ultravioletluvv said:
This is TV! The viewers want SOMETHING to happen!
ah, but David Chase has been adament, since the beginning, about how much he hates TV. the resoultions, the conclusions, the lessons, the morality plays. so he gave us an anti-ending.
at first, i was pissed. i felt cheated. and we were. but The Sopranos has never, ever played by the rules, and the show kept its integrity to the last by never, ever pandering, even if it did, at first, feel like a gigantic "fuck you/nyah-nyah" to the viewer.
it felt somewhat contemptuous, like in "Fight Club," but i think we've hit the nail on the head: it was the viewer who was snuffed.
i'm currently working on a documentary about someone who was accused of killing a police officer, and one thing from an interview with forensic expert has stuck with me. if you were to ever get shot in the head, you'd never know it. the bullet travels faster than sound, so it would hit you and kill you before you ever heard the shot.
i think that's what happened here.
how many shot-to-the-head wackings have we seen over the past 8 years? this is what it feels like for the Departed, and now you, the viewer, experience it. no music, no climactic cresendos, no crying. the lights simply go out.
and such it is with life. not to get into a big FYM discussion, but let's face it -- there's a very strong possiblity that when you die, there's no Jesus, no Vishnu, no grandparents and pets waiting to greet you. just blackness and silence. (and especially with these characters, for whom there isn't a heaven). like it was before you were born.
in the end, Livia was right: "it's all a big nothing." and this was confirmed by Junior, who when Tony visited and he reminded him how he and his father used to run North Jersey, Junior's reponse: "isn't that special." all the time we spend worrying about stuff that doesn't matter, things we don't need, and people who are irrelevant. it all adds up to nothing in the end.
so, it was a Fuck You. but a brilliant, authentic Fuck You.
as life is.