Total letdown.....

Chase must have wanted us to have a big steaming cow flop to remember him by.
I can't imagine what the guy was thinking.

I completely agree it was a letdown, though I think the tediousness was deliberate to show us the minutiae of life as usual. But yeah, total cop out. I was thinking to myself, man up Chase and give this a proper ending.

I agree on the disjointedness. Really felt like rushed, let's cram this stuff in and get it over with editing.

But the parallel parking had a (successfully executed) purpose. It's a trick that Chase (and others) do when they want to a. set up tension by b. emphasizing how random life is, how timing influences tragic events. i.e., "If only Meadow would have parked the car earlier, she wouldn't have walked in just in time to get shot," or some nonsense.

The audience recognizes this trick, so it builds the tension.

Which brings us to what Chase was thinking: a perverse "f-you" to a lot of the folks watching the show. In interviews, he's expressed frustration with viewers complaining about "not enough action," or "not enough tidy endings to subplots."

Overall, the show was poorly edited and constructed. Being somewhat of a born ballbuster myself, however, I liked the ending.

America searches for the next, great Italian snuff film.

Well..

I have been on the Sopranos binge for the duration..not that I am an expert or anything, but I
am glad he bounced around and tried to bring 'closure' of sorts to a whole bunch of relationships..that I didn't think they would have time to resolve. Granted they were crappy ends, like the Uncle June deal..and Janice, but at least Tony visited them.

As to the non-ending, I have to say..I don't know how it could have 'ended' better...since nobody
really wanted it to end. Well, almost nobody...you know what I mean.

Damn, gotta be careful how you say things..somebody will show up and try to pull the wings off the fly.

I loved it. For the first few minutes I was all "WTF???" but by the time I was getting ready for bed it had marinated in my head for a while and felt good about it.

Did you see Carmel's face when she realized that Meadow is gonna be a mob lawyer? Heh. Not constitutional law like she told the Buccos.

The tension in the diner scene was just Chase messing with us cus we wanted a big comic book ending. He's saying "that's not how real life is, people." and I guess he really wanted to reflect real life: the random wierdness (like the cat staring at Christophuh's picture), the freak accidents (the SUV rolling over Phil's head), the little joys (onion rings, dinner with your family).

i got a hold of 3 of the alternate endings that were filmed for the series finale:

http://krupsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2007/06/sopranos-finale-alternate-endings.html

or for the Quicktime impaired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZjias30cnY

or here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/krup/video/x28ysv_the-sopranos-finale-the-alternate-e

or here:

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:211043

This broken art irritates the hell out of me. Carnivale was awesome, beautifuly shot, compelling with it's bizarre apocalytic foreshadowing (for instance it was clear throughout almost the entire series that the final conflict would have occured at the same time as the atomic test at trinity, or in some way lead directly to that test)

Then they generate something like closure in the final episode, and then screw it up.

If that was how the series (carnivale I'm talking about) was meant to end, then the message it sent is that good will lose, because the good guy main character lost his "boon" after killing the badguy.

And I didn't like the weakness of the girl being able to revive a human life without taking a human life, where the main good guy did have to do that.

Also the non-re-appearence of the blind guy that was promised, tells me that HBO backed out a little too soon, and the creator/main writer decided to taint the series forever.

I not only loved it, I was mystified by the smartness of the ending scene. Quite seriously, it is just plain down smart to have shut the program off as Chase did, to pull the plug, literally, on our access to the mind of Tony Soprano.

I was relieved to not see a moral judgement of the character and Heaven knows if any fictional character (or actual) merits a moral grave moral judgement, it's Tony Soprano, but, in keeping with the fascinating Series by David Chase, he refused even that and left us where we started: no more access, nothing to see, Tony goes "on and on and on and onnnn" (Journey's song used in closing scene).

I've read exhaustive, time consuming comments (hbo.com/sopranos - forums there) about some viewers threatening Chase, HBO, the actors, everybody and everything in relationship to their frusttration at not seeing something spelled out for them, no "wrap-up," as they've said, but they're refusing to accept what they see: an ending by no wrap-up, a literal stop in point and time BECAUSE IT'S ALL BEEN SAID ALREADY. We've seen just about all there is to know about Tony Soprano, it's all been shown already, the judgements are in, there's just this "thing" that goes on and on and on and will whether Tony Soprano is in the picture or not.

I think MANY of the angry "fans" (so they allege) wanted an ongoing feed of whackings and skanks at the Bing! but that's not essentially what the Series has ever been about and perhaps they've become too comfortable thinking it was what it was (but it wasn't).

I also read from about those same type of commenters that they were/are certain that "Tony Soprano died" in that final radical cut-to-black (especially going back to earlier Episode of this 6.5 Season) with the scene on the lake with Bobby Baccalla and Tony Soprano, Bobby saying to Tony that "you never hear it coming" when "they whack you."

So a lot of vengeful types are SURE that that final cut-to-black "meant" that Tony Soprano "was killed" or "died."

I've written this several times elsewhere already, but the fact is that it's not in the film. It's not in that Finale, it's not in any of the earlier Series, it's not in the film: Tony Soprano hasn't been killed, he hasn't died, it's not in the film by direct or indirect reference. No characters say he has "died," no signage on film says that, no scene shows that, no dialogue at all from anyone in the film says anything like that.

Thus, we never see nor hear that he has "died" and that means, literally, it's not in the film.

I think the Finale is far more straightforward and blunt than some viewers are comfortable with: tedium and "regularity" of that tedium to these characters and how they live. Carmela devotes more time with Tony talking about dinner plans and her real estate things and complaints about her house purchase and discomforts than she does about the reality of the danger they're experiencing...and so do the other characters, including Tony. The whole Finale shows a bunch of people all living "normal" lives within the intense crime circumstances that to them are customary days and nights, save but their necessary relocations and safety efforts when needed.

Thus, the Finale is speaking loudly and clearly and the final cut-to-black is not only a key aspect to the story, it IS the story.

And it is why I thought the editing tool was quite so smart (I'd never have thought of it, nor did I anticipate it, like nearly all viewers and I read afterward, as the Cast also never expected to see).

I agree the Finale was disjointed but the whole Series has very often been so, also. Which, again, is what the "mind" of Tony Soprano has been all about: we're all mostly not comfortable with seeing the circumstances through the mentality of this guy but that's what his experience is, AND, the Series HAS been really clear about it being all about the mental process of this guy, Tony Soprano.

I am just sorry it's over, but relieved that it's ended. It's been a remarkable television experience.