"Is That All There Is?" - The Sopranos Finale, The Morning After

So now that I've let last night's episode sink in a little, I am here to tell you I still thought last night's episode sucked. But not because of the ending. It was all of the extraneous, waste-of-time, boring bullshit that ultimately made me angry, especially the stupid cat and A.J.'s SUV exploding. The majority of the episode was a dud.

Sure, there were some great moments, including the stuff with the F.B.I. agent (Tony's "good guy" doppelganger) and, of course, the crushing of Phil. But after spending over 80 hours with these people I expected something a little more entertaining. After all, it's a television show.

And, I think that's been the problem with the show over the last few seasons: In the beginning, almost every episode was an "Oh Wow!" Yet, the last third or so of the series has been, more or less, a bunch of "So Whats." Bones were thrown to us (Gay Vito, Christopher shooting J.T., A.J.'s suicide attempt, Tony's final scene with Dr. Melfi) but so much of the series dragged (Christopher's death scene? After all his shit? Booooooooooooring).

And so, to the ending. I've always been one to think that Meadow was going to inherit Tony's role as boss of New Jersey (the show is called The Sopranos which I think is David Chase's clever way of saying the Soprano men are all castrati and that it's the women -- Melfi, Livia, Carmela, Meadow -- who have the real power). Certainly Meadow marrying further into the mob and wanting to defend Italian-Americans points to her complete crossover. So it makes sense that Meadow was late to dinner and avoids getting whacked with the rest of the family. I admit, I wasn't completely convinced that Tony gets whacked until I read Heather Havrilesky's Salon essay this morning along with the letters from readers. Here is one of Havrilesky's possible interpretations and the response that convinced me Tony is dead:

HH: And yet... is it possible that we're witnessing Tony's last moment alive? What did Bobby say to him on the boat, in the first episode of this last run? "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" Maybe the abrupt ending is Tony getting shot, without even realizing it?

Reader: So, we can believe that Chase played the nastiest trick in the history of TV, getting 50 million people to simultaneously say "What the fuck!", when trickery has never really been his style. Or, he was saying that this was Tony's world all along, and it stopped existing the moment he left it.

But then there's also this interpretation:

"Here's the deal, Chase let us ENTER INTO the drama here. If "when you get hit, you don't even know it, everything just goes black," then WE, the audience, got hit. Everything went black, and we don't get to see how the story of everything else goes on. This final episode was existentially perfect, PERFECT!"

Either of these interpretation's fit into what I ultimately think David Chase was getting at. Earlier this season, he perversely had Nancy Sinatra singing "Is That All There Is?" which contains these uplifting lyrics:

SPOKEN: I know what you must be saying to yourselves,
if that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
Oh, no, not me. I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment,
for I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you,
when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my lst breath, I'll be saying to myself

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

Tony (and the audience) have been slowly realizing that so much of life (or the show) is complete bullshit and that the only thing worth living for is family. Here's Havrilesky, summing up the penultimate scene:

And then, we see where it all leads: Tony finally takes a trip to see Uncle Junior, who doesn't even recognize him. When Tony reminds June that he once ran the North Jersey mob with Tony's father, the old man replies apathetically, "That's nice." As Tony strides away, like he can't get out fast enough, we recognize that look on his face: It's all a big nothing.

Chase has also spent a lot of time making the audience complicit with Tony's amorality (c'mon, all of us have been rooting for Tony to triumph over Phil). Last night, he really let us have it (take it away Heather):

...it was fitting that the big F.U. should come from the mouth of the show's least respectable character, self-pitying, idiot-savant A.J., who explodes in an angry outburst after Bobby's funeral. Disgusted with the idle Oscar-related small talk at his table, he rages, "You people are fucked. You're living in a fucking dream!" Then he snipes that Americans distract themselves from their country's atrocious acts by "watching these jack-off fantasies on TV."

Ouch. David doesn't think much of us or the medium he works in. Or maybe he doesn't like himself -- he seemed to be making just as much fun of himself as the audience by starting off the episode with Vanilla Fudge's version of "You Keep Me Hanging On":

"Set me free, why don't cha babe
Get out my life, why don't cha babe
'Cause you don't really love me
You just keep me hangin' on..."

Why don't you be a man about it
And set me free
Now you don't care a thing about me
You're just using me
Go on, get out, get out of my life
And let me sleep at night
'Cause you don't really love me
You just keep me hangin' on...

So what did we all hang on for? One reader is convinced, just like Tony's realization with Uncle Jun, the show was all for nothing:

Nothing in this show had meaning. From Tony's momentous "I get it" in the Nevada desert, to the cat peering and purring at the picture of Christopher. Tony's therapy - meaningless. Tony's love of nature - meaningless. Carmela's crappy spec house - meaningless. The whole mafia thing, whether it be in Brooklyn or N. Jersey - meaningless. AJ's absurd self-centered personality contortions - meaningless.

A television show? As the number one obsession of America (next to Paris Hilton)? - meaningless (and a bit sad). We are all guilty of caring about the wrong things. Here's another reader's take (referring to how little any of the characters in the show changed):

...I'd even take the message a bit farther and say it is something more like, "People don't really change all that much, because it is too much work." Which is really an allegory for America. We know we should reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we know we should probably reinstitute the draft, we know we should do something about the deficit and Medicare and the failing school systems and growing inequalities, and that sooner or later we're going to have to figure out what to do about Iraq. But you know what? It's just too much work. Plus, as many problems as we all have, nothing--not even 9/11--seems to be able to do us in completely. So, let's focus on the good times. Pass the onion rings. And whatever you do, don't stop believin'.

So, is that all there is? Keep believin'? I guess we shouldn't have been in such a "hurry for that final disappointment."

Oh well. For many of the shows 80 hours, we were entertained. Were we diverted from the real world? Of course we were. I don't think we could survive without diversion. So ultimately I'll give Chase a lot of credit for his creation. The fact that it wasn't perfect and ended with a fizzle can't take away from the show's great moments. Plus, can you think of a fictional TV show that has made people think as much as this show (and I'm not talking about "What's with the backwards dancing Midget, polar bears and black smoke" kind of thinking)? Thinking about nothing just might be as existential as it gets, baby.

And now, back to our lives.