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Sopranos Final Season

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from: Stephen Metcalf
to: Jeffrey Goldberg, Timothy Noah, and Brian Williams

Darkness Visible

Posted Tuesday, June 12, 2007, at 1:31 PM ET

Timothy Noah chatted with readers about The Sopranos on June 7. Read the transcript here.

Tony visits a comatose Silvio

Dear Jeff, Tim, and Brian,

It's been my lot to feel precisely the opposite about The Sopranos as everyone else does. So I thought I'd take my last licks. I found the ending flawless, more of which in a moment.

But first: For me, the show had, in its recent iterations, become like church, an every-Sunday obligation long on piety and atmospherics, short on actual belief. To extend the metaphor further, the first season had been for me, as for everyone, a revelation. As I sold the concept at the time to the father of a friend, who was skeptical about the level of casual degradation the series took for granted, The Sopranos was about a man who goes into therapy for reasons that mirror, perversely, the reasons most of us do. Most of us bourgie schlubs discover, beneath our decent exteriors, something lurking and uncivilized; Tony Soprano, a career monster, went into therapy because he discovered in himself an unwelcome streak of humanity, and this had started interfering with his work.

Season 1 had been a novel—it had form and complexity to rival anything on the printed page. Its feeling of anomaly derived not from the cussing and gore, but from its adherence in an American context to the BBC model of dramatic programming: a series conceived largely by a single creator, as a terminal unit, unfolding over a few short, discrete seasons, like Prime Suspect or Cracker. The show declined in subsequent seasons, when it crossed this paradigm with the standard American factory model of series television: an interminable milking of characters and situations by hired guns, in largely go-nowhere setups, meant to keep a revenue stream alive indefinitely. (Nota bene: Terry Winter's work on the series has been consistently superb.)

For me, what started as Jane Austen meets The Valachi Papers had become a jumble of blind alleys and anticlimaxes. That said, whenever Chase clearly retook the creative reins, and whenever the series demanded some degree of resolution (the sacrificing of Adrianna to mob expediency, for example), it regained its earlier form. And it was always better than network.

Once again I find myself at odds with most everyone: I thought the finale, especially the very end of the ending, was brilliant—maybe the most harrowing three- to four-minute sequence in the history of the medium. I believe we witnessed the murder of Tony Soprano. The key clue comes from the penultimate episode, when Tony lies down to sleep in the safe house, his AK at his side, preparing for the possibility he may die that night. He then flashes back (to Episode 1 of this season) and Bobby Bacala saying to him, "You probably don't hear it when it happens."

And he didn't, did he?

Meadow's trouble parking makes sense—beautiful, tragic sense. She bursts in to see her father's murder as a tableau. This is in pointed contrast to A.J. and Carmela, who form part of that tableau—the blood and agony—while she, Meadow, stands apart. Chase is always telling us something: Meadow is the one family member who "gets it," i.e., who has cultivated enough of a life within mainstream culture to see her father's vocation for what it was.

Anyhow, I do find I will miss the show, and the dialogues it inspired. Thanks for letting me join one last time.

Steve

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from: Stephen Metcalf
to: Jeffrey Goldberg, Timothy Noah, and Brian Williams

Darkness Visible

Posted Tuesday, June 12, 2007, at 1:31 PM ET

DISCUSS

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Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for the Atlantic and the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror. Stephen Metcalf is Slate's critic at large. He is working on a book about the 1980s. Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate. Brian Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News. Terence Winter is a writer and an executive producer of The Sopranos. His teleplay "Pine Barrens," written with Tim Van Patten, won the 2001 Writers Guild Award and the Edgar Award.

Slate home page cover, June 11, 2007: Still of James Gandolfini in The Sopranos by Craig Blankenhorn © HBO. All rights reserved. Still from The Sopranos of James Gandolfini on Slate's home page; still of: James Gandolfini; Edie Falco and James Gandolfini; Steven Van Zandt, James Gandolfini, and Tony Sirico; James Gandolfini and Edie Falco; and Robert Iler all by Craig Blankenhorn/courtesy HBO. All rights reserved. Entry 9: Still of Tony with a tomato, and Entry 10: Tony's dad and young Uncle June © HBO. Entry 21: Still of Tony Sirico as Paulie "Walnuts" by Craig Blankenhorn. Entry 27: Still of Robert Iler and James Gandolfini by Craig Blankenhorn. Entry 30: Still of James Gandolfini and Sarah Shahi by Craig Blankenhorn. Entry 38: Still of Steven Van Zandt and James Gandolfini by Craig Blankenhorn. Entry 40: Still of James Gandolfini and Edie Falco by Craig Blankenhorn. Entry 45: Still of James Gandolfini and Steven Van Zandt by Craig Blankenhorn. Entry 48: Still of Dominic Chianese and James Gandolfini by Craig Blankenhorn.

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Remarks from the Fray Editor:

As a basic cable slum-dweller, the Fray Editor has been following the discussion of The Sopranos with admiration and envy. The passion, erudition, and insight of the show's fans—Slate's commentators and Fraysters alike—proves the case that this series is not to be missed. Below, Fray poster lucabrasi considers how the 6.5 season story arc has led the show inevitably to the present moment.

May this weekend's finale exceed your wildest expectations. My prediction? Paulie Walnuts in the Bing with a shoe buffer.—G.A.

Remarks from the Fray:

I must salute the excellent close of the mob wars arc that started way back in Season One.

Looking back from today, with Tony's Jersey crime family indeed looking like a "glorified crew" in the eyes of New York, one can see it, almost clearly:

Season One: Tony's issues were of ascension in that smallish Jersey family. Jackie Sr. was dying; Uncle Junior was the designated "front don," and yet bitter enough about Tony's power to use Livia's ambiguous directives to hit Tony. Didn't work. Junior was exiled and took on Federal heat; Tony had the others killed.

Season Two: Richie Aprile gets out of prison. A theme begins: guys out of prison resent Tony, who never served. But Richie, too, is "local Jersey trouble." His escalating conflict with Tony is going to be dealt with rather easily -- Tony wants Richie hit, but Janice delivers a dose of even MORE "local" justice.

Meanwhile, I think NYC underboss Johnny Sack turns up living in Jersey, but promising Tony "I don't want to wet my beak."

The main NYC Don is Carmine Sr, an old school guy. Tony can deal with Carmine Sr, but Sack starts getting that lean and hungry look...

Seasons Three and Four: Other issues are on the table (Jackie Jr., Tony and Carm's marriage), but Tony's adversaries are manageable: made guy Ralphie and the ever-more-ambitious and angry Sack. Ralphie is eliminated, quietly (if NYC ever finds out...). Sack wants Tony to hit Old Man Carmine; Tony pulls out at the last moment. Sack looks to be vengeful.

Season Five: The big trouble all starts here, with the release of the "Class of '84". It's like four Richie Apriles. Tony has a lotta plates to spin: an old-timer named Feech who wants it all, locally, Tony's cousin Tony B, the "Rockford Guy" (Joe Santos) who Tony B idolizes as a father, and a real hothead named Phil Leotardo.

Carmine Sr. croaks. Phil joins with Sack against Little Carmine, Tony B joins with the Rockford Guy and Rusty in backing Little Carmine's play. Tony elects to back off and see how Jersey can benefit from the ensuing bloodshed, of which there is a lot.

During all this, two little matters occur: Seeking owed cash, Tony subjects Phil Leotardo to a body-breaking car crash and beats up Phil at the accident site as a "throw-in." Tony B kills Phil's brother Billy Leotardo.

In retrospect, these last two actions were perhaps...unfortunate.

Sack and Phil kill more guys than Little Carmine's team. Little caves ("It's a stagmire.") Sack ascends to Donhood. Tony can deal with Sack (having killed Tony B as a burnt offering), and Sack will stave off the still vengeful Phil Leotardo.

But right at the end of Season Five, the Feds nab Sack. Go directly to jail.

Season 6A: Sack's in prison, but the putative boss, with Phil fronting him on the outside. Tony's shot for a few episodes. The "gay Vito issue" gives Phil new reason for putting the pressure on Tony's Jersey boys. With Sack losing power by the day, Phil contemplates his rages against Tony: getting beaten up by Tony, paying money to Tony, brother killed by the cousin of Tony, gay Vito protected by Tony. Phil has a heart attack to match Tony's gutshot. Things seem peaceful between these two wounded warriors. But this guy Butch turns up, taunting Tony.

Season 6B. Tony's luck with New York runs out, via a series of crap outs: Sack dies of cancer; Doc kills Gerry; Phil kills Doc.. Phil is "the big boss man," finally, and the worst possible New York Don Tony Soprano could face. Filled with jailhouse vengeance and itching to consolidate power, Phil pushes Tony too far (with the sexual insult of Coco towards Meadow, ultimately). Tony retaliates (curbing); Phil says "there's nothing left to talk about," and here we are.

Now, I' m not sure how much of that was plotted early on by Chase and Company, but looking back on it, you see how this final, fatal gang war was literally years in the making. Tony Soprano fended off Jersey threats (Junior, Richie), kept the peace with Carmine Sr, dangerously dueled with Sack (the longest of Tony's strategic encounters), sat out the gang war to replace Carmine Sr...and ended up on the wrong end of Phil's bloody ascension to the throne of the New York Family.

Where things are now is where they HAVE to be. Inevitability.

--lucabrasi

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