Made in America



Not many of my Sopranos finale predictions came true, but one did for sure: that the final episode would piss off a whole mess of people. There was always a very good chance that the show would end on a “life goes on” note, but that seemed to be out the window after the events of last week’s “The Blue Comet.” Tony’s crew was decimated, his family squirreled away, and the man himself was left clutching an assault rifle on a bare mattress in a Mafia safe house. Surely the end was near.

“Made in America” opened with a literal visualization of the opening lines of the famous theme song. Tony woke up this morning (although the framing of the shot initially suggests he may be dead) and got himself a gun (that same rifle, a gift from Bobby Bacala in the season opener). But as he has always done, writer David Chase (also directing for the first time since the pilot) short-circuited the New York/New Jersey mob war in a few quick strokes. That was never going to be the endgame anyway. So T gets a tip from his FBI pal Agent Harris, brokers a deal with Phil Leotardo’s evil dwarf henchman (who proves to be more pragmatic than we would have guessed), and has Phil whacked at a Long Island gas station. (One last gift for the whack-happy as Phil’s head is crushed under the tire of his SUV while his grandchildren giggle in the back seat.)

It’s as if last week’s explosive episode “The Blue Comet” was a trade-off of sorts, like Chase telling a segment of the fan base, “Okay, here’s your bloodbath, but next week we’re doing things my way.” Thus in the finale, Tony’s lawyer Mink bangs on his ketchup bottle in vain; no more red stuff will come out.



Instead, a series of curtain calls, with Tony spending a little time with each of the surviving characters. Silvio remains in a coma (perhaps trapped at his own Costa Mesa sales convention); Janice is looking for her next meal ticket; Paulie reluctantly accepts a promotion, knowing it’s a high-turnover kind of job. One haunting moment: Tony and Paulie sitting alone outside Satriale’s, everyone else gone. Another: Tony’s visit with Uncle Junior, toothless, lost in dementia, in a decrepit state hospital. “You and my father, you used to run North Jersey.” “We did? That’s nice.” It’s all gone and forgotten now and it never meant much anyway.

Which, judging from these internets, is how a lot of people saw the series’ final few minutes. You can almost hear Livia’s trademark “It’s all a big nothing!” whistling through the blogosphere, with all the accusations that Chase just flipped us the bird. But for me, that last scene delivered one last time on what the show has always done best: that sense of queasy, mounting dread – impending doom wrapped around the utterly mundane. Tony enters a diner, takes a seat in a booth and fiddles with the tabletop jukebox. So often The Sopranos has selected just the right (often obscure) song to close out an episode, but now we’re in Tony’s hands. He flips past a number of selections, some of which may have been used on the show before (I noticed “This Magic Moment,” for one), then settles on the cheesiest possible power ballad, “Don’t Stop Believin’.” One by one, the family members arrive, but our attention is drawn to other corners of the diner. The man at the counter. The guy in the hat. The two black kids. Meadow is outside, having trouble parking her car. Tony order onion rings. AJ recalls Tony’s words from the first season finale – to remember the times that were good. Meadow finally parks and runs across the street, nearly getting hit by a car, just like in the third season finale. The guy at the counter heads toward Tony, then into the bathroom. Is he getting himself a gun? The over-the-top melodrama of the song only heightens the tension. The bell on the front door rings. Tony looks up. Abrupt cut to black.

So call it the lady or the tiger, or Schrodinger’s Cat (maybe that was him who kept eyeing Christopher’s picture), but while it may not be enough resolution for many, it’s not quite the life-goes-on ending either. Carlo has flipped, indictments are looming, and Tony has told us over and over he’s going to end up dead or in the can. Some speculate that Tony did die at the table, that the cut to black was his loss of consciousness as a bullet pierced his brain. I don’t really buy into that, but it’s a possibility. Maybe he got whacked. Maybe he just ate another onion ring. The point is the ongoing paranoia, the possible threat behind every door. Whether he lives one more second or forty more years, that will never go away. And we’ll never know. Bada bing.