Brilliant ending, for so many reasons and on so many levels. Finales of popular television shows almost always disappoint, and I think it's mostly because of the medium itself. A movie (or even a mini-series) is self contained, and the director knows (hopefully) exactly where he or she is taking the audience from the start. Not always so with a long-running television series, and finales often feel not like a natural conclusion to a narrative, but like a manufactured end that's only occurring because, well, the show has to end now.

There is, then, really only two routes--go the way of Six Feet Under, flashing years into the future to tie up every last storyline and character arc to leave no questions unanswered (which I thought was done extremely well and nearly left me in tears), or do what David Chase has done: treat the characters as living, breathing people, whose lives aren't ending just because the show is. Nearly the whole episode was life as usual, with nary a nod to the fact that this is the last time we'll be spending a night with The Family. If viewers hadn't know this was the final episode, not much in it would have tipped them off.

Except, of course, for the final sequence. I'm with the consensus that Tony was whacked. It reminded me of Children of Men--a sudden cut to black symbolic of the main character dying, and the audience along with him. As Bobby Baccalieri pondered, "You probably don't even hear when it happens."

“Sopranos” creator David Chase mugged millions of viewers last night.

The last episode of the acclaimed HBO mob drama will go down in TV history as the worst series finale ever.

Sopranos finale
Sigler: Nothing will compare to ’Sopranos’
AP Video: Gandolfini, cast gather for finale
AP Video: Tony goes on as show comes to an end

Did Tony get whacked?

In the final scene, Tony (James Gandolfini) sat in the booth of a cheap restaurant with wife Carmela (Edie Falco) and son A.J. (Robert Iler). Daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), running late, struggled to park her car and raced toward the eatery.

Inside, several ominous characters milled about. The restaurant door opened, Tony looked up, and the screen abruptly faded to black. Then the credits silently rolled.

Of all the endings one could have imagined for “The Sopranos,” this was easily the most exasperating. It does, however, revive the possibility of a big-screen movie.

“Made in America,” directed and written by Chase, was an unexpected detour into dark humor, much of centering on A.J.

A.J. finally found a reason to live after a near-death experience - he and his high school-age girlfriend were nearly blown up in his SUV. He decided to join the Army, become a CIA officer and maybe end up working as Donald Trump’s helicopter pilot.

Tony turned a meeting with A.J.’s therapist into another excuse to complain about his own life.

“You see, I could never please my mother,” he said as Carmela stewed.

Tony and Carmela derailed A.J.’s plans by coming up with a bogus film production job.

Phil Leotardo’s (Frank Vincent) crew turned on him. He was shot and then his head was crushed by his own SUV.

In the oddest twist, Paulie (Tony Sirico) was spooked by an orange tabby that liked to stare at a picture of dead Christopher.

Paulie confessed to Tony that he once had a vision of the Virgin Mary in the Bada Bing. When Tony scoffed, Paulie complained, “I tell you somethin’ deep in my heart and you laugh it off?”

Eight years invested in this show, and this is the payoff?

Who’s up for filing criminal charges?

We were robbed.

I had a similar thought as you during the casually paced final scene. As the hour approached, I imagined a timecode suddenly appearing on the bottom of the screen ticking down three...two...one...10:00! and then the credits kicking off with "Should auld acquaintance be forgot..."

I really liked the final episode (it was no Six Feet Under, but pretty damn fine). What I don't understand is the whole "I wasted 8 years for this?" crowd who consider the finale the "payoff" for the time invested. Who the hell watches an episodic television drama soley to get to its finale? Were you people sitting around during Season 2 going "Jeez, when is this ever going to get to the payoff - the series finale!"
The character's lives go on and you don't get to be a part of it anymore, boo hoo. Be glad you got to listen in for the time you did.
On a side note, I never thought of the Miller's Crossing reference. Hell, it took me about four viewings to even realize the importance of the Buscemi character. Probably due to the thing I initially hated (and now love) about the Miller's Crossing script: that people talk about characters as if they aren't being watched by an audience who don't know who those characters are. Brilliant! (And infuriating).

What really bugs me is the way people have decided to react to this ending. I for one loved the ending, I'm with you Jim, I thought that it was a fitting "life goes on" sort of ending. The entire series is like that, where it's just about life ... and in life there's no Hollywood ending.

However, when you talk to a lot of people it's as if Tony came to their house and whacked their dog or something. They are personally offended at it ... almost as if they wanted this to end like 24 or some other show. I think what David Chase did was brilliant, and it hurts a little to think that there are people who would rather yell and scream instead of think about what it all means.

I'll admit, it wasn't the ending that I had expected. I actually thought they might all get killed or that Tony might get arrested. But would that have improved anything? Tony getting arrested would have just been a cliffhanger (does he rot in prison? What happened with the court trial??) and everybody getting killed would have felt like it was all for nothing. There is no way to end a series like this, and if they had gone the direction everybody expected people would have been disappointed.

I like that this ending gives people the ability to figure out the ending for themselves. Did Tony get shot? Did everybody live happily ever after? Did the entire world get nuked by those terrorists that AJ was so worried about? Who knows, but you can argue it amongst your friends for years to come. And to me, that's brilliant!

I thought that it was pretty clear that the ending was Tony getting whacked. It took me a little while to figure it out, but there are definitely plenty of clues. The biggest was the flashback in the second-to-last episode to a scene from the first of the season: Bobby and Tony talking while fishing and Bobby saying that "the one that gets you is the one you never hear." And that's the way it ends for Tony: in the middle of things.

Yes, life goes on, and there is a ton of "meta" and post-modernism and self-reflexive aspects going on in THE SOPRANOS.

But it's also a show about the death of the American Dream, and there was plenty to show that in the last episode... what more fitting way to end it than in the middle of a family dinner in a crappy diner listening to horrible (but emotionally intense and suspense-building) music?

I love the ending, I hate the ending... would we have really been satisfied with actually seeing Tony's death? There's a certain poetry to it: Tony's story ended in the middle of a moment, and so the show did too. When you're dead, there is no more story to tell. The show is called THE SOPRANOS, though, not TONY, and I think what leaves us hanging are the number of other loose threads: the immediate family, Paulie, who takes over, etc etc etc.

The diner/final scene was perfect. I think it was when you finally feel what Tony's life really is: dealing with all the stress of life with the added stress that the next guy who walks in could be your assassin.

The guy at the bar looking at Tony was probably just like any guy who thought he saw a reputed mobster sitting 10 feet from him. Everyone else, doing pretty normal stuff, seemed suspect to pull out a gun and plug our hero (maybe even the cub scout leader?).

For me, the episode seemed to remove the tension that Phil's guys would get to Tony rather quickly. But it was those last few minutes, when the clock was ticking down, during that time when you knew that anything was possible (dozens of possible endings have been foreshadowed), that you really felt Tony's everyday fear.

The songs from the jukebox also offered some meta-commentary:

"Who Will You Run To?" & "Magic Man" by Heart

"This Magic Moment" (indeed) & "Since I Don't Have You" by Jay and the Americans

The Journey songs: A perfect choice, by the way, both as a shout to the David Scatino episode ("Guys like you are my bread and butter") and how "Don't Stop" fits into the narrative logic of the final scene. How does it end? "Any Way You Want It"

Finally:

"I've Gotta Be Me" & "A Lonely Place" by Tony (yes, TONY) Bennett

***

From there: virtuoso writing, editing, and acting allow Chase to tell us in shorthand what we should take away from the show. People who've been paying attention understand that these final minutes WERE the payoff. The double-takes, the small talk, the misunderstandings spoke volumes. So it is with family.

***

A couple of things to chew on:

Along with the sketchy guy at the counter and the guy with USA cap, there was also a pair of young lovers (Tony and Carmela in the "good old days"?), and an old guy with a bunch of cub scouts (I have no idea on this one).

Then there are the two black characters who enter the show. I've never known what to make of the way African-Americans are treated in David Chase's world. The principle characters are outwardly bigoted against most non-Italians. The black characters presented by the syuzhet are mostly murderers and thugs willing to commit heinous crimes if the price is right (but then, so is everyone else). Bringing them into the restaurant under these circumstances obviously serves to tweak the audience's expectations and assumptions. Since these assumptions are at least partly based on our familiarity with the show, though, I'm not really sure what to make of this being important enough to be included in this dense final scene. If nothing else, it's an acknowledgment that race is a key element of this uniquely American saga. Yeah, but...duh. Without getting too bogged down in undergrad identity politics, I'm curious to hear what people think about this.

***

More fun with Journey:

AJ whines about work, Steve Perry sings, "...some were born to sing the blues..."

"It goes on and on and on..." while Carmela and Tony talk about the looming indictments. Tony is not dead, people.

Meadow runs under a streetlight to "Streetlight people" lyric.

And, of course, "Don't stop-" and cut to black.

Brilliant stuff; well worth multiple views as expected in the on-demand/dvr era.