Okay. We finally got around to seeing the final episode of The Sopranos that everyone's been talking about. Okay, that everyone's been bitching and moaning about, because it ends without 'closure.' That the end was a deliberate mind-fuck by David Chase, a diner scene with Tony and family, with cutaways to suspicious-looking characters, to the tune of "Don't Stop Believing." And then it just cuts off, black and silent.
People are genuinely angry about it, they're feeling betrayed.
And all I have to say is: you pussies. You want a show that sucks you in and then leaves you truly kicked in the spiritual and emotional nuts? Try the unresolved cliffhanger ending of Twin Peaks, with Annie lost in the Black Lodge, and Cooper possessed by the spirit of Evil Bob, cackling in the mirror, repeating "How's Annie" over and over, wasting toothpaste. And we even got a Twin Peaks movie that not only didn't resolve the cliffhanger of the show - it was a flashback to events before the series - it mostly just planted in my mind the idea that David Lynch is really a dirty old man in indie auteur's clothing. All that cool back story to explore, and we just see a lot of footage of Moira Kelly (remember her? Think WInona Ryder with a head cold) getting skanky.
Don't get me wrong: there's a time and place for footage of a skanky Moira Kelly, and I'll happily view it all. But not when we still don't know what's the deal with the damn kid and his grandma and their Garmonbozia! Jesus, get your priorities straight, Lynch. He really does have a thing for putting his story on hold and having his lead actresses be nude in publicly humiliating ways. I'm just saying.
So: stop your whining about whether Tony Soprano got whacked. It was a great ending to a well-done show, and we got what we deserved - a huge spoonful of cool ambiguity. Just be thankful that HBO didn't pull it on a major cliffhanger like they did with Carnivalé. Oy, don't even get me started on that. I cancelled my cable because of that lame shit.
But: they've given the Flight of the Conchords their own show, so all is forgiven.
D.
4 comments:
I thought the Sopranos ending was perect. I've watched the episode three times now, and my admiration only grows. Chase is a sly old fox of a writer and once-in-awhile director, and he perfectly balanced all the core elements of the show, truly embuing it with an unquestioned sense of FINALITY. Like, this is it, folks, get off your ass and move on with your life. The less than intelligent viewers will tend to bridle when they're boxed in the nose like this.
As for Twin Peaks, what can I say? You're wrong, man. The film could never have been the Twin Peaks Season Three 2-hour premiere. That's not a film. That's a marketing gimmick. It had to involve Laura Palmer, as she was the paradigm of what the show was (the corruption of purity, the lure of evil, all that David Lynch as Boy Scout stuff); but it had to be separate in form and substance from the series, i.e. it is a film, not a tv show, and a David Lynch film at that.
Well, if you're going to argue FWWM, at least argue what I wrote. Did I say anything about whether it should or should not have focused on Laura Palmer? No. You're having an argument with something in your head, not me.
I wasn't aware that opinions about works of art could be 'wrong,' but thanks for setting me straight.
Well, you did fault it for not resolving the Season Two cliffhanger.
And when you fault it for featuring too much (skanky) Donna you are by association faulting it for too much Laura.
And well, hey, you're not "wrong." You're just part of the critical consensus on this one, which I always disagreed with (at the time, to the point of despair).
My reply got longer and longer, so it'll be tonight's Rambler.
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