Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:43:34
From: "rj"
To: "*** ******"
Subject: Re: a glance, and it's over

> Pretty good, huh?

Yeah -- unexpected. What I particularly like is Meadow (literally) getting in bed with criminals, li'l lost statutory rapist AJ becoming a genuine "chip off the old block" (great parenting, huh?), Carmela a sellout, and Tony -- pretty much unreformed after all this, and paranoid approaching panic attack (FBI? hit men? just ordinary folks? "Don't stop!") -- Tony headed for prison: the family re-unites/aligns on these bases (notwithstanding minor difficulty with the parallel park), for food (the thing that brings them together for "the times that were good" -- they really are a greasy/smelly Onion Ring for the whole table), in a lowbrow milieu appropriate to them. If you accept that a TV series, by definition, never really resolves, then this requires non-ending. The Sopranos is about the equilibrium and ambiguity in our world of good and evil, of pleasure and pain, selflessness and ego, laughter and tragedy (the two SUV scenes: fire inside and out; rolling over Phil Leotardo's head with the babies inside, after he "waves bye-bye"). Our fundamental lack of certitude and security (e.g. Tony's phone is tapped). The no-peak ordinariness of even extraordinarily unusual American life. Above all, a palpable devolve into mediocrity, as self-interest overcomes all their better angels. One line in the last song: "the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on". "This thing of ours" (quote from The Godfather, to Junior, who shot Tony) -- then the diner guy, like Al Pacino, goes into the men's room (to get the gun hidden in the toilet?). Tony turns FBI informant (a death warrant for Puss and Adriana); FBI (essentially) kills Phil: crime and punishment all blurry. Even Agent Harris: screws a sister agent, betrays her confidences, then -- that anger on her face! "We'll win this one!" Harris shouts: who exactly is "we" & what's a "win"? He too has lost his bearings, in a pointless/aimless war on phantom enemies. Tony almost murdered Paulie, then thought better of it -- and he was right: when chips are down, Paulie is the last man standing for his liege, however reluctantly. Tony rationalizing always: "I couldn't please my mother", what a crock. Melfi pulls the plug, not for professional reasons, but broken and humiliated because she's been conned: SHE is the one who needed, and willfully ignored, analysis -- not her patient. The season began with Tony, like Sil, in a coma and not likely to survive. Tony takes Sil's hand -- a moment, unwitnessed by anyone, of genuine love.

Even the conventions of the show are reversed: music throughout, silence during the credits. Nothing happened, yet it was unremittingly tense. Two days ago I happened to look again, this time in hi-def, at last week's penultimate show (again and again, the penultimate show turned out to be the "biggie"); and I saw so many things that I didn't notice on first viewing (in a Princeton hotel). Mainly it was the extraordinary writing.

I thought the ending was characteristic and brilliant. Meadow rushes toward the camera (toward a massacre? does delay spare her? or...?). The doorbell and that glance.

My first thought was: the video recorder failed. Actually, Chase just turned off the camera. So what did you want instead, a boutonniere?