Toph Speaks

OK, it’s over. I’m trying to come to terms with it, but to be honest it still hurts a little.

I want to start by both praising and slighting HBO. The commercial that lead up to the series finale was amazing. If you didn’t see it, then I suggest hitting the YouTubes immediately. I want to say that HBO has continued to bring in when it comes to brilliant television. They have arguably had some of the best television that we’ve ever seen. I’m even including Sex in the City when I say this, because whether you want to admit it or not, that show was brilliant. Now, I don’t understand what they’re doing. How many new shows does a movie network need? Sadly, I’m not really pumped about any of them. I guess for now I’ll be sticking with Entourage and that’s all.

So, with that said, let’s get into shall we? I’ve decided to start with the ending, since it’s all that everyone seems to be talking about anyways. Plus, I’m not sure if I will make my way to the beginning considering I have to work, and I’d like to get this blog out as soon as I can. I thought that the final scene was everything I need for closure. I’ve never seen a group of fans so torn about a show. Even Seinfeld didn’t go through this much scrutiny (this may or may not be true). What the final scene showed me is that no matter what happens Tony has made his cake and will eat it too. Meaning – This is the life he has chosen. He will constantly be on the defensive, and despite what happens personally he will always be on the lookout for the guy who is there to kill him. We all have problems, right? That was the significance of that final scene. Life moves on, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. If you wanted the blood bath, then you have been watching the wrong show. We all knew Tony would survive, and that wasn’t what was important. A lot of people were ready to see him die, and move on with their lives. I think those people are stupid. The blackout ending was priceless. How can you give a definitive ending to a show like that? I’ve been reading the Sports Guy chat on ESPN.com this morning, and one of the readers caught something that I completely forgot. In case you’re not reading here it is, “Dan (Mount Laurel, NJ): When Tony and Bobby were fishing in this year’s season premiere, Bobby asked Tony how he thought it all ended. Tony’s answer? “It all goes to black.” I don’t think he got whacked either, mostly because I have no idea who’s left to order the hit, but I don’t see how having Meadow come in and sit down and having Tony continue to look up every time the door opened would be any less effective.” With that said, it all makes perfect sense, and it’s wonderful foreshadowing by David Chase. A lot of people are arguing that Tony was killed because of the guy headed to the bathroom. This is taken from a scene in Godfather. I don’t remember the particular scene, because it’s been a while since I’ve seen Godfather, but Tony didn’t die. I agree that if they were going to lead us in that direction, then we would have seen the guy come out of the bathroom. Since we didn’t it would be stupid to believe that this was the case.

I like how quickly AJ turned around. Give the kid something to do, and suddenly everything is fine. That chick was pretty hot, too. Too bad AJ couldn’t seal the deal. It made me only slightly queasy when we found out she was a junior in High School. But, so it goes. If you’ve noticed, I’m waiting to talk about Meadow. We’ll get to her in a second, I promise. The only problem I had with last night’s episode was that I did not know whether or not Sil was OK. The guy has played such a huge part in the whole series, I hated leaving without knowing. Now, I’ll assume he was fine, because he didn’t look bad in the hospital, but I would have liked knowing.

Phil’s death had to be one of my favorite deaths of all time. I YouTubed it, but HBO has taken it down for copyright’s reasons. I still haven’t gotten over the noise from his head being crushed under the tires. Phil’s problem was that he got lazy. He allowed himself to be tracked down, and suffer the best death ever. I’m happy about it. I have always hated Phil. Stupid, Phil. He had to know that was coming, right? I mean, you don’t murder the #2 and #3 guys and expect to live through it. It’s just bad taste. Switching gears a bit, I was happy about the final moment with Uncle Junior and Tony. It was a nice scene, and I liked that Tony was finally at piece with Junior. I don’t have much more to say about it.

What happens next? ABC finds a way to convince David Chase to give Meadow a spin-off. She is too hot to not have a weekly show. What we do is take her and put her in law school. We follow her in law school, and well into her career. The show is called Meadow (or whatever). It’s a cross between The Sopranos and Grey’s Anatomy. I’m sure we could probably get Taye Diggs to be one of the professors. Who wouldn’t watch this? By the way, if I were with Meadow, she’d never have to parallel park again. I’m just saying…

One last thing about the ending, the song was perfect. When Tony was looking through the Jukebox and selected Journey, you knew everything was going to be OK. I don’t know why, but I was blissfully happy about the song choice, and the ending. Hell, I’m still giddy about it. I’ll watch it a few more times before I delete it on my TiVo.

Well, that’s about all I wanted to say. I’ll miss The Sopranos. Possibly the best show ever on TV. Too far?

Sopranos Updated: I read this over at Deadspin.

“So here is what I found out. The guy at the bar is also credited as Nikki Leotardo. The same actor played him in the first part of season 6 during a brief sit down concerning the future of Vito. That wasn’t that long ago. Apparently, he is the nephew of Phil. Phil’s brother Nikki Senior was killed in 1976 in a car accident. Absolutely Genius!!!! David Chase is truly rewarding the true fans who pay attention to detail.

So the point would have been that life continues and we may never know the end of the Sopranos. But if you pay attention to the history, you will find that all the answers lie in the characters in the restaurant. The trucker was the brother of the guy who was robbed by Christopher in Season 2. Remember the DVD players? The trucker had to identify the body. The boy scouts were in the train store and the black guys at the end were the ones who tried to kill Tony and only clipped him in the ear (was that season 2 or 3?).”