‘‘Fill in the blank,’’ Chase seemed to be saying to us. ‘‘It’s up to you. If you want Tony Soprano punished for a life of murder, adultery, and narcissism, imagine gunshots and blood spatter. If you want Tony saved, save him.’’
Throughout the series, ‘‘The Sopranos’’ has toyed with viewers’ feelings about whether or not Tony could be redeemed — a mission that his psychiatrist Dr. Melfi gave up on last week when, in an emotionally violent scene, she told Tony to leave her practice. Last night, Chase allowed each of us to make our own decision about the ultimate fate of his controversial antihero.
One strength of ‘‘The Sopranos’’ is the way it forced us to think. The show never spelled out its plot lines, its characters’ motivations, or its moral questions. It never pampered viewers with easy answers; it egged us on to analyze and project. And so the finale, while mysterious, was true to the series as a whole. Rather than an ending that would stop the conversation about Tony Soprano, Chase gave us an ending that will keep us talking.
The last minutes of the episode appeared to be building up to a classic mob hit in a restaurant. As Tony and his family gathered one by one for dinner, strangers in the restaurant began to look suspicious. The suspense accumulated beautifully. The sheer ordinariness at the table — Tony picking out music on the jukebox, A.J. ordering onion rings — became unnerving as we waited for action. As Meadow struggled to park, the tension was unbearable. And then: nothing. Just another Soprano dinner? Or the end of the line?
