Why The Sopranos Finale Failed

Tony arrives at the diner, entering with a puzzled look on his face -- he has an out-of-body experience as he sees himself in a booth. One by one, patrons enter, each suggestive of Tony's possible doom and yet also evoking quintessential Americana. Each time they enter, the bell on the door rings and Tony looks up -- is it anticipation or fear on his face? Carmela, then A.J. join him at the table. A.J. is preceded by a man of Italian descent who sits at the bar and looks over at Tony. Is that a look of menace or an idle glance? Meadow is running late and is maddeningly unable to parallel-park her car. A.J. reminds Tony that we should remember the good times. The man at the bar gets up and passes Tony on his way to the men's room. Meadow jogs across the street to the diner. The doorbell rings and Tony looks up.

And then the Darkness.

Within minutes of the conclusion, the Internet was flooded with posts on message boards and discussion forums. Most of the initial reaction was poor, and the frustration, confusion, and disappointment was palpable. Viewers nationwide offered theories and vented on two topics: the meaning of the ending, and whether the ending was satisfactory. These topics are inextricably intertwined.

Did life go on for Tony and his family? Was Tony suddenly killed? Or, as some shrewd viewers suggested, were we killed in the sudden darkness?

The Non-Ending

The silver lining is that we must struggle with the meaning of the ending no longer. After the airing of the final episode, creator/writer/director David Chase has stated (at http://www.nj.com/) that he won’t comment on the meaning of the ending, but that he’ll “never say never” to a Sopranos movie. Ponder that for a moment.

Since Chase has kept his foot in the door for a potential future Sopranos vehicle, the final episode must be viewed as a non-ending. An intentional non-ending. We’ll never know whether life goes on for Tony and his family, or whether the mysterious “Man in Members Only Jacket” kills Tony after emerging, a la Michael Corleone, from the men’s room. Chase doesn’t know either, or if he does know, he isn’t telling.

We must therefore conclude that The Sopranos' non-ending was written (1) as a cop-out to avoid writing an ending (2) because Chase had a creative block and couldn't conceive an appropriate ending (3) out of protectiveness of his future income stream, to keep his options open, or (4) intentionally and most shockingly, that he actually thought the non-ending was the best ending.

Some say (http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/06/sopranos-end-and-closure-junkies.html) that he was none of these things in choosing his ending; rather, Chase’s non-closure ending represents creative license. Doesn’t Chase have the right to buck convention and pen his own finale? After all, we as viewers cannot and should not have a leash on the artist's Muse.

But we, as viewers, have a right to expect some dramatic resolution of the main character’s story. If we didn’t care about the story enough to want a conclusion of some sort, would we have patiently stayed to the end of a 10-year, frequently-on-hiatus television series? While we appreciated his artistic talents, we did not just tune in to be awed by David Chase’s technical work product; we were watching to see what happened next. If an artist cloaks himself as a storyteller, he shouldn’t be surprised when we howl that a story was not told.

It’s true that consumers of any creative product subordinate themselves, willingly, to the whims of the artist. A fan of The Sopranos is, consciously or not, a fan of David Chase. We buy into the creative output of the artist because we are fascinated, entertained, and enlightened -- and thereby allow ourselves to care about the art itself. When that art is a storytelling medium, it’s reasonable for the audience to expect that something important to the main characters will be resolved.

Chase’s non-ending has also been defended on the grounds that The Sopranos was never intended to tell a story, per se, but was rather a peek inside the New Jersey mob scene. If that explanation is really the sole reason for the show's existence, then the show was nothing more than a fictional documentary. Given that Chase himself comes from a background of writing for dramatic crime television (The Rockford Files, in particular), he surely understands that a skilled writer can evoke a world and its inhabitants, place the audience in that world, and tell a story at the same time. One doesn’t have to read too much great literature (Dickens’ Bleak House and The Lord of the Rings by Tolkein come to mind) to recognize that true Art is evocative while delivering dramatic storytelling for the reader. It’s hard to imagine David Chase not viewing himself as equal parts storyteller and artiste.

Lastly, it could be argued that Chase should follow his Muse, regardless of the outcome -- that to provide a true ending, Chase would have to surrender his creative vision. Setting aside the author's responsibility to his audience for a moment, it's not hard to imagine an ending that incorporated all of the elements of the final scene. Indeed, a final shot of Meadow’s demeanor as she entered the diner would have told whether it was a tragic end for Tony or that life as they knew it would continue. All of the tension would have dramatic release.

Chase's Exploitative Use of Tension

Tension was built and sustained in the final scene by two things: the skillful use of banal dialogue and camera shots (e.g., Meadow parallel-parking her car), and, critically, our knowledge that this was the final episode. Had this been any other episode, there would be no tension, and we would all be scratching our heads about the time spent on such humdrum matters. Therefore, the tension in the scene is at mostly artificial and external to the show itself, relying on Chase’s manipulation of the viewer who knows he is viewing the final episode and is anxiously expecting a conclusion.

The creation of tension without dramatic release is simply a build-up for the sake of itself. Using the viewer’s state of mind to deliver a surprise is a hallmark of clever filmmaking. But used in this manner, it is a cheap trick and is exploitative. Yes, the non-ending was a surprise -- but not a dramatic surprise in the context of the story. It was Chase reaching out and throttling the viewer's own expectations. This is meta-art; art designed to make us question the role of art and our relationship to it. As such, it takes us completely out of the characters and plot and takes us into this discussion. If this was Chase's intention, we should applaud him -- but not at the expense of fulfilling his most basic duty, to tell a story.

It is Chase's specific use of tension in the final scene that distinguishes it from “interpretive” art. Da Vinci does not build up tension when we view the Mona Lisa and ponder the meaning of that enigmatic smile. He simply painted the masterpiece. Stockton, in “The Lady, or the Tiger” did not build up tension over ten years of serial television when he leaves the short story reader dangling over a young man’s fate. Moreover, the finale cannot be viewed as an interpretive ending because by considering a future Sopranos vehicle, Chase is not asking us to guess the ending -- he's expressly telling us he kept all his options open, that there is no ending.

Cut to Black

Chase couldn't make everyone happy in the final episode. Those who wanted Tony's death, or life, would be disappointed if the opposite result occurred. But in writing the non-ending, he failed his audience and, indeed, exploited them for the sake of his vanity and creative cowardice.