table4fiveUntil last night, I always considered the last episode of Seinfeld to be the worst way a show had ever ended. But the final episode of The Sopranos made that last episode of Seinfeld look like the last episode of M*A*S*H.
My husband and I have watched every episode of The Sopranos at least once. We invested hours of time in the characters, the plotlines, the violence. Would it have been too much to ask for the final episode to be shocking, exciting, memorable?
Apparently so. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should probably skip this post and come back after you’ve seen it. If you did watch it…
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? Except for Phil Leotardo getting run over by his own runaway car-ewww, squish!-the rest of the episode was about as exciting as watching paint dry. And what was up with all of those cuts? One minute AJ is sitting at the therapist, then *CUT* Tony is at the therapist, then *CUT* some guy I’ve never even seen is walking down the street talking on the phone. It was like they needed to throw every unused piece of footage into the episode just to stretch it out.
And oh my god the ENDING. Before I get to the truly horrible part, could someone PLEASE explain to me what was up with Meadow taking 20 minutes to parallel park her car? I’ve parked my minivan in smaller spaces than that in less than 30 seconds! The scene with Tony and Carmela waiting in the diner was obviously designed to build tension, with Tony looking up every time someone came in, and a vaguely Russian-looking guy sitting at the counter who seemed like he was watching them, and I kept thinking someone was going to start shooting any second.
But no. The final episode of one of the most talked-about shows on television ended literally by just…stopping. Meadow started running towards the diner, Tony looked up, and the screen went black. I actually accused my husband of accidentally pushing a button on the remote and turning the TV off! No, that was the way the show ended! I have never felt more let down and disappointed by a series finale, ever. At the very least, it could have ended with someone pointing a gun at Tony, or with him pointing a gun at someone else, or SOMETHING.
You get one more chance with me, HBO. Tonight is the season premiere of Big Love, and you’d better not of screwed up that one. Or else I’m switching to Showtime, I swear.
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Hello and welcome to Table for Five! I'm Elizabeth, and this blog started in September 2005 as a way for me to participate in the Mommy Blogging community. I'm married with three terrific kids-boys ages 11 and 9 and a 2 year old daughter. Things I love include my family, coffee, Diet Coke, TV, reading, and Target.
Please contact me at table4five AT gmail DOT com if you would like to discuss anything I've posted here, place a text or button ad, send me a product to review, or provide a guest post. Thank you for stopping by!
I was just watching Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN and they were talking about how crappy the ending was. I’ll have to watch it myself I suppose.
You know, I’m probably one of the only people on the planet who actually liked the finale. My heart was racing at the end, just waiting for something to happen and I think that’s why they ended the show that way. Everybody thought, they would end the show with Tony dying, going to jail, the whole family getting killed or in another bloody fashion. I’ll bet nobody saw that ending coming!
Jenni-But didn’t you think the way it ended was too abrupt? The screen just went blank. At least they could have ended it with the whole Soprano family sitting around the table eating their onion rings and talking to each other, as if to say “this family will be okay and they will get through their troubles together”. Just stopping it mid-scene like that? Didn’t like it
I’ve seen another blog saying just the same as you. I’ve only ever seen a couple of episodes, but this last one looks AWFUL!
I’m a giant loser who’s been on several Sopranos message boards…
I, too, hated the finale, but after reading a few message boards, many fans out there have some interesting theories.
Remember when Tony and Bobby were discussing getting hit and they say something to the effect that you never see it coming and it just goes black? Well, maybe we as the viewers got “hit”, we never saw it coming, it just faded to black.
Or, maybe Meadow was coming in just as his family was getting hit.
But I think that it was just a symbol of how Tony lives his life, always watching everyone around him, wondering if who the hitman is.
Anyhow, worst ending ever. After many devoted years, I think we deserved more.
And for what it’s worth, I can’t parallel park any better than Meadow!
Jennifer-I’m no TV writer, but wouldn’t it have been more effective for the screen to jump to black right as we heard a gunshot? I still like my idea, they should have ended the show with the family sitting together around the table, talking and eating, showing us that they will stick together no matter what troubles they have. That would have been a HAPPY ending.
I think it was a cop out.
They didn’t want to pick an ending.
My husband and I were and are livid. Seriously it couldn’t have gotten worse. We think it’s a cop out too or a way to make us see the movie we now refuse to see.
i am still not sure if i liked it or not…
i am pretty sure that i would have been disappointed with any ending. i am so upset that the show is ending…nothing would have been good enough!
Sarah-My husband says critics are just loving it, which I don’t get at all.
I’m not even a fan of the show and I think what the writers and producers did was a cheap shot!
displeased but could have been worse i suppose
We have the first 5 seasons of Sopranos on DVD, but decided not to watch it any more. Apparently, you are not alone in your opinion. Since I’ve been back from UK (a whole 18 hours) I’ve seen heaps of dissing it!
I know this post is a few days old so hopefully you’ll get to this post - but from what it sounds like, the finale was just too subtle for people to “get” what they were trying to say. Monkey and I use to be avid watchers until we decided that paying for an HBO subscription ONLY to watch the Sopranos wasn’t worth the money to us. We canceled, got interested in other shows, etc. However Monkey read a re-cap of the last 4 episodes (I can’t believe Tony killed Christopher!!!) the other night and said that you had to be almost a Soprano “Trekkie” to figure it out.. Every person in the diner (or at least a large amount of them, the word was “every” though) was someone that at some time in the series wanted to kill or tried to kill Tony. So they wanted to leave you with that feeling of dread. That feeling that it might not be that day - but SOME day… and Meadow coming to the diner was to offer a real sense of emergency since out of the four of them she’s pretty much the most innocent. I dunno, just recapping the recap that Monkey recapped to me for you in hopes to shed some light that may have been too subtle to see.
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