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Premeditating on The SopranosTimothy Noah talks with readers about the coming climax of HBO's mob drama.


Updated Thursday, June 7, 2007, at 5:45 PM ET

Timothy Noah was online at Washingtonpost.com on Thursday, June 7, to look ahead to Sunday's final episode of The Sopranos and take a look back at the past season of HBO's beloved mob-themed hit. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

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Beacon, N.Y.: What would you say to Janice offing Tony in the finale? He did threaten to exile Bobby for expecting Tony to help with Uncle Junior's medical costs.

Timothy Noah: Not a strong enough motive.

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Baton Rouge, La.: The glass ceiling may be low for women in power positions in the mob, but you have to admit that the power of the mother and the compliance or noncompliance of women on The Sopranos is a strong and powerful undercurrent. Many of the decisions that the mothers/wives/daughters make has shaped the The Family and how it does business. I know there's been talk on Slate that Chase isn't much into sending messages, but I think the role of the mother on the show and how the mother shapes our ability to interact with society positively is certainly prevalent ... The Ultimate Power Position.

Timothy Noah: That's certainly true. Chase definitely communicates the enormous power that women wield in this world outside the Mafia hierarchy. Jeff and I had a playful discussion early on about whether it was even true that the traditional Italian family was patriarchal, given that both David Chase and Mario Puzo say they based their fictional dons on their mothers. See also "Italianamerican," Martin Scorsese's wonderful documentary that consists entirely of his mother and father talking in their Little Italy apartment. Dad can't get a word in edgewise.

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"That's the genius of the show. That you can see humanity in the most immoral people.": I've always seen it the opposite way: that even the most immoral people can live in denial. And how we all do that to an extent, act in such contrast to the high morals we claim. Today a lady with a fish on the back of her car cut me off and slammed on the breaks while flipping me off. WWJD?

Timothy Noah: That's certainly right, too. The self-deception of everyday life is a theme in the plays of Eugene O'Neill, the nonfiction of Joan Didion, and any number of other works. But it has particular piquancy when applied to people who murder for a living.

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Pittsburgh: Is Carmela really smart or really, really stupid? Will she ever be free of Tony and be her own woman? I'm sorry, but the spec house doesn't count. Tony fronted most of the money

Timothy Noah: She's smart and stupid at the same time—that's one of the things that make her a great character. She has no understanding or interest in cosmic questions, or in art. (Hence her outrage when she learns that A.J. was allowed to read Yeats' "The Second Coming" in college: "What kind of poem is that to teach to a college student?" she asked, as if the poem existed only to induce A.J. to commit suicide). Carmela has no sense of humor. She's more attentive to her kids' concerns than Tony most of the time, but she has less self-knowledge than Tony, which is really saying something. And it was laughably easy for Tony to con Carmela into thinking that Adriana simply left town.

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Washington: Tim, frankly I vastly preferred "Deadwood." Lots of psychopathy there, lots of over-the-top filthy language, but many of the characters were historical, or at least nominally based upon real people. Do you think there's ever been a study of how many genuine mob bosses ever went to a shrink? I mean, as they once alluded to in the series, the lifestyle of the Mezzogiorno was so mindlessly aggressive and macho that it's pretty near inconceivable that any of them would seek out a psychiatrist.

Timothy Noah: I wouldn't be so sure. Nowadays it's hard to find anyone who hasn't been to a shrink.

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Such a whiner!: I know, he even made Silvio's shooting about him. ("I was just getting over feeling depressed! How dare Silvio ruin my day! Wah!") He sure deserved that slap Tony gave him.

Timothy Noah: The narcissism is something he inherited directly from Tony, who even managed to feel aggrieved about having to murder Christopher.

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Bethesda, Md.: There are so many comparisons of the original "Godfather" to Shakespeare. Do you see this show in the same light, and as such, do you think it is possible that it will end like all Shakespearean tragedies in that everyone dies at the end?

Timothy Noah: That certainly would work. I'd say The Sopranos is more Shakespearean than "The Godfather" because it depicts a larger panorama of human variety. Also, even its darkest moments often are laced with humor. The dialog doesn't scan particularly well, though. Somebody should teach David Chase a thing or two about meter!

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Frederick, Md.: I am (and I hate to use the word) so obsessed with The Sopranos that before every season starts I have anxiety dreams about missing the first minutes of the show. I won't answer my phone, and on Sunday I, like A.J., will fall into a deep depression knowing my favorite show of all time will be no more. Thank you Sopranos and HBO for the memories. But hey ... whadayagonnado?

Timothy Noah: Dr. Melfi has an opening in her schedule. Maybe you should give her a call.

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Arlington, Va.: I've really enjoyed the TV club—can you think of any other TV show that would elicit such great discussion? I'm curious about how you'll watch the last show—any rituals, etc.? For me it will be with great sadness—this last stretch has been so particularly amazing I can't help but lament it is ending and I don't get to see more!

Timothy Noah: Thanks. Whatever rituals accompany my watching of the final show will be entirely circumstantial. I'll be in the Catskills, on a Slate retreat, so we'll probably recreate the stateroom scene from "A Night at the Opera" in my hotel room. (I'll have the only TV!) Sounds like fun, though I'll miss not getting to watch the denouement with my son Will. Jeff Goldberg will be in Israel. Brian Williams will be wherever Brian Williams is when he's not on your TV screen.

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Tenafly, N.J.: What's with the white shoes motif!?

Timothy Noah: Wiseguys like white shoes. I have no idea why. You'd think they'd be hard to keep clean, because, you know, all that blood.

In the most recent TV Club entry, Brian Williams asks: "What's the deal with the red side of the electric shoe buffer? I get the black side, everybody does. But when I saw Sil (in one of his last acts while standing) using the red side on his white vinyl kicks, it got me thinking."

Maybe it has something to do with those inconvenient smears of blood...

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Evanston, Ill.: I wonder if you could say a few things about the production values of The Sopranos, as compared with other television series, present or past. I felt, for instance, that the editing of Bobby's death sequence—the cross-cutting between the model trains and the shooting itself—surpassed anything I've seen on TV, approaching the level of De Palma or Hitchcock. How big of a factor is the budget in making possible the artistry that goes into a sequence like this?

Timothy Noah: No idea. I don't bring knowledge to this enterprise, only appreciation.

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Timothy Noah: Well, I guess that's a wrap. Thanks for coming by, and check out Slate's TV Club after the final episode. Mostly, I expect, we'll be trying to figure out what to do with our Sunday evenings. Read a book, maybe.

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Timothy Noah writes Slate's "Chatterbox" column. Previously he was an assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report, a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal, and an editor of Washington Monthly.
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