Sopranos Fans Whack Show’s Creator In The End
SOPRANOS creator David Chase guessed fans would be out to whack him after the final episode of the series screened Sunday. That’s why he skipped the country and headed for his villa in the south of France.
[Spoiler warning: If you don’t want to know how the series ends, stop reading now.]
In the final episode of the series that has run for eight years, Tony and the family sit down to eat in a New Jersey ice cream parlor peppered with menacing characters. As the tension reaches a crescendo the screen fades to black.
Minutes after the credits rolled, the HBO website crashed under a torrent of 364,000 page view requests a second.
The very next day Tony’s mug graced the front of the New York Daily News beside the headline “One Whacky Ending” while inside the paper whined about the finale that was “Not All It Is Whacked Up To Be.”
Chase’s decision to leave the Sopranos family’s fate unresolved may have been a stroke of genius for some fans, but the majority felt it was a cop out.
Today the New York Post printed a selection of reader emails that included suggestions David Chase “deserves to be whacked” and threats to cancel HBO subscriptions. “I thought that was the worst ending to a series that I have ever seen in my life,” one viewer wrote.
Others were more positive, like the fan who emailed, “It took b***s to just go blank…It definitely left me wanting more.”
The Associated Press found a similar mixture of feelings when it took a video camera out on the streets of New York.
As for the meaning of the fade to black, Chase says he has “no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there.” Before fleeing to France, he gave an exclusive interview to the Newark Star-Ledger in which he said: “No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God. We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people’s minds or thinking, ‘Wow, this’ll (tick) them off.’
“People get the impression that you’re trying to (mess) with them, and it’s not true. You’re trying to entertain them.”
Daily News columnist David Bianculli argues that the messy ending continued a theme that ran throughout the Sopranos: “That’s what life is like, Chase always has insisted. Things don’t end neatly, or resolve expectedly.”
As for the fans who say the finale ruined the entire series, Bianculli says: “A.J. reminded Tony, at the final dinner scene, that he had once told A.J. to concentrate on the good times. When remembering “The Sopranos,” viewers angry at the finale might want to take that advice to heart.”
Posted: 12th, June 2007 | In: Reviews Comments (16) | TrackBack | Permalink
