So-PRA'-nos: (n)(pl)(It) A period of 86 hours spread over 10 years (8 seasons) at the end of which is revealed that there are no fat women who sing.Eighty-six episodes I committed myself to this hour. Eighty-six. I knew better than to expect ribbons and conclusions and what we used to call Closure. I had heard that HBO wouldn't cut off any future earnings by whacking the absolute core of a possible movie or spin-off. Dis Ting of Ours is nuttin' if not bizness savvy.
But I did have higher expectations for a series that soared above its own story lines for most of its life. Disproved was the notion that after 3 hours of Brando, DeNiro, Pacino, Caan and the other usual suspects mugging and cheap-shottting people, the vehicle would wear out and you'd be left with broken, bloodied, shells of people. It just ain't like that. Tony told us so.
Tony did therapy, for chrissakes! Carmela wallowed in Catholic angst just long enough to get her eyes on the grift from a spec house and off the rosary. Bless her heart. No sense in the one with the ziti getting left out in the cold. Meadow had every synapse firing to lend piercing intelligence, thwarted by her mother's "why bother" ascent to wealth, to the female underground role. Meadow's was THE original Sopranos character - underutilized as it was. And A.J. - the fuck-up from birth. Take away actor Robert Iler's brush with the law over the last couple of years and one wonders why Chase would even try introducing this character to post-adolescence in the final season. If there was an expendable family character - fatherly reflection or not - this was the one.
"Uncle" Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, one of Da Family's senior members, could never quite let his two parts Al Pacino veto his three parts Eva Gabor. Handed the world on a platter in the season finale, his prostate colors his mood on the offer. Perhaps the most annoying character on television - ever - but one of the great David Chase creations left fleshless in the story's unwinding. Tony's sister, Janice, while designed as a caricature and constant memory of their toxic mother, lost her bite when she found her ovaries. Or so we thought. What a deliciously conniving, entitled, self-important piece of work, that one. Alas, she's rendered the other of the great original female characters pushed to the margins in a march toward, evidently, nowhere.
We understand that the new rule is "No Rules" for finales. If you have rules, you lessen expectations, your viewership may suffer (after 86 episodes over 8 years), and the advertising dollar you command for that final hour is knee-capped by predictability. But this ain't TV, as they remind us on the hour. It's HB friggin' O. What advertisers? Tell the freakin' story, already!
We don't have to know that Carmela finds a lump in 2019 or that Meadow marries more times than Liz Taylor. We don't necessarily care whether A.J. had a mob-enabling revelation as he watched his SUV burn, but a peek is nice. Whither Silvio Dante? Dr. Melfi? Once off the schedule, you're literally... off... the schedule? Look, we know Ms. Bracco isn't really a therapist. She's an actress. Melfi is a character. Don't go all literal on us now and call us names for being naive. We're the ones who sat here and watched her fall for him, cross all the boundaries, then pretend like nothing happened. Is Janice's star still on the ascendant? What does Uncle Junior know about the money he may or may not have that Janice may or may not be trying to scrounge? And is he realllly crazy? Does Ginny Sacrimoni get so large in her grief that she literally explodes like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float or does she re-appear in a couple of seasons in a size 6 looking like Eydie Gorme? Are Chris and Adrianna dead-dead? Or are they TV dead? And if they're TV dead, are they Six Feet Under TV Dead or are they Dallas TV Dead?
I am not so disappointed that I don't know what happened when Meadow hit the diner's front door in the series' finale. I am in deep mourning, however, for both the sublime and the infernal mark The Sopranos will leave on television series-making. This program was among the first to test audience loyalty with the Will They or Won't They proposition of shooting sixteen episodes and seeing who cares next year. Feed them some re-runs. Tease them with a new season beginning at month eight. Let the Internet jabber do its part to keep interest and speculation alive. Then use all of the above to throw damn near anything at the wall the following season. For sixteen weeks. Then let the next 36 weeks be about how worth the wait might have been. Rinse. And repeat.
We see it now on network TV. ABC (Another Bad Comedy) tried its best to bury Lost that way. Episodic drama relies on the pull from one moment to the next to spur our continued investment in the story. The ensemble network TV drama does not have the luxury of jerking around its ever-dwindling audience the way pay-television (HBO) does. Whether another HBO customer watches John From Cincinnati or not, they will make their money. If The Italian Job had been heavier on story - even as a brief movie - you wouldn't remember the Mini Coopers first when you think of it and it would be a better product. Because The Story Is The Thing.
HBO has stories in spades. This network cuts short series that had another good five years in them because no American audience could ever endure the twin tasks of thinking and escaping simultaneously (Carnivale, Rome). It knows how to let audiences down easy with fanfare, good-bye kisses, balloon bouquets and taffeta... lots and lots of taffeta when the story has been told (Sex In The City, Six Feet Under). It knows how to whack a series with as much courtesy as a butcher with a pork chop (Deadwood, anyone?) when it has buggies-full of story left. And it apparently knows how to blow an ending that even non-fans watched out of morbid curiosity.
The complaint is not closure. The cry is not "MORE!" although there is much left on the table. We're not ignorant of artistic device, dangling participles, unopened doors, cliff-hangers or creator's prerogative. We just expected more from the people who turned mob life inside out and proved there are insides. We stand and whistle for these artists who took on caricatures and made them three-dimensional, but not more sympathetic. Our insight into their hearts did nothing to excuse their choices - a novel story-telling device if ever there was one. "If you knew me, you would love me," became, "Hey, babe... even when you know me... I gotta tell ya.... ". Pure character genius.
People with this much creative talent had more within them than thumbing their nose at convention. They had much for which to apologize (what with the 9 month annual hiatus concept and all). They had 8 seasons and God-Only-Knows how many hours of time to think about where this might go. What might the statement be? What's the perfect ending - not for Tony or The Family - but for this artistic gem that will absolutely be among the Top Fifty TV Series of All Time?
Top 50? No Top 10? They told you this when you were nine, bay-bee.... The story's got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can leave out any part you want, as the author, but it will absolutely affect your grade. Any guy will tell you: Buying flowers is cool, buying dinner is fun, the movie is delightful, the dancing is a ball, and the drinks are the best. But at the end of the date if you don't offer up something resembling a kiss, we're going home to think less of you.
And youse can take that to Satriale's.
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