Sopranos Series Finale Recap (Spoilers Included)
Uncategorized June 11th. 2007, 2:26am
We’ll make this brief since NOTHING HAPPENED. We’ve just conducted an informal poll of all eight of our friends via phone, text, and IM. The consensus was that the Finale was a colossal letdown. We’ll admit that we haven’t been passionately following the show, but this season we tuned in. We were on the edge of our seats as Tony walked into the diner. As yelled at the picture tube, this is what was said:
‘That’s the killer’
‘Gotta be that guy’
‘He’s got the gun hidden in the bathroom – like the Godfather!’
‘Do we really need a lesson in how not to double park by Meadow?’
And then nothing happened. The first three people we spoke with said the same thing: ‘I thought my cable went out!’
Call us naive, but how does a mobster whose ‘family’ is on the verge of extinction not even pull the trigger in the final episode? We did enjoy the kid vomiting after Phil got shot in the head and run over, but that’s about it.
Hey, only eight months till ‘Lost’ returns!
28 Responses to “Sopranos Series Finale Recap (Spoilers Included)”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:29 am
That’s David Chase for you. He knew that 95% of the audience was expecting a huge event, so he gave them the opposite. The previous episode was the real blowout and this episode was his way of ending things by hammering home the theme of the show…family.
Kinda tragic when you realize the scene with Junior foreshadows Tony’s future, which if he’s lucky he’ll end up like him.
But I know plenty of people are gonna be freaking out tomorrow…looking forward to the reactions.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:32 am
“So it goes.”
Kurt Vonnegut
June 11th, 2007 at 3:05 am
i thought it was kind of interesting.
June 11th, 2007 at 3:24 am
I hated this when i first saw it and now that ive thought about it, what did Bobby say to Tony on the boat in the begining of the season? “you’ll know when it happens because everything goes black and silent”….and thats EXACTLY how it ended. I thought my cable went out too by the way
June 11th, 2007 at 3:28 am
at least we got to rock out to journey in the last couple moments. but i agree, big letdown. huge buildup of tension to nothing. and to mess with our heads like that and give us a couple seconds of black…my friends thought i had turned the TV off by mistake, they were ready to kill me.
June 11th, 2007 at 3:37 am
It was horrible. I’m going to go back and rewatch the first few season this summer…but I have a sneaking suspicion that they will also be disappointing. The Sopranos was the biggest letdown in television history. There’s no excuse.
Everybody is going to say Chase wasn’t making a mob drama…tough. That’s what it was. What a joke he turned this show into. He absolutely tarnished the legacy (and his own mind you) with what he did in the last few years. Make another show, don’t ruin something so many fell in love with just because you can’t say no to the money.
An absolute joke.
June 11th, 2007 at 4:43 am
Take another look at the final scene…..It looks like Tony sees himself sitting at the table. So I think maybe the whole final scene was imagined by Tony. Just saying.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:20 am
ABOVE, Tim, is right. I watched the ending over and over, and finally found something. Tony walks into the Diner in a black leather coat and solid grey shirt. Scans the place, sees no one, and then the camera goes back on him. Then he looks again, and sees himself, IN A DIFFERENT shirt. Was this just an error by the production staff? Because if it wasn’t, then that last scene doesnt exist! It’s all in his head. I guess it was just an error. I wrote about it on my blog, it’s linked on this site. Sneaky Sports. I
June 11th, 2007 at 5:25 am
A giant, overwhelming, piece of shit.
You get the feeling David Chase thinks he’s smarter than everyone. Having Tony shot, or flip, or go to jail is beneath him. So he comes up with some crap where Tony walks into the restaurant and sees himself.
Now morons on TV and the Nets will spend the next week “interpreting” the big turd that was dropped tonight. Trying to figure out what happened and whatnot.
I’ll tell you what happened. Chase copped out. Such a cop out.
But that’s what TV is all about now. The ending that leaves you guessing. I hope you realize Lost will pull the same shit in three years.
June 11th, 2007 at 6:18 am
I was quite upset with the ending as well, and I also thought my cable went out. When the final moment of a classic american television series leaves the majority of your audience thinking their cable cut out, then seeing the credits hit and simultaneously saying “what the fuck?” you probably screwed it up pretty bad. The show was going so well up until that point, and I think it could have been one of the best finales ever if they just would of had Paulie Walnuts kill Tony, have his funeral then end it with A.J. killing Paulie. But tv never really gives us what we want anymore.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:29 am
The Most Hated writes: “When the final moment of a classic american television series leaves the majority of your audience thinking their cable cut out, then seeing the credits hit and simultaneously saying “what the fuck?—
Wasn’t that the point?
June 11th, 2007 at 9:50 am
That’s why i stopped watching lost, i couldn’t take the fucking constant lack of resolution, and i thought the same thing dave, that show will leave everyone guessing which fuckin sucks.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:12 am
David Chase has never been a “results oriented” show runner. The ending was definitely a WTF moment, but that’s Chase. People are still waiting for Valery to come out of the Pine Barrens. Sometimes things get resolved, sometimes they don’t. That’s the way life is.
When everyone got gunned down last week, I figured the finale would be more meditative. Ever since the second season, fans have been thursting for whackings. But that’s not Chase’s m.o. He’s said repeatedly that the end of the show wouldn’t be operatic like The Godfather. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise. By the way, I liked the finale.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I loved it. You hardly ever get closure in life anyway. Life goes on!
June 11th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I liked how the Fed said “Yes, we gonna win this one…”
June 11th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I loved it as well…
That entire last scene had everyone on the edge of their seats, and you can relate to the constant looking over your shoulder at every shady character that walks in the same location as yourself…
regarding the boat/bobby story, I’ve heard that as well – seems to make a ton of sense.
regarding the shirt, i’m sure we’ll hear more of this later. I’m gonna catch it on demand again – if only to see those twins bounce three feet in the air from ramping off of Phil’s dome…
June 11th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I’m just glad that I didn’t invest a lot of my time into the series, and it’s not like watching the NBA finals would have been more interesting last night.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I thought it was outstanding. As Tony is sitting there, every second he waits he worries that something happened to his family. Every face he sees, he wonders if they’re going to cap him. He is going to feel this FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE.
As he was looking at the jukebox, they showed a Tony Bennett song called I’m so Lonely (or something like that, it had the word lonely). He chose Don’t stop believing. Because of Carlo, he knows his professional life is a mess, and he has no one he can count on (Paulie is flaking out). But he has his family, so he’s going to try and make the best of everything. Until he gets killed or arrested, whichever comes first (and I think he got killed about 10 seconds after, by the guy in the bathroom).
June 11th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Spongeworthy said it best: what did Bobby say to Tony on the boat in the begining of the season? “you’ll know when it happens because everything goes black and silent .
Not saying I was totally enamoured by it, but what are you gonna do? This finale couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. I too was thinking “I KNOW I paid the cable bill”
June 11th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Yes Rob, I suppose that was the point, but I dont think it should have been. Its true that its rare to find closure in life, but this was a tv show people have put a lot of time into over the years, and i think we deserved some closure. The show was fantastic, except for the very end. Probably the most disappointing tv moment of my lifetime.
June 11th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I thought it was great, and was exactly the type of episode I presumed they would end with.
I can see people being angry about the last couple of seasons in general, but I can’t see anger of this individual episode, because it is exactly the type of ending that was foreshadowed all season long.
June 11th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
From HBO’s forums
“So here is what I found out. The guy at the bar is also credited as Nikki Leotardo. The same actor played him in the first part of season 6 during a brief sit down concerning the future of Vito. That wasn’t that long ago. Apparently, he is the nephew of Phil. Phil’s brother Nikki Senior was killed in 1976 in a car accident. Absolutely Genius!!!! David Chase is truly rewarding the true fans who pay attention to detail.
So the point would have been that life continues and we may never know the end of the Sopranos. But if you pay attention to the history, you will find that all the answers lie in the characters in the restaurant. The trucker was the brother of the guy who was robbed by Christopher in Season 2. Remember the DVD players? The trucker had to identify the body. The boy scouts were in the train store and the black guys at the end were the ones who tried to kill Tony and only clipped him in the ear (was that season 2 or 3?).
Absolutely incredible!!!! There were three people in the restaurant who had reason to kill Tony and then it just ends. This was Chase’s way of proving that he will not escape his past. It will not go on forever despite that he would like it to “don’t stop”. Not the fans!!! Tony would like it to keep going but just as we have to say goodbye, so does he. No more Tony and I guess we are supposed to be happy that Meadow didn’t get clipped as well (she would have been between the shooter and Tony) since she is the only one worth a crap in that family.”
June 11th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Holy shit, whoever wrote that on the forum is one detail-attentive mofo. Never been like that with this show, just Lost and The Wire. I was hoping for another scene after the credits where Tony gets capped, but that’d be too Ratnerish.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
BB’s post from the HBO forum was, for me, the best message board posting on this site I have ever seen — thanks BB.
I was so upset with the ending — it was the worst series ender I have ever, ever witnessed. It was beyond horrible. The only way this remotely works for me is if a door is left open for a movie.
Otherwise, I wish I could find David Chase today, and pelt him with a few eggs!
June 11th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
The idea of a Sopranos movie doesnt make sense though. The assumption would be that it would be a big gangster film when that’s the last thing Chase would do. Plus, half the characters from the show wouldn’t be in it cause they’re dead or in a coma.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Like many people, I was confused at the end. My family watches the Sopranos religiously, and I was watching the finale with my parents. Like everyone else we thought the cable went out. When the credits came on my parents were instantly furious at the ending to such a great show, but I knew there had to be something more to it. The post BB left and the post about Bobby telling Tony how it will all go black and silent when it happens really cleared some things up. I will go back and rewatch it to try and figure some more things out.
Like many others as soon as the guy headed to the bathroom i immediatly thought … Godfather. I liked how the episode leaves you to draw your own conclusion to the series, because i don’t think there is a right way to end that show. If Tony got clipped then everyone would have expected it, making the ending worse. One of the great things about the show is how you feel simpathy and side with Tony (a mass murdurer and criminal) and we all know no one wanted to see Tony dead.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I wanted to see Tony dead…
June 13th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Watch it a second time! When you know about the ending you can relax a little and pay attention to all the many details. There are just too many references to death all through this last episode, starting with the opening shot of Tony looking like a corpse in a coffin. For Tony, his death was just as Bobby had suggested it would be: cut to black. If you listen to the lyrics throughout they all suggest his time is up. At least his last meal consists of the best onion rings in Jersey! Mr. Chase was ‘in your face’ with the violence but his true artistry (and the reason I’ve been watching all these years) was in the (sometimes very) subtly drawn connections and the many delightful homages and references to our collective life experience and the popular culture. A bloody gorefest at the end would have been disrespectful of Tony’s loving family as well as all of us who (usually) have to cover our eyes from the show’s violence. Much better to leave us challenged, provoked, and thoughtful. But he did get whacked. This thing of ours, it’s over. (I love that line!)