Sopranos

[Larry Kart]

Here's my thought -- and because it came to me out of the blue, I guess I'm serious about it. Whatever else goes down, A.J. will save Tony's life, either by semi-accidentally getting in the way of the killer(s) and perhaps getting killed himself or by killing or deflecting them in some fit of rage/petulance or even chaotic farce while they and everyone else are ignoring his pathetic existence. (Remember his attempt to kill his uncle?) In any case, I'm fairly sure that Tony will survive, but in such a way that he and we might think he'd have been better off dead.

[marcello]

i can't imagine how the show can end satisfactorily with only 50 minutes left.

That's something I can agree with!

Watching this show give me flashes of deja vu. I grew up with a lot of these kind of people.

What the show gets, and misses half the time, is that these people are just lazy scumbags and not worth caring about. The guys that I knew are all either dead or in jail. The RICO laws put them all away for a long time.

A side note: David Chase is from my hometown of Rochester, N.Y.

Hometown Mobsters

More of My Hometown Mobsters

This is how one of the neighborhood boys ended up:

[ValerieB]

van zant said in an interview i read today that the ending is definitely controversial!! would we expect otherwise?!?

[Harold_Z]

The rumor mill has it that Chase shot at least 3 different endings.

Really...what ever happens will be controversial...at least among fans.

If Tony dies it's a bummer despite the fact that he is what he is. I'm hoping he survives. And I'm hoping Phil meets his demise. What a miserab.

So that would be the "happy" ending.

I've heard rumors to the contrary...BUT...Chase shot 3 endings.

I did think it strange that Phil gave Paulie a pass.

[Hot Ptah]

sorry i just edited my post but you had already said that.

this is what i meant.

i didn't mean any offense at all.

I took no offense.

[Hot Ptah]

Here's my thought -- and because it came to me out of the blue, I guess I'm serious about it. Whatever else goes down, A.J. will save Tony's life, either by semi-accidentally getting in the way of the killer(s) and perhaps getting killed himself or by killing or deflecting them in some fit of rage/petulance or even chaotic farce while they and everyone else are ignoring his pathetic existence. (Remember his attempt to kill his uncle?) In any case, I'm fairly sure that Tony will survive, but in such a way that he and we might think he'd have been better off dead.

And to continue my losing streak of predictions, here's how I think it happens. Everyone in Tony's Mob family of any consequence gets killed or defects over to Phil. Carmella, Meadow and A.J. all get killed somehow. The Feds take Tony into the witness protection program for helping them with the terrorists, and he is sent to a far off state to hide out in the guise of the salesman depicted in the dream he had after being shot by Junior.

[ValerieB]

The Sopranos by Dick Cavett

June 6, 2007, 8:22 pm

‘Sopranos’ Grief

I welcome any advice anyone has about a certain problem: How is a person

supposed to live without “The Sopranos”?

Last Sunday’s penultimate episode gave me a vivid nightmare. A woman I know

was unable to sleep at all after watching it. God knows what watching the

ultimate one will do this weekend, on what we the devoted think of as Black

Sunday.

The great David Chase, who created it all, decided to pull the plug on his

stately craft while her sails are still billowing, an action as rare in the

world of television as a sincere compliment. Or a program as good as “The

Sopranos.”

I’m glad it’s only a rumor that he has had to increase security for himself

against armed fans unable to accept the reality of the long-dreaded

terminus. How can we fan(atic)s of the show express our boundless gratitude

to Mr. Chase? Maybe we could all sign one huge “thank you” to him — a

Hallmark card the size of New Jersey. Were this Japan, Chase-san would have

long since been declared a Living National Treasure.

Accusations of name-dropping are bred of envy, and I felt it strongly toward

anyone who met or claimed to have met actors from the show — until, that is,

I met actors from the show. I came bounding home some years ago to announce

to my wife (the late Carrie Nye, an actress) that we could go to a party

where there would be members of the cast. She declined: “They’re such fine

actors, but I don’t want to know that they’re actors. I want them to remain

those people.”

Please resist envy, then, when I say that I have gotten to know and hang out

with the sinfully talented Michael Imperioli (“Christopher,” Tony’s problem

nephew, as well as the author of numerous episodes). Having dinner with him

(and his wife) had no effect whatever of the kind my wife refused to risk.

There he was, a day later, on the show: Christopher again. Moving, scary and

certainly no one I had ever met. The magic of acting.

This year, Michael got me onto the set and I was in hog heaven. Getting to

rub shoulders with cast members and lucky souls like wardrobe people and

best boys who got to be there every day, and magic names I knew from the

screen credits like Brad Grey — all of it a most heady experience. I stayed

long and late and left feeling like a kid coming back from the circus, with

nothing to look forward to but home and school.

I don’t know how to relate, nor what to say, to people who gave the show a

pass because they “didn’t want to see another crime show.” I suppose it’s

possible to lead a full life without ever having known what is meant by

“Bada Bing” or “Big Pussy” or “Uncle Junior” or “Dr. Melfi,” but I’m not

sure. I doubt that such willfully self-deprived souls would welcome my

sympathy. But, my God, what they missed. If I were artistic commissar it

would have been required viewing.

(I feel much sorrier for those who sampled it and found nothing to admire.

They are beyond hope.)

I gave DVDs of the show’s first season to a very intelligent, well-educated,

couple I know. They are high-toned people. They scorn television. To shut me

up, they agreed to watch at least part of the first show late one afternoon.

They tolerated, with a snicker, my suggestion that as in the potato chip

commercial, they couldn’t watch just one episode. They later confessed that

they barely moved as both dinner and bedtime came and went before they could

make themselves shut it off.

A special Emmy should be awarded for the casting. There was not a dud in the

carload. And no one was ever just a type. They were whole, intricately

complex people and we got to peer into their lives and personalities to a

degree I’ve never seen achieved before.

I don’t know enough about camera technique, cutting and editing skills to be

able to explain why the violence was, strange to say, better violence than

you get elsewhere. It was cruelly and sometimes repellently real. You got a

solid, visceral punch. Where else would a man, having stomped and kicked the

head of his victim, look down later during his therapy session and remove a

bloody tooth with some clinging gum tissue from his cuff? You wouldn’t say

it was funny, but it was handled in such a way that it was not entirely

unfunny.

Maybe the show’s trickiest accomplishment was the way it made characters

clearly deserving of hate be so sympathetic. You could not only find

yourself liking an evil character, but having fun feeling guilty about it.

How could you not feel a tug at your heart when a tough and disreputable

gangster, Pauly Walnuts (Tony Sirico), confesses to having sought

professional help? (“Right now we’re working on my coping skills.”)

I found it rewarding to watch each episode a second time. Subtleties of both

dialogue and acting were often missed on a single viewing.

I’m afraid, by the way, that I have no patience with pressure groups of the

kind that have arisen from time to time, wanting “The Sopranos” killed

because it gave a bad name to Italian-Americans; implying, they felt, that

all folks from Italy are gangsters. It doesn’t, of course, and couldn’t. But

it reminds me of when the same problem came up with the highly popular “The

Untouchables.”? Why, it was demanded, must all the crooks have Italian

names? Since the show dealt with real figures, it would have been a bit

silly to change Al Capone’s name to, say, Al Hollinshed. (A great comedy

writer, the late Jack Douglas, offered a solution. When asked about this, he

said, “Why not get the gangsters to change their names?”)

The fact that James Gandolfini wasn’t necessarily the first or only choice

for the role of Tony is scary. And Edie Falco has confessed that she almost

didn’t get the part of Carmela; not because she wasn’t good enough but

because she almost didn’t go to the casting appointment: “I’d been four

other places that day and I was tired and it sounded like a show about

singers and⋯.” As she admits, what she got was, simply, “the part of a

lifetime.”

Gandolfini and Falco. These two gifted actors created a classic dramatic

couple. I see them as no less than the Lunt and Fontanne of their particular

artistic world. (I can hear the uninitiated saying, “Get hold of yourself,

Cavett.” Let ‘em.)

Well, it’s nearly closing time in the gardens of New Jersey. The “Sopranos”

Web site is full of speculation by fans. Will Tony die in the final episode?

(If the show ends but he doesn’t, where does that leave him? And us?) Will

David Chase ever reveal the formula for such a smashing success? And could

it be as simple as: perfect writing, casting, acting, directing, costuming,

lighting and editing? And make-up?

Having to make do without any new episodes of what, in the fullness of time,

will be judged to be the Mt. Everest of television achievement is a chilling

prospect.

If only there were a rehab place to deal with us, the addicted ones. Or,

maybe, some kind of “Sopranos” Nicorettes?

[sal]

Nice article! Thanks for posting. No matter how much I bitched about last year's episodes to whoever would listen, this has still been the greatest television drama I've ever seen, and I'm sad to see it go.

[Harold_Z]

Nice article! Thanks for posting. No matter how much I bitched about last year's episodes to whoever would listen, this has still been the greatest television drama I've ever seen, and I'm sad to see it go.

WORD !

[catesta]

Nice article! Thanks for posting. No matter how much I bitched about last year's episodes to whoever would listen, this has still been the greatest television drama I've ever seen, and I'm sad to see it go.

True.

There has been enough good to cancel out the bad.

[ValerieB]

Actor reflects on last days as Tony Soprano

NEW YORK (AP) -- There was no decisive moment, no seismic shift, no ceremony when James Gandolfini put "The Sopranos" behind him. But he has. Comfortably.

"I was told that it would be a transition," he says and shakes his head. "Not much. It's very calming to move on."

Gandolfini, of course, had played gangster-in-therapy Tony Soprano -- earning raves, clout and unsought celebrity -- since the HBO drama premiered in January 1999.

Now there's only one piece of unfinished business. The finale, which airs Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT, will bring to a close a saga as powerful and oddly relatable as anything ever seen on TV. This conclusion, however

satisfying or disappointing, will surely leave "Sopranos" fans wanting more.

But not Gandolfini.

"The character has been with me for so long," he says, "it's a relief to let him go."

No wonder. For 86 episodes, Gandolfini submerged himself in that fiendish, tormented character. He channeled the dark world of "Sopranos" creator David Chase. He was regularly summoned to his own psychic danger zone. All in all, the experience was "wearing," he says.

There also was a physical toll. "The Sopranos" revolves around Tony, which meant Gandolfini had an exhausting workload.

"But in a way, being tired helped me play the character. If the guy had to look good and be handsome and happy, the hours we worked would certainly not help. They helped ME a great deal," he laughs. "I was allowed to be grumpy and tired and look like (crap)."

That was then. Whatever awaits Tony in the series-ender -- prison, death or some sort of escape -- Gandolfini has already laid him to rest.

Time after time, Gandolfini felt the end at Silvercup Studios in Queens, and on locations such as Tony's home turf of northern New Jersey. All during April, members of the large "Sopranos" cast would shoot their last scene with him, then leave forever. Then he'd shoot a last scene with another cast member, who would disappear.

"There wasn't any grand finale," he says.

Or was there? Gandolfini suddenly remembers his last scene alongside Steven Van Zandt, who since the beginning played Tony's loyal consigliere Silvio.

"This is no indication of my feelings toward anyone else, but, for some

reason, that really hit me when he left. Wow!"

Speaking to a reporter at HBO headquarters last week, Gandolfini, who

recently signed a production deal with the network, was taking a break from

screening footage for a documentary he's making about U.S. soldiers in Iraq

who recover from near-fatal injuries.

Dressed casually in short sleeves, chinos and running shoes, the 45-year-old

actor is down-to-earth and deferential, yet remains a formidable presence

even without Tony's cockiness and mobster cred. His voice, while

reflecting his New Jersey background, is richer, more robust than Tony's

astringent delivery.

Though famously press-shy ever since "The Sopranos" blindsided him with

stardom, Gandolfini has consented to this rare interview. Nursing coffee

from a foam cup, he shares nearly an hour in agreeable give-and-take, only

drawing the line when one too many questions delves into his acting

technique: "Oh, please! Who gives a (crap)!" he scoffs. "I'm sorry. I didn't

mean to be abrupt."

He misses no chance to deflect credit toward his colleagues.

"I might be in a lot of scenes, but the crew is in EVERY scene," he points out. "The crew is there 16 hours a day, every day.

"And the cast totally propped me up in many scenes. After three or four

scenes sometimes I was adrift, and because (the editor) could cut to such

other good actors, they were there to help me." 'I had Muhammad Ali'

It was a two-way street, according to Michael Imperioli, who played Tony's

hothead nephew Christopher, now dead (thanks to Tony's cold-hearted

intervention) after a car crash a few episodes ago.

"Every time you go and do a scene with this guy," Imperioli said at the

start of the season, "he manages to give 105 percent. That rubs off. That

makes YOU work harder."

"I had the greatest sparring partner in the world, I had Muhammad Ali," said

Lorraine Bracco, who, as Tony's psychiatrist Dr. Melfi, went one-on-one with

Gandolfini in their penetrating therapy scenes. "He cares what he does, and

does it extremely well."

Saying goodbye to the crew and his co-stars -- yes, that was hard,

Gandolfini concedes, even if saying goodbye to Tony wasn't.

Also hard: no more of those magnificent "Sopranos" scripts.

"Good writing will bring you to places you don't even expect sometimes," he

marvels, meaning himself, and how the material could catch him off guard and

take him somewhere new, even as he was performing it.

"It's a ride that I was along on, with everybody else," he says.

And like everybody else, he can't help feeling appalled by Tony's brutish

misbehavior. After shooting a scene where Tony did something despicable,

Gandolfini would sometimes upbraid his own character.

"I would shake my head and say, God, what a [expletive]!" Whereupon he

helpfully substitutes his unpublishable outburst with a family friendly version: "What a jerk!"

So what's the truth? Does he like this jerk who was part of him for so long?

"I used to," he says. "But it's difficult toward the end. I think the thing with Christopher might have turned the corner." That was a soulless display: Fed up with his nephew's shortcomings, Tony pinched shut the nostrils of the

gravely hurt Christopher, ensuring he would choke to death.

But wait! Gandolfini thinks a moment, and more of Tony's recent misdeeds --

not homicidal, but clearly depraved -- come to mind: "Maybe the gambling

thing with Hesh. And maybe the thing with Tony Sirico (as Paulie Walnuts) on

the boat.

"It's kind of one thing after another. Let's just say, it was a lot easier to like him in the beginning, than in the last few years."

But back then, maybe it wasn't so easy for Gandolfini to like himself. Early

on, he felt a stronger kinship with Tony, mostly stemming from "that

infantile temper that I certainly possessed much more of when I was

younger."

Meanwhile, the writers fleshed out Tony by cribbing from Gandolfini -- in

particular, his temper.

"In the first year, maybe they would see that sometimes when I have anger,

it's very funny. So they go with that. When I break something, it's funny.

So they're gonna put it in again. And then I realize that I'm continually

breaking things. So then I'm getting more angry because I have to continue

breaking things. And then they decide, 'Well, we've broken enough (stuff).'

"It was a learning process for all of us, I think."

All in the service of David Chase's vision. Pantomiming the pull Chase

exerted over him (like everything on "The Sopranos"), Gandolfini playfully

hooks his index finger in the corner of his mouth as if he were a trout at

the end of Chase's line.

A decade ago, Gandolfini was certainly hooked when he read Chase's pilot

script. A little-known character actor in his mid-30s (and the son of

working-class parents who had grown up in Park Ridge, New Jersey), he knew

Tony was a role he was born to play. He also realized the cards were stacked

against a beefy, balding, little-known actor landing the role.

But four years earlier, he'd made a brief appearance in Tony Scott's comically bloody thriller, "True Romance": a two-fisted confrontation with its star, Patricia Arquette. That performance won him his audition for Tony.

"True Romance" was also Edie Falco's first peek at the actor with whom she

would be wed cinematically as Tony's wife, Carmela.

"I sort of knew the name James Gandolfini," Falco recalled. "Then I watched

the film, and he's in a scene where he beats the living daylights out of a

woman. I thought, 'Ohhhhhhh, OK. Welllll, let's see how THIS goes."'

And how did it go? "It was maybe the most perfect working relationship," she

said.

Now it's over. One concluding episode, shrouded in secrecy, remains to be

aired. The Soprano home has been struck from Studio X at Silvercup. And

Gandolfini, now done with Tony, is looking ahead to other roles, perhaps as

Ernest Hemingway in a film he's developing for HBO.

"I don't even think I've proven myself, yet," he says. "The Tony character

was from New Jersey, I'm from New Jersey -- there's not a lot of stretching

going on, here." Then he pauses, reconsiders, gives himself some credit. "In

some ways, there is." He shrugs. "In a LOT of ways.

"But I have yet to begin the fight, I think."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This

material may

not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Harold_Z]

Thanks again Valerie. Nice article.

[Harold_Z]

It's 2:44 Am. Tonight the series final is being premiered. I just looked on my Yahoo tv guide and saw that 135 people have apparently seen the show already and have given it a positive or negative rating.

The rating is 92% positive and 8% negative. From this I would deduce that Tony survives.

[AllenLowe]

sorry to ruin it for everybody, but just saw a preview and here's how it goes:

Tony gets hit; AJ whines so much that Phil Leotardo has him wacked as well; the Soprano family cat, Sprinkles, is tortured with a blowtorch so she'll tell where the rest of the family is, but unfortunately she coughs up a hair ball as her last breath instead of giving an address; Junior is caught fellating a chicken and is confined to his room; Melfi the shrink hears about Tony's death, puts on her old wedding dress, and goes into mourning for three years before deciding to marry the corpse; they live happily ever after in Scarsdale; her shrink Peter Bogdonavitch takes Ryan O'Neal as a partner and at their third session O'Neal strangles him; Farrah Fawcett becomes a series regular and partners with Carmela (who has moved West into the witness protection program) for a new series on a new mob now being run by women; its a screwball NBC comedy modeled after the old I Love Lucy Show, and the title is: "Mama Mafia: those Wacky Wacking Women of Wyoming."

almost forgot; Paulie Walnuts gets a job as an escort for a gay male escort service.

Edited June 10, 2007 by AllenLowe

[catesta]

It's 2:44 Am. Tonight the series final is being premiered. I just looked on my Yahoo tv guide and saw that 135 people have apparently seen the show already and have given it a positive or negative rating.

The rating is 92% positive and 8% negative. From this I would deduce that Tony survives.

I'm thinking you're right.

I can't remember the last time there was this much hype surrounding a series final episode.

Maybe Seinfeld?

Let the countdown begin.....

[Van Basten II]

What i enjoyed mostly from that series is instead of having etablished patterns in the way of telling stories, they always kept things fresh and you never knew what to expect story wise or how low can these characters go.

And how all these people including the civilians that support them in a way or another always find a way to justify their heinous actions.

To me this series is about our civilisation, on how in the name of so-called ideals, we have created a corrupted world where the ends justify the means.

Mister Chase, it was quite a ride.

Edited June 11, 2007 by Van Basten II

[BruceH]

In some ways, it almost lives up to The Rockford Files.

[Harold_Z]

In some ways, it almost lives up to The Rockford Files.

There was one episode on ROCKFORD where two New York mob hitmen were in LA.

These guys sat in a motel room and complained about the pizza in LA. "THIS PIZZA STINKS! as they thru a half eaten slice back into the box. (Not to be one up - but everybody in NY, NJ or LI KNOWS that pizza SUCKS everywhere in the world else. As does most Italian food.)

This episode had me laughing my ass off. I wish I could find it and see it agoian. I'm sure it was a Chase directed episode.

Well...less than an hour to go. I'm glued in place.

[Van Basten II]

Well, it was a controversial endind, heck i thought that the network carrying the HBO signal (The Movie Network), lost their feed.

Anybody wants to comment, i sure didn't see that coming.

[Harold_Z]

Well.. it'sa ballbuster ending from my pov.

As some have expected.............it's wide open for more.

Why kill the golden goose?

[sal]

The end was strange to me for a few minutes, but a little bit of reflection reveals that this is very much in line with the rest of the show...always throwing the audience a curve ball. Everyone was expecting an "ending", so what does Chase do? He doesn't end it. Kind of brilliant in a way.

[JSngry]

Life goes on...

This ain't life, it's a freakin' TV show, and some "closure" would be nice, but oh well, life goes on...

[Larry Kart]

Feh.

[Soulstation1]

i didn't think tony would get whacked

[Brad]

Stupid ending but Jim is right, life doesn't have neat endings, it just goes on.