The Sopranos

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Anyone?
I just finished the series recently, and I was blown away by how good it was. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to get around to watching it

Yep, great series. Confusing ending, though.

A number of Goodfellas actors, too.

Personally, I have always found the show to be one-note, shallow and soulless. Like fast food, too much filler and not enough substance. Compared to the real-life mafiosos of Goodfellas and Casino, Tony and his peers were caricatures who, for the most part, remained static all throughout the series; there was no real, palpable character development to speak of. The logistics of organized crime were conveniently glossed over in favor of redundant, boring family drama (centered around a household of sociopaths, mind you) and interpersonal conflicts that I couldn't care less about. The murders were few and far between. No big risks were taken, not even during the finale. And unlike the two aforementioned Scorsese classics, there were no underlying poignant messages that I could relate to.

I could think of far, far worse ways to pass the time. But then again, I could be watching Breaking Bad instead...

(Props to the actors though, especially James Gandolfini. Surely not a healthy role to maintain...)

Last edited by Extrication on 26 Aug 2016, 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I loved The Sopranos! And that's uncharacteristic of me, because I'm not a fan of watching violence or horrible, morally bankrupt characters - yet this show was made so darn well. Everything about it was superb -- the acting performances, the script, the photography, direction, music soundtrack. Each episode is like watching a really high quality indie film, packed with atmosphere and commitment.

I also love Breaking Bad for the same reasons -- so superbly well-made.

I loved the ambiguity of the ending It took me a bit of online searching to piece together exactly all details, but the options seem to be that either he was killed at the restaurant, the hit presumably being ordered by Patsy Parisi. Or that otherwise, even though the story we're being shown is over, he's still living his life with such necessary paranoia that even a mundane family outing can seem laced with danger and suspicion. So no matter what happens, there really is no possible happy ending for Tony because of the choices he's made, which I think was the intention of how it ended.

^Point taken, but I still prefer closure.

I watched the series when it was on television.
I often wonder how things would have turned out.


dkraps95

I did not watch much of the series, but enjoyed what I saw. I will say, I think the ending is brilliant. It's like Norman Rockwell on film. I never understood those who felt it was ambiguous and a cheat. The show treated its viewers like they were intelligent, and the viewers should have been thankful for that.

I can get how the casual viewer might feel "cheated" by the ending, but the show kind of had a lot of storytelling shenanigans like that throughout its run (like occasionally having episodes that were almost entirely dream sequences XD) So I don't know if it would have felt right to end it in a more traditional way. It's like you said, it seemed to acknowledge the intelligence of the audience in that regard.