Boy that last episode of the Sopranos has really divided the shows' fans into two camps; the ‘’We Hate David Chase, Forever!’’ camp, and ‘’This Guy is Bloody Brilliant!’’ side. I have even read that some people are thinking of punishing HBO by canceling their service. Hmm, so this is what happens in a culture where ‘’closure’’ seems to be our birthright? Therefore, after receiving a number of emails from friends who felt cheated after spending 8 years with a man whose behavior, they ‘’tolerated’’ and became fond of, but who did not have to answer for his sins in a way deemed satisfying. It seems clear to me that they not only were out for blood, they wanted to view the body.
I find it interesting that ‘’we,’’ by this I mean the loyal viewers of The Sopranos, may find it difficult to accept that we have all been accepting of Tony’s sociopath behavior since the first episode. And, only now in the last series do we voice our displeasure in his inability to change because we want so desperately to believe that we ourselves were not simply enjoying his exploits vicariously. There is not one character on this brilliantly written program that has not been living in denial from the beginning. Yet, we not only knew them all intimately, we saw the ‘’human’’ side of them and chose to focus on that aspect. We the viewers lived in denial right along side our favorite characters. The fact that many of us even had ‘’favorite’’ characters of the killers-among-us crew is testimony to our ability to compartmentalize the things we need and discard those things that do not please.
So then, why is it that many are frustrated or surprised that a character like Tony, who has rarely accepted any responsibility for his actions throughout the 86 episodes, had learned little from his life in the last episode? He has never had to. There was always his crew there, and we the viewers, to help him justify his actions. Everything in Tony’s life that pushed him towards looking at himself in the mirror was someone else’s fault. It was his mother’s fault, or his father’s, or Carmela, A.J. or Meadow’s, or even the Fed’s. And, anyone looking for a ‘’glimmer’’ of insight on the part of Tony, could find it in his comment to Dr. Melfi about his mother, ‘’I think our mothers are the ‘buses’ that we ride into this world, but we are meant to get off and let them go on their own journey, instead of spending the rest of our lives trying to get back on.’’ You see? All those years in therapy did actually produce some insight. That was a very deep and insightful comment that, at least in my eyes, made me feel that his therapy did end up doing some good. Albeit, it took some years to get here, but then time flies when you are in the ‘’Waste Management’’ business.
Some viewers have called Chase a ‘’coward’’ for being unable to give us a Godfather-like death in a hail of bullets. However, I think that David Chase showed remarkable bravery in ending his series the way he did. Far from being a coward being unable to kill off his character in order to satisfy the viewers’ need for ‘’closure’’, or worse, making secret movie deals in exchange for suitcases filled with cash, He forced us to look at our own vicarious adrenalin-lust in living life through the eyes of a ‘’killer’’ like Tony. For the first very real time, Chase, in the last few minutes of the last episode, made us all feel, really feel, what it must be like to live a life of ‘’looking over your shoulder’’ and not knowing exactly when the plug may be pulled.
And in essence, we the viewers had been coddled by the a safe distance of our TV screens into enjoying 8 years of voyeuristic sex, drugs, and revenge killings that had us rooting for Tony to survive. Last night we all wanted Tony to pay the ultimate price for our guilty pleasure so that we could go to bed feeling that, yes, a bad man will have to pay for his sins someday, but not us for enjoying the ride. Well, last night, David Chase held us all accountable and we got to suffer the shock of having ‘’our’’ plug pulled right along side Tony’s. And it was not what we expected.
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