Woke up this morning

<p>^Wow. I don’t even watch the show and I find that depressing. What a world view.</p>

<p>*** When you woke up this morning everything was gone.
By half past ten your head was going ding-dong.
Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
Like a voice telling you there was something you should know.
Last night you were flying but today you’re so low
Ain’t it times like these that you wonder if you’ll ever know
The meaning of things as they appear to the others:
Wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.
Don’t you wish you didn’t function,
Don’t you wish you didn’t think
Beyond the next paycheck and the next little drink’
Well you do so make up your mind to go on,'cos
When you woke up this morning everything you had was gone. ***</p>

<p>I’m sure a lot of viewers left disappointed, but I thought the last episode was brilliant. Just like life, stories aren’t always tied up in neat little bows. A lot of mystery, a lot of “what ifs” and a lot to think about.</p>

<p>well said, booklady… for me, it was just a bit jarring technically.</p>

<p>I just read another review which I now think makes a lot of sense:</p>

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<p>I was confused and angry and felt that they had played a nasty trick on us. Until I had a day to reflect. It was a great ending. How much more appropriate could it have been? It was ‘same old, same old’ for them. Just another day in the life of a cold-hearted, warm-hearted, vicious, loving, smart and stupid man and his family, sitting eating onion rings while the world crashed down around them. As usual. And, yea, I think various people had mentioned a number of times that you’d “never hear it coming.” So you can surmise that Tony et al continued in this life, or that Tony got whacked in front of his family, or whatever floats your boat. It sure wasn’t a satisfying ending, but it was a really interesting one.</p>

<p>ff,</p>

<p>Now that Phil was gone (and I could totally see his underbosses turning on him), who would have wanted Tony dead?</p>

<p>It could have been someone else from Phil’s family seeking revenge (especially repeating the way that Phil was taken out - in front of his family) or one of the other bosses seeing that Tony’s crime family had been weakened and who wanted to take it over. The writers clearly figured there could have been someone who was still out to get him or their focus of the man at the counter would have been totally out of left field.</p>

<p>I don’t buy it. This series has always been about the family, with a small ‘f’, even more than it’s been about the Mob. Tony is a sociopath, but then so is the rest of his family, to a certain extent. They each had a chance to get out: Carm when she was told point blank to do so by the therapist she saw once; Meadow to medical school or to a different type of law; and AJ if he really had joined the army. But none of them did. They stayed right where they were, and the beat goes on.</p>

<p>ff, my read on the guy at the counter and the guy in the trucker hat is that it is simply a fact of Soprano life that every guy in every restaurant COULD be out to get him. Not that they actually were. But that the paranoia is constantly there.</p>

<p>Obviously, Chase has achieved his objective: don’t wrap things up and let each person have their own view of what the ending actually was. However, I think that the quote of Bobbie’s about not “hearing it” at the end was quite telling about the Tony’s ultimate end. It just seems that this was deliberately put into this episode as a hint as to what was to happen. And, yes, throughout the series, Tony was always on guard for someone out to get him. The fact that Phil was out of the picture did not suddenly make Tony immune to other attacks.</p>

<p>Another OT comment from a non-watcher:</p>

<p>We took my kids to Holstens for ice cream all the time when they were kids; it’s a great place!</p>

<p>(Back to your regularly scheduled post mortem :))</p>

<p>The black screen at the end had remote control holding spouses around the country unjustly accused - “Agghh, what did you do to the remote?!” - including in my household ,LOL.</p>

<p>Anyway, I know this is the minority view , but I loved the ending. I also thought the episode also provided a dramatic counterpoint to last weeks action packed shoot em up episode. This one had you expecting something was going to happen around every corner… such dramatic tension, but with no resolution.</p>

<p>I think the episode was intentionally written to leave all possibilities open. Can anyone say Sopranos - The Movie? No doubt that Chase intended the black screen (and the comment made a few episodes ago that you’d never hear or see anything coming) to represent the <em>possibility</em> that Tony had been shot by one of the suspicious looking people in the ice cream store. After all, the way they killed Phil went against the mob code of conduct - never to involve family members. The look on Paulie’s face at the end (kind of like - NOW you do right by me) also leaves us wondering if he hadn’t already turned against Tony after all.</p>

<p>On the other hand, who knows, maybe the suspicious looking guys were FBI protection - and Tony’s about to turn state’s evidence. </p>

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<p>And this makes a lot of sense, too - the reality of their life, expecting the worst to happen at any moment! Stay tuned - money talks and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Sopranos movie in the next year or two.</p>

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<p>Ummm, does the name “Joey Gallo” ring a bell?</p>

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<p>Possibly, but it’s not always about money.</p>

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<p>Yes, but that doesn’t mean Phil’s supporters(if any) had to like it!!</p>

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<p>Well, I think it would take a lot to lure James Gandolfini back… but this is true. The finale stands on it’s own in any case.</p>

<p>Here’s an excellent (IMO) take on the final episode: <a href=“http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/06/sopranos-mondays-season-6-ep-22-made-in.html[/url]”>http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/06/sopranos-mondays-season-6-ep-22-made-in.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I went to sleep last night running through all the “what really happened” scenarios. Woke up this morning (sorry), having gotten that out of my system, thinking that it was a perfect ending and a sign of David Chase’s somewhat perverse genius. Though I covered my eyes many times while watching the series (and I watched it from day one), everything about it was fantastic–writing, acting, directing. My husband and I got a little misty-eyed yesterday, recalling that there was a time that we would not allow our son (now 17 and a die-hard fan) to watch!</p>

<p>Great blog two posts above. I bet there were a LOT of phone calls last night at 10:02PM. Our son was out of town and called his Dad, “What was that?”
All I can say, is I thought it was perfect AND thank goodness I still have Entourage.</p>

<p>Did think the blogger in the Booklady’s link nailed it. I’ve actually read that some fans were so upset with the ending, they felt as if they’d wasted several years watching the show. Makes as much sense as the Virgin Mary making an appearance at the Bing. ;)</p>

<p>I also think that writer nailed it. Saying that Chase “whacked the viewer” is the best, most succinct summary of the abrupt closing I’ve read so far and taken that way, it is the perfect ending.</p>

<p>I’m still thinking about the finale, so I thought I’d drag this thread up one more time with a link with comments by the man himself: <a href=“http://blog.nj.com/alltv/2007/06/david_chase_speaks.html[/url]”>http://blog.nj.com/alltv/2007/06/david_chase_speaks.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This excerpt may answer some of the questions brought up earlier in our discussion:</p>

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