My thoughts on "The Sopranos" finale

The 'Net will be a-buzzin' tomorrow, so I figured I'd throw my hat in the ring:
First of all, if you haven't seen the episode, and you want to be surprised, read no further...



Now that we've gotten that over with, I guess I can begin. This may seem a little roundabout, but trust me, I eventually get to a point...
Back when the film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released, a reporter (who obviously wasn't a fan of the film) asked Kubrick (and I'm paraphrasing): "There are lots of long, slow takes of things moving in space, set to music, that last for several minutes at a time. Honestly, I was bored. Why on earth would you put something like this in a film?" Kubrick's response: "Because I can."

The medium of film has had a long history of what I like to call "fucking with the audience" - basically putting whatever one desires in a film, and not thinking of the potential viewers so much as just simply fulfilling one's personal artistic goal, others opinions be damned. When this fails, it's catastrophe. When it succeeds, it's a bold artistic statement. What does this have to do with the final episode of The Sopranos? Simply this: In perhaps the most anticipated finale in modern TV history, the last image the viewer sees at the end of an unresolved chain of events is a ten-second long black screen. David Chase has probably the biggest balls I've ever seen.

Chase has made a bold artistic statement, and, without doubt, he's going to catch a lot of flack for it, for years to come. Even as I watched these final unexpected seconds, I felt the way most viewers probably did: I was first immensely surprised, and then felt a little cheated. Eventually, as I sat and re-visited the chain of events in my head, I realized how perfect the finale really was. A series which had become popular in its earlier seasons for its mix of entertaining spurts of violence and personal family drama, The Sopranos had become criticized by fans in its final season for becoming overly character-driven and dialogue-heavy, and this final episode was just the cherry on top of this very different season. To do anything else would have been a cop-out. This past season was the equivalent of a monologue at the end of a film or a soliloquy at the end of a Shakespeare play. Drawn out to full-season length, I can understand why some people were irritated with strong feelings of anticipation. The final few seconds seemed to be a buildup to a murder, but with bookies in Vegas giving 20-to-1 odds that Tony would get killed, would you give the public what they wanted, or would you take the high road, giving them something to think about instead?

What do you do when you're the most successful television show of the last ten years? You do what you want.