valued by Kristopher ... until he so brutally was not.  And as the crazy Asian kid, Ken Leung, who turned up on HBO's air just days after the West Virginia kill spree. 

In episode after episode, Tony was forced to make decisions.  And that is the core of what makes great drama, whether that drama is a mafia show or a family story or a great romance.  Decision after decision was in the gray zone.  There were a few concessions to audience pleasure, but not many.

Series creator and showrunner David Chase wrote and directed his finale.  According to IMDb, it is only the second episode he directed, after the pilot.  And from the very first images to the last, it is clearly a different voice than we get week to week.  His choices of dark and light, contrasts, and a remarkable reserve suggest a major feature directing career is more than a little possible if he wants it.  The show has always been well directed, by a team of four regulars and a half dozen or so others.  But from Tony and Paulie waiting for a meet, seen only from behind, then the choices of keeping so much - and so much of Tony's face in the dark - great work.  The way he isolates Tony and Carmela at Bobby's funeral then a table of 8 (or more) chatting ... wonderful.  And then, near the end, as AJ finds some kind of clarity after facing death ... the first time I remember ever seeing his eyes looking so blue in this series.  (And the brilliant turn of having both parents coddling him by encouraging him to follow in Kristopher's footsteps on the way to nothing good.)

But the real height of his work here is the mighty tension Chase weaves, whether it's Paulie being off or anticipating that Phil Leotardo's grandchildren might be endangered when in reality we were just being treated to some final Soprano-style brutality or the genius of the final scene in the diner, beating you beating you beating you into considering every possibility that you could consider.  And purely as a writer, to have so much of the show's past returning for a curtain call, including Kristopher and Livia, and to do it without making it feel like a gimmick ... the best of what series television can be.

The #1 moment of the season, for most people I think, will be the death of Christopher, Tony's cousin, heir apparent in years past, and really the third lead of the series after Tony and Carmella.  And in true Chase fashion, it will be debated for a long, long time.  Could Tony have saved him?  Should Tony have saved him?  Was it a mercy killing or sorts or a callous man cleaning up a perpetual mess?  All of Tony's rationalizations as the season went on made sense ... and yet, he murdered his family with his own hands. 

So in the end, we are back where we began.  Tony and Carmella's kids are older.  We, as an audience, are still waiting for some shady character to pull out a gun or some innocent to be killed.  Tony is under threat of indictment.  Tony and Carmella are in a therapist's office talking about his mom.  The famly is together.

Cut to black.

Already, many think that the end is literally the end of Tony Soprano... that the show is Tony's point-of-view and that by going to black and silence, Chase signalled that Tony took one to the head and that was that.

I can't say it's not an interesting notion. And interestingly enough, there was a Saturday story about the mysterious Italian in the restaurant with the Sopranos and the pizza shop owner who played him, Paolo Colandrea. Did he kill Tony Soprano? You can bet the Becks County Courier Times followed up with him today, seeking an answer.

If that turns out to be the case and is ever confirmed by people close to the event, it will probably flip and be considered the single greatest closing moment of any series in history. Funny how that works.

That is The Sopranos.  It's not always what people think they want.  But it is always true to itself.  And what more could we, should we ever ask from art?

E Me.

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