Sopranos season finale: Brilliant or bland?

Brilliant

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by Lisa Ambrose

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There seems to be two different camps when it comes to the opinions of the Sopranos Finale. I think a lot of it depends on who you are & where you are in your life. I can clearly remember where I was when the Sopranos began & have a clearer picture of who I was then as well as who I am now, as it ends. From the first time I saw Tony Soprano get melancholy over some ducks, I felt a connection.
Growing up from Italian American decent in the Northeast, I knew some wives like Carmella, more than a few girls like Ade & some Meadows too. Everyone knew a crazy Uncle June, a sharp tongued Livia and a messed up Janice. Most people knew a few wise guy Tonys, Christophers & Paulies too. Even if they didn't,they had cousins from Jersey who did. That was the "thing" about the Sopranos, you felt these were people you knew. The writing was rich & gripping, the actors intensely real & flawed like all of us.
More than a few Italian guys have mother issues & just as many women have abandonment or control issues with Dad. So watching Tony try to deal with his mother, sister, wife & daughter all made sense. More than a straight up story about the Mob,the Sopranos was about La Familia.
After all, what sent Tony to Dr. Melfie for therapy was "I never could please my mother" something that chased after him all the way to the last episode. He was no Michael Corleone saying "Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in". He wasn't bemoaning his career. He had personal issues. Even when he was shot it wasn't at the hands of another crime family, it was by his own Uncle. Typical family dysfunction.
In the beginning Carmella, like many naive suburban housewives, thought Tony would or even could change. Stop having Gumbas. She never really went so far as to think he would change careers, she just prayed for his soul while embracing the lifestyle he afforded her. By the last show we see that she has accepted his lifestyle completely entrenched in her denial, as a trade-off.
With Christopher we see that his own family issues leave him with a strong desire to prove himself. His inner rage leads to his addiction to violence & then his need to use drugs to escape his reality. A reality he cannot break free from until Tony cuts off his breathing.
Only in Janice do we see an equal in complexity to Tony. Appropriate since they are both products of the same twisted upbringing. Tony brokers his deal with NY to include Janice being taken care of & then the siblings share their sadistic sense of humor over Bobby's death. Instead of mourning her late husband we see Janice feeling sorry for herself & plotting to manipulate Bobby's kids. Proving the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
We see Meadow rationalizing & idealizing her father to the point where she is taking up Law to defend his lifestyle & marrying into a family not that unlike her own. The irony here is that Tony wanted her to become a Dr. as if her doing something "good" would atone for himself.
With AJ we see perhaps a glimpse of some of the conflict Tony went through as a teenager. Growing up around violence & being prone to anxiety & depression. He rebels against it by projecting it onto the society around him that he sees as weak & corrupt for being helpless to change & therefore avoiding it by its addiction to fantasy in TV & movies.Then doing the exact same thing himself by accepting his father's gift of a job & promise of his own business in entertainment.
And therein lies the main thread to the final chapter on the Sopranos. In the end it becomes clear that we the viewers, like everyone around him, allow Tony to get away with murder, literally. Only Dr. Melfie walks away from him. She realizes that her therapy is not helping Tony get better but helping him get better at what he is.
So in the last show, David Chase via Tony,craft fully leads us through a wild ride of wrapping up of loose ends. With Phil, with Junior, with his last man standing Paulie & finally with his wife & kids. All of who are totally tied to Tony through their codependency.
And suddenly the screen goes black. Does Tony get shot? Does he get arrested? Or does his his life, such as it is, just go on? We the viewers get no closure. We are left to our own conclusions. Chase pulls the plug on our own addiction & makes us face our own issues.
Because in the end it's up to us.
To me that is brilliant.

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