I wanted to go ahead and throw my two cents into the big Sopranos backlash. What we seem to have here is a case of double-backlash. I will explain in due time.
Each season The Sopranos follows a familiar pattern. There is the long build-up featuring Tony and whatever organization, person, or family he is fighting with during that period of time. And this build-up leads to a violence-filled, explosive next-to-last episode of the season. And then as we reach the finale of each season it's as if the air has been let out of the balloon a bit too early.
Alan Sepinwall said it best on his blog when he deduced that David Chase uses the season finales as a time of reflection.
So, why did so many fans expect something different this time? Was it because it was the final episode ever? I guess...but how quickly the average fan forgets last weeks episode in which Bobby and Sil were gunned down. It was probably the best episode ever. The episode, titled "The Blue Comet" was probably my favorite one ever.
So my guard was up going into the finale. I fully expected a let down. The fact that Chase treated us to Phil Leotardo's skull crushing death was an added bonus. Yes, the abrupt ending had me checking online immediately to see if my TiVo had blinked, but I felt like I had been paid off enough.
The final scene was perfect in so many ways. The family sitting around the table eating. If the Soprano family did anything right, it was eat. Tony spent over half of his scenes during the run of the show at the dinner table or in his kitchen. This was the only place to end the series. The suspense that Chase built was monumental. My heart was racing and I was even forced to sit up in my bed. No, he didn't pay off that suspense, but he couldn't because he was trying to prove a point.
And that leads me to the double backlash. No one feels more frustrated to have been a Sopranos fan than me, but I know that I am not alone. Sometimes waiting between seasons for over a year was too much to deal with. It wasn't fair at all. The excruciating time between episodes was worse than going 7 months each year without football. But because the show was so amazing and we loved the characters so much we always came back to HBO when the Soprano family came back. We were loyal to David Chase to a fault. I even excused the episode titled "Christopher," which was the worst episode of any show in the history of television. It was this loyalty that lead to so many fans feeling like the reward of such patience was going to be the ultimate payoff, whether it be Tony's death, his entrance into witness protection, or him being sent off to jail.
Not being paid off with anything other than "life goes on, Tony may die, he may go to jail, or he may live happily ever after" has created a huge wave of anger.
But that's only half of the backlash. The other involves David Chase. He wanted to end this show after 5 seasons. He has taken Tony and the gang as far as he wanted. But HBO wasn't ready to seem them go. The fans cried and showed their outrage. So Chase was given more money and he was ultimately talked into staying. But this was no longer on his own terms. And by ending the show so ambiguously he managed to get one final "fuck-you" off to HBO, The Fans, and the actors that begged him to let the show live. Basically he said "you mess with my family, you pay." What a perfect ending after all.
OUT
No comments:
Post a Comment