An amazing 5 minutes of film...

Everyone has their opinion on the Sopranos series finale. Some hated it, some loved it, some wanted to wring David Chase's neck, some wanted to bow at his feet. My opinion? He knew what he was doing the entire time, and I respect the hell out of him for it. The Sopranos is not only my favorite show of all time, but it is the most well-written and original show in the history of television.

***IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST EPISODE, STOP READING THIS ENTRY!!!***





At first, I was shocked. The screen went blank, and it was over. Then I got mad. How could he end it like that??? Nothing was resolved!!! What happened to Tony??? What did that mean???

But then I started thinking about it. Even though the show is in the 3rd person, and not the 1st person from Tony's point of view, the entire show and its audience revolves around Tony Soprano. Therefore, if Tony was to die, the show would cease to exist, since the audience's point of view would be gone. Therefore, I'm sure that Tony is dead. I won't get into all the details of the last scene (which would take at least 10,000 words), but here's a link from an incredibly smart TV writer explaining the intricacies of the last scene, basically proving Tony's death. I highly recommend reading the entire article. http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/1406/1/.

I guarantee that David Chase knew from the very beginning that this was how it all would end. "Wow, what if there was a mob show that ended with the main character getting killed, but it just ended with a blank screen?" Brilliant idea. It's as real as can be. When someone gets shot in the back of the head, everything just stops. It's over. There's no fairy tale ending like most modern cinema. There's no wrap-up whatsoever.

Think about it. There were many knew storylines that were started in the series finale! That's as true as it can be to real life. If you were to be walking down the street today and someone shot you in the head, there would have been many new storylines that had started in your life that very day! Since real life doesn't wrap everything up nicely, neither does David Chase, since the philosophy of the writing from Day 1 was realism at all costs.

David Chase sat around 15 years ago and came up with the ending. Then he started filling in the pieces. Amazing. To the very end, he continued to surprise his audience. Bravo.