Sopranos post, with spoilers
NOTE: I made several aborted attempts to write about the ending to the Sopranos. They ALL involved that same goddamn McTeague joke. Don't ask me why I'm publishing them NOW. Because I don't really want to delete them, nor do I want to save them to my computer?
-04/07/10
Honestly, the only really satisfying ending would have involved Tony stranded in the middle of Death Valley, handcuffed to Phil Leotardo's corpse. Since they inexplicably chose not to go down that road, disappointment was inevitable.
So Phil L's men decide they should kill the top three men in the New Jersey mob. Tony, Silvio, and Paulie--no, not Paulie, but Bobby. This in fact makes no damn sense--Bobby isn't even a captain. I suppose maybe you could find some rather doubtful justification for it, but who are we kidding? We all know the REAL reason, which is that David Chase wants to punish the audience by killing off the one somewhat sympathetic mobster, while allowing the one that everybody hates to live on.
I think that's sort of the dynamic that drove the ending: You want a neat, sensical ending? Chase shouts. Ha! Screw you for rooting for these assholes all this time! Here's some ambiguity and no catharsis! Ha ha!
Either that or it was just some banal business about how real life doesn't fit into neat narrative structures the whole show was morally ambiguous so the ending should match that blah blah blah.
Either way, though, it's uncalled for, because let's face it: it's been a long fucking time since the show was anything like morally complex.
-04/07/10
Honestly, the only really satisfying ending would have involved Tony stranded in the middle of Death Valley, handcuffed to Phil Leotardo's corpse. Since they inexplicably chose not to go down that road, disappointment was inevitable.
So Phil L's men decide they should kill the top three men in the New Jersey mob. Tony, Silvio, and Paulie--no, not Paulie, but Bobby. This in fact makes no damn sense--Bobby isn't even a captain. I suppose maybe you could find some rather doubtful justification for it, but who are we kidding? We all know the REAL reason, which is that David Chase wants to punish the audience by killing off the one somewhat sympathetic mobster, while allowing the one that everybody hates to live on.
I think that's sort of the dynamic that drove the ending: You want a neat, sensical ending? Chase shouts. Ha! Screw you for rooting for these assholes all this time! Here's some ambiguity and no catharsis! Ha ha!
Either that or it was just some banal business about how real life doesn't fit into neat narrative structures the whole show was morally ambiguous so the ending should match that blah blah blah.
Either way, though, it's uncalled for, because let's face it: it's been a long fucking time since the show was anything like morally complex.
posted by GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. at 1:38 PM
