The Sopranos Jumps the Shark

Did you see the final episode of the Sopranos last night? Are you as confused and disappointed as I am? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before: a great series waits to the very last episode, and almost to the last minute of the last episode, to conclusively, utterly, and completely jump the shark.1.

I kept thinking this has got to be a two hour episode because nothing important has really happened to any of the main characters yet. But nothing did. This was one of the single most boring episodes of the entire series. Despite the huge tension–you kept thinking someone had to get whacked sometime, especially after last week’s shooting gallery–the episode left us with a colossal case of television blue balls.


I suppose you could argue the “It’s all been a dream” finales of shows like the Newhart or St. Elsewhere pulled this off. However I always sort of liked those endings. After all, television is really just a dream when you get down to it.

4 Responses to “The Sopranos Jumps the Shark”

  1. robert Says:

    Well, I never watched the show. The family decided to go satellite, and I wondered whether HBO was included. It is. So, C-SPAN/BookTV finished up with about 10 minutes left in the hour, so what the heck…. Chase is a jerk. He was interviewed a LOT in the week leading up; presenting as very cerebral. No. Just a jerk. It’s his job to decide how the story ends. Unless, as is obvious, he’s left himself an out if his “movie” projects come a cropper. I won’t waste another 10 minutes. And, didn’t he “unend” the show before?

  2. St Elsewhere fan Says:

    St Elsewhere sites Rock!

  3. Bill Goggin Says:

    I liked the ambiguity. It reinforced that while mafia life might appear attractive in some ways, there’s always a sword hanging over their heads. At the end it would have been plausible for the blacked out scene to be of an assassin attacking Tony, the FBI bursting in to arrest him, Pauly turning on him, or his son turning on him, among others. We’re left with Tony condemned to sweat out all these possible outcomes.

  4. Augusto Says:

    The most likely outcome of that scene is that they finished their onion rings ordered some more food and went home as life goes on.

    People are also saying this shows how Tony always has to be paranoid and watch his back all the time, but I don’t think that’s what this is showing. The scene is to make *us* paranoid and then it just takes us out of the picture. Tony is not really even staring around too much, the camera is, we are, expecting something to happen and then it doesn’t.

    I don’t know how I feel about this ending, I get the whole “open ended” or life doesn’t have a “finale” thing, but it does seem a bit lazy to end it with such an abrupt cut. It feels a bit like a gimmick.

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