http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2099714,00.html
The Sopranos is over. So go see a therapist
Critics grieve for the show hailed as TV's pinnacle ... but will Tony
survive?
Robin McKie and Joanna Walters in New Jersey
Sunday June 10, 2007
The Observer
Marc Baron was putting a brave face on his future employment prospects
last week. Baron is the lead guide for one of New York's most
successful tourist enterprises - The Sopranos Tour - in which visitors
are taken round 45 locations used in filming the TV series The
Sopranos
Now, after 86 episodes, 18 Emmy awards and some of the most lavish
critical approval in TV history, The Sopranos - an everyday story of
Mafia folk - ends today. An expected audience of 10 million will watch
the final episode and find out if Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), the
psychologically tortured mob boss, ends up sleeping with the fishes.
Article continues
Then America will have to face a grim future without whackings,
infidelities, heists and family rows. 'This is Black Sunday,' said TV
chat show host Dave Cavett, writing in the New York Times
Baron is more sanguine. In the short term, business can only prosper,
he said last week. 'I've taken 20,000 people on this tour in the past
six years - and at least 50 per cent were visiting Brits. I had 24
businessmen from Wales the other day.'
Baron, who has been an extra in the series, takes groups to locations
that include the Skyway Diner, where Christopher Moltisanti was shot,
Big *****'s auto body shop, Satriale's pork store and, of course, the
Bada Bing strip club (real name Satin Dolls) where Tony Soprano runs
his criminal empire, arranges collections, has rivals killed, and
arranges sessions with his therapist, Dr Melfi.
Last week's episode left Tony facing insurrection. Will he survive or
will the series' creator David Chase kill him off? Given that half the
original cast of characters has been whacked since it began in 1999,
mostly on Tony's instructions, a similar fate for the Sopranos' boss
might seem fitting.
However, the show has thrived on its unpredictability, Chase having
consistently avoided neat denouements. This makes it hard to forecast
tonight's ending, though bookies have Tony 1-to-3 on to survive while
the odds on his being whacked are 2-1 against.
In fact, three finales have been filmed and Chase is saying nothing
about his choice. Sydney Pollack, the film-maker (Tootsie, Out of
Africa) who appeared once, believes the series will end in tragedy.
'Something bad is going to happen,' says Pollack, who expects to see
Tony die. 'I don't know, but I know that David Chase can be counted on
to do something that's bold and not safe.'
Certainly The Sopranos is a remarkable phenomenon, somehow persuading
viewers to feel warmth to a loathsome set of characters. In one
episode Tony's henchman Paul Walnuts (Tony Sirico) butchers another
hood merely for insulting a dead friend. A couple of episodes later,
he admits he is seeking professional help for emotional problems.
'Right now, we're working on my copying skills,' he tells startled
mobsters.
And another occasion, having just kicked a man to death, Tony attends
a therapy session with Dr Melfi and finds a bloody tooth still stuck
to his cuff. Calmly, he flicks it off.
Much of this has been achieved by making a virtue of the unexpected,
the macabre and the bleakly comic. 'Having to make do without any new
episodes of what, in the fullness of time, will be judged to be the
Mount Everest of television achievement is a chilling prospect,'
concluded Cavett in the NYT.
--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government
talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order.
Nothing has
changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,
we're
talking about getting a court order before we do so"
-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
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Putsch: leading America to asymetric warfare since 2001
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