I liked it. It didn't give you all the answers (just as David Chase, the creator, likes it) but gave you enough to satisfy, appease, and soothe a painful goodbye.
*** spoiler tag ***
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Silvio is in the hospital and we don't know if he'll make it or not, but no one seems to think he won't. Phil dies quite gruesomely, and with him goes all the craziness from the New York crew. Or does it? Paulie agrees, although not gleefully, to become Tony's top earning guy, a position that carries with it a lot of risks (mostly of premature and unnatural death) as well as financial benefits. It's also a position of power he always wanted and regretted not attaining in the past (like when Tony picked Silvio as Consigliere or Christopher as his representative instead of him). As for Tony's other family, AJ seems to have overcome his the-world-is-fucked-up phase in favor of a more mundane job and the perks that come with it. Meadow seems in love and on a path to a satisfying career, if not to her parents, at least to her. And Carmela is, as always, at odds with how things are going: she's happy AJ didn't totally self-implode, but how long is it going to last? She's glad Meadow seems happy and poised for a good future, but what about the shattered dreams? She's relieved her husband lived to see another day, but how long before he's behind bars or worse, in a freezer?
As for Tony, I've asked myself if I would have preferred to see him die or not. I don't think so. The premise (and brilliancy) of the show has always been to make you care, a lot, for this guy who's not your conventional hero, anything but, but is still a "good" guy. It's almost like, that's the life he was born into, and he just tries to make the best of it. I'm glad he didn't die. He's worried about Silvio and saddened for Janice's loss of her husband Bobby, whom he had raised to the top echelon of the business, but he can still see through Janice's bullshit and her cunning to steal Uncle Junior's money for herself. And he's able to inoculate her tactics through one final visit to his once beloved uncle. He leaves him greatly saddened by the realization the he's now mostly an empty shell. The image of Tony looking at Junior with a couple tears pooling in his eyes and then just walking away speaks volumes. The final episodes built a lot of tension over whether Tony would ultimately get whacked or not, and that tension is sustained all the way to the last frame, masterfully. For me the brilliancy of the final episode resides in the shot of Tony in the diner waiting for his family and picking a song from the juke box. The artist, Journey, as in the journey we, the fans, have made, through the years with him and his two families. The song he picks, Don't Stop Believing, as if Mr. Chase were telling us, Ok, it's over, it had to end at some point, but this doesn't mean you should stop believing in this family, its values, its stories, its troubles. The other song from Journey pictured in the frame: Anyway You Want It, because in the end, Mr. Chase's goal has never been to serve us all the answers on a silver platter; he always made sure there was something left over for us to mull and comment or argue about (the Pine Barrens' Russian guy's fate anyone...?)In the end, this show, as many before it and many after, is over. It's sad, and I don't know if a show will ever come along that will top this one on my personal list, but for now, it sits up there, shining down on television history with all the might of its unmatchable acting, writing, and directing.
The Sopranos was... is, the perfect show, the whole package. It is... IT.
Farewell. You'll be missed.
Grade: 10
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