Since I invoked (via hyperlink) this old chunk of writing when I shared my thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi the other day, it seems reasonably appropriate to drag the whole essay straight over. That’s what this Saturday feature is for, after all. This was, I do believe, my first real crack at writing about a television series.

I actually wasn’t going to post about the series finale of The Sopranos. And then I encountered so many extreme negative reactions, this frothing animosity towards the episode and creator David Chase that has clogged the blogosphere and even downed
HBO’s Website (as a good friend of mine immediately and correctly deducted).

The fervent complaints about a lack of closure to the series and the enormous ambiguity of the final moments actually makes me wonder why those who are protesting were watching The Sopranos in the first place. Some defenders have noted that defying expectations was always a components of the show’s construction and success, so it only makes sense that it would finish by doing the same. While that’s technically true, I think that misses the more pertinent point. The show never provided easy answers, it never wrapped matters up in the simple, decisive ways that are so deeply familiar to us media consumers that we can often feel the ending before it hits. It was loose and messy with plot threads that went on at agonizing length only to be halted suddenly and surprisingly. It moved like life instead of adhering to the comforting timetables of narrative fiction. It did that right to the final dark moment, the plain-faced exchanges of family intermingling with the high tension of a life always lived on guard, inextricably and tragically together.

Clearly, I thought the final episode was terrific, especially that much-discussed (and maligned) closing scene. For one thing, it was a masterful piece of directing, with David Chase (in the director’s chair for the first time since the very first episode) building unbelievable tension in a mundane setting purely through staging and artful editing. He’s been vilified for supposedly taunting the audience with his technique here, as if deconstructively exploring film-making approaches and genre conventions is some sort of sadistic exercise instead of a viable methodology for creating impact (and, again, completely in keeping with the program’s modus operandi for the entirety of its 86 episode run). It takes full advantage of the extended storytelling inherent to series television. In love with possibilities to be found in the editing room–where failed attempts at parallel parking can contribute to almost unbearable suspense–the sequence was a tour de force of drawing the complete environment into its looming sense of constant danger. I found it thrilling in a way that television directing rarely achieves.

As for the screen cutting to black, are there really people who thought their cable went out? Really? How was it not immediately apparent that this was a choice? Fully intentional in its drastic exactitude, it was the perfect ending at the perfect moment.

To a degree, I can understand the bitterness, only because devoting oneself to a full television series heightens the sense of getting the perfect ending. When hours upon hours have been given over to the flickering screen, that last hours bears a huge burden (although this phenomenon itself is relatively new–most series in the past, even those that were especially popular and well-loved ended rather unceremoniously, usually with just another episode). It needs to fulfill every promise of the episodes that preceded it, and give each central character the gift of an ending or new beginning. “Made in America” was filled with small grace notes, acknowledgments of  series history and certainly brought a decisive, satisfying conclusion to the last major storyline. That there wasn’t a more explosive close to the personal saga of Tony Soprano himself is not a cop-out or a crass attempt to position the character for a spin-off movie (given James Gandolfini’s well-quoted comments about being glad to shed the character, I’m surprised people still consider this a viable possibility), and those who are crying foul are veering close to a odd bloodlust as potent as any exhibited by the most unsavory Sopranos side characters over the years. Is this how the majority of the viewership has viewed the series all along? Tony Blundetto rides a shotgun blast across a wintry porch and the emotional impact of pulling the trigger are lost, totally obscured by how stone-cold cool it was when he flew threw the air?

I saw no betrayal in this final episode, no vicious disregard on the part of David Chase. I saw something that recognizably belonged to the series that I watched religiously because it redefined the artistic parameters of a television series, exploiting the novelistic depths that could be achieved by having unlimited time to tell a story. When I watched the finale to season one, I felt a jolt of satisfaction and gratitude as the full complexities of the first thirteen episodes fully locked into place in a way that was utterly unique and perhaps even revolutionary for the medium. I felt that same jolt two nights ago.

Perhaps for some of these angered critics, that screen may as well have been black and silent all along.