The Sopranos Final Episode

Spoiler Alert--if you haven't seen the last episode of The Sopranos yet, and don't want to know how it ends, don't read this post. If you haven't seen Scarface or Goodfellas either, you should.

I am completely baffled by the response that the final episode of the Sopranos has received. The fact that so many people were disappointed just blows my mind--I thought the ending was perfect.

Remember the very first episode of the Sopranos? It began with Dr. Melfie and Tony talking about Tony's panic attacks. He sought treatment for those attacks, which was the premise of the show in the first place, and Melfie continued to treat him even after she learned that he was a sociopath and a mob boss. For season after season I wondered why Melfie continued to see him year after year, and David Chase did a fantastic job of exploring her motivations--ranging from fascination with Tony's lifestyle to a repressed yearning for his power to an even more repressed sexual attraction to a genuine desire to help him.

So, the entire plot of the show came to a satisfying end when Melfie, confronted with hard evidence that "talk therapy" is actually harmful for sociopaths (which I think is very evident throughout all six seasons--Melfie helps Tony in his work as a mob boss immensely, helping him to sort out problems, think through solutions, and always get the upper hand). She ends his therapy in the last two episodes when she realizes the harm she is doing, thus ending the show that began six years earlier when Tony first sought her help--hardly the "sudden and unsatisfying" ending that so many fans have complained about.

Also, the way that David Chase set up the final episodes was a fantastic cliffhanger. For two hours we sat on the edge of our seat wondering if this was the end for Tony. The principal actors were dropping like flies and the hit on Tony had been ordered by Phil. But of course, Tony finds a way to outsmart New York once again and secure his position as Don of New Jersey and simultaneously expand his position in NYC. This is a goal that he has had for years, as he has always had his finger in the pie up in New York through real estate deals, union deals, and other minor (and sometimes major) incursions into Phil's territory. Again, we get a satisfying conclusion to a plot line that was well-developed for six fantastic seasons when he gets the upper hand on Phil and expands his ties to the New York mob.

I read from one fan who argued that this was "David Chase's joke on all of us." I don't see the joke--the last scene was suspenseful and powerful (even bringing up allusions to the Godfather dinner/assassination scene so as to keep the suspense alive until the very last second). In my opinion this was the perfect ending--it cemented Tony's place in the popular imagination. He will never be Scarface who was gunned down in the final scene of the film, or the Godfather dying quietly in the garden--he will live forever in our minds, ruling New Jersey with his fascinating combination of compassion, intelligence, and brutal force. How could it be any better?

One of the most interesting things about that final scene was the way that they showed AJ and Meadow pulling up to the restaurant--both in beautiful, brand-new cars. To me, that said everything we need to know. Tony not only survived, he thrived, and he made a fortune in the process (he even managed to get a hefty annuity from the New York mob for Janice, his nut-case sister).

A brilliant ending to a brilliant show. Not only did Chase manage to avoid a Godfather III-style meltdown that would have tarnished the image of the franchise, he ended the show in a satisfying, yet appropriately open-ended episode that secured the position of the Sopranos as one of the greatest television programs in the history of the medium.