What Happened To Tony Soprano?

"I finally got around to watching the much-debated Sopranos finale last night. I haven’t seen the show much in years; it’s brilliant and all, but I gave up around season four. Just had things to do, and the show got a little, I dunno, slow for a while. You know. But after all the hullaballoo, I decided to take a look again for myself.

After looking closely at the final episode, I’m reminded of people who left the film American Beauty wondering who had actually shot Kevin Spacey, just because face of the killer was offscreen when the trigger was pulled, despite the fact that his identity couldn’t have been clearer. This is a lot like that.

I should add, incidentally, that I was a TV writer myself for a while. Not a particularly accomplished one. Mostly small stuff nobody ever saw. I wrote for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for most of the third season, but I got tired of all the death, frankly. Some people might have loved the job, and the money was great, and I still like and respect the folks there for being so incredibly good at what they do, but it just wasn’t a good fit for me. Anyway, my point: not any claim to expertise -- which is minimal at the very most, I promise, and for you to judge, in any case -- but during the year of my life that I helped in modest ways to hang dwarfs, make parasailers go Icarus, and poison poker players with lead-filled candies, I saw first-hand just how meticulously the little details could be fussed over for the cameras – and that was on a show with a breakneck production schedule and no particular auteur nursing his vision through every single shot."

Tony got whacked.

Bob Harris presents a good argument at bobharris.com