Comments on: Best Ending Ever

By: Andrea

Andrea — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:09:58 +0000

I can’t think metaphorically either because I hated the ending as well. Sorry, Bryan. A good ending shouldn’t build up tension for no damn reason and then make me panic that the cable went out. Now if you want a good ending for a series, let’s talk about Six Feed Under’s finale.

By: cp

cp — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:08:42 +0000

seeing the blood, seeing the shots would have provided yet another television distraction of the type that Chase excoriates in way or another during the entire show. The ending is a commentary on a society that searches for the false spectacle through the medium of television and entertainment.

Do you think it is a coincidence that AJ’s new job is one of making movies? To distract him from the real shit (the War, all that shit about food that he was spouting off about, the real depression of the average american?)

Tony’s murder would have been yet another clip in a long line of retarded spectavles that this country gorges itself on daily in order to not deal with the reality of its government and their complicity in destroying the planet.

It was a fucking awesome ending. The conclusion IS clear to those who can think metaphorically, not all boring and linearlly. Bryan: 1 Ryan: 0.

By: bnjoiner

bnjoiner — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:15:06 +0000

It was a minor distinction but an intentional one.
I realize that I did not see Tony get shot. In that sense, I believe the ending was ambiguous. I would probably have been helpful if I had written that, so I’m sorry if you were confused. I obviously just believe that if you put some thought into what happened and what came before it, those who are arguing that Chase “copped out” or was “lazy” in his story construction are dead wrong. Chase made the rules, and told us what a quick cut to black meant, and then it happened. So you can choose to follow those rules or not follow them.
I think the greater issue here is the anarchy of storytelling — insofar as the cut to black could have meant our time with The Sopranos was up, instead of Tony dying, but at that point The Sopranos would have been a real family that finished its dinner and sauntered off into the Bloomfield, N.J. evening. That’s not the case. I don’t begrudge anyone for accepting the ambiguous ending, as I believe it’s just as plausible as the “he’s dead” ending, but I don’t think they’re really mutually exclusive. I look at the ambiguous ending and I ask myself, “In what ways is it NOT ambiguous?” and in every way it’s NOT ambiguous, it points to Tony’s death, and sometimes I, like millions of others out there, are looking for some closure on the whole thing. It’s there for the taking.
When I hear people write things like “Things don’t always work out nicely in real life like they do on TV,” I want to punch them. No, they don’t always work out. But sometimes they do. If someone’s argument against Tony dying is that “things don’t always work out nicely,” they can cram it. My sense is that your argument is “I didn’t see it, so it didn’t happen.” My counterargument would be that just because you saw it, it doesn’t mean that it DID happen. It could have been a dream sequence for all we know. (Hey, they happen.) We can only work with the information we have. Did Adriana die? By your argument, the answer would be “no,” and I understand that: we didn’t see her die or even get shot. But on the HBO page for that episode, it says:
“Silvio drives Adriana to a secluded spot in the woods and fires two bullets into her as she attempts to crawl away through the leaves.”
Really? We never see the bullets get unloaded “into her.” We just see him firing. We generally assume Adriana’s dead, but we don’t know, and this sloppy recap doesn’t help. The broader point is that this is all an imperfect science. Given that it’s imperfect, our conclusions are ambiguous from the beginning. What really happened in Newhart? Nothing, apparently: it was all a dream. What if they make a Sopranos movie and we learn something crazy, like Tony was Kevin Finnerty the whole time? (A not-very-popular message board theory about an episode-long dream in which he was a salesman.) How does that change the conclusions we’ve already drawn? My belabored point is that everything is fluid, everything is ambiguous, and we can only work with the info we have to draw conclusions. We may not want to draw conclusions. I did and I found mine.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:53:47 +0000

I don’t want to get in a long comment war (particularly when the other person can decide to delete my comment), but I think the distinction between “I think the conclusion is clear” and “the conclusion is clear” is minor. Obviously, we’re discussing opinions and either way you write it, your opinion is that the conclusion was clear. I acknowledge your right to have an opinion, but I disagree with it. My opinion is that the conclusion was ambiguous.

By: bnjoiner

bnjoiner — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:24:25 +0000

I wrote “I think the conclusion is clear” not simply “The conclusion is clear.” And I never said it wasn’t ambiguous. I said it wasn’t completely ambiguous.
It’s a logic puzzle, not a legal argument (see: “If you needed to see it, you’ll never be satisfied.”), because television has no defined rules. “Tony Soprano” is not alive or dead because he is not real.
On the bright side, I thought of all this as I was writing and tweaking it because I wanted it to be as provocative as possible without leaving me in the wrong.
But you’re wrong, nanny boo-boo.
Who said Simmons was an intelligent mind?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:17:22 +0000

The conclusion isn’t clear. If it was clear, all (most?) intelligent minds would agree. Simmons watched it eight times and concluded that he was “certain he didn’t get killed.”
According to m-w, the definition of ambiguous is: “capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways.”
Actually, that’s one of two definitions of “ambiguous,” so I guess even ambiguity is ambiguous.