The Sense of an Ending


In his post on The Sopranos, Dennis commented that “the longer a TV series runs, the tougher it is to end.” I think Dennis is basically right about this point. As TV series develop increasingly complex story worlds, it becomes increasingly difficult to provide any satisfactory closure for those worlds. Because a number of shows I like–The Sopranos, Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica, and Veronica Mars–have ended their runs, while others, such as Lost, have announced endpoints, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the different potential models for TV storytelling. And, of course, Jericho fans who demanded that their series continue raised the bar in terms of narrative closure.

In his discussion of the cancellation of The Gilmore Girls, Michael Newman cites Jason Mittell’s concept of “the infinity model” of television storytelling, the idea that “fans want their favorite shows to be love affairs that last forever and a day.” As Jason and Michael explain, series are increasingly operating under models of a limited series that provide fans with a clearer sense of a general narrative arc, an approach modeled in Ronald Moore’s announcement that Battlestar has reached its final act. In a similar sense, fans have been able to watch the final season of The Sopranos with the knowledge that the series will soon reach a conclusion, a sense of anticipation that was only amplified by the number of discussion boards, spoiler sites, and other fan videos–most famously the Seven Minute Sopranos vid–devoted to the series. In my case, I stumbled across a video recording of the filming of the final scene outside Holsten’s when Meadow is parking her car, and part of my anticipation for the finale was whether this scene made the final cut of the show.

And I think those questions about series closure make the final episode of The Sopranos all the more compelling. During the final scene, in which Tony and his (nuclear) family meet for dinner in Holsten’s, Chase beautifully uses suspense cues to play with our anticipation of the ending of the show–and possibly of Tony’s career (or more). Most of the people on the discussion boards I’ve skimmed have expressed disappointment at what has been described as the show’s “life goes on” final scene, but I think the ending is fitting, not simply because life goes on–that’s obvious–but because of the life that Tony finds himself living during that final scene. Because of all of the suspense cues–Meadow can’t parallel park her car, the mysterious guy at the counter in the diner–we become acutely aware of Tony’s situation, the fact that he’s constantly aware of potential threats. But also the scene suggests that everything he’s done to provide for his nuclear family has also potentially put them at risk. The denial of closure during that final sequence–I believe–worked really well. In fact, any other form of artificial closure–Tony getting arrested or killed, a family member getting killed–would have rung false.

Like Dennis, I loved the decision to cut to a black screen, the fact that countless audience members thought, for a split second, that their cable had gone out at precisely the end moment of the show. The series has often explored the degree to which audience members are implicated in Tony’s violence, passive viewers of Tony’s actions, often accepting his crimes in ways that might have been unimaginable only a few decades ago, and I even think that A.J.’s brief flirtation with joining the military, the scenes featuring him watching Iraq War news on television, might also be commenting on what audiences have come to accept on their television sets (and while A.J.’s politics are completely incoherent, his brief recognition that his comfortable life depends on the exploitation of others was compelling).

I typically resist handing out superlatives (Best Show Ever!), but I think a careful examination of the final episode will reveal that the final episode comments not only on Tony’s extreme realization of the American Dream, especially as it is realized in his desire to provide for his nuclear family, but also on our investment in that Dream. At the same time, the ending left us wanting more, wanting to invest further in Tony’s story. Dennis and others have mentioned rumors of a feature film, and I’m ambivalent about that. Obviously, studios could have an economic motivation for revisiting these characters while fans might be able to gain the narrative closure that a feature film offers. But while I’d love to follow these characters, I feel like David Chase has taken them about as far as he can, and that scene in Holsten’s depicts the precariousness of Tony’s version of the Dream as well as anything I’ve seen.

Note: I wrote a draft version of this entry on my personal blog, The Chutry Experiment.

Note: here’s the ending:

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June 11th, 2007
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Viewing 22 Comments

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    Hi Chuck, I agree with the assessment that fans always seem to want their favorite shows to go on forever and a day. I'm fans of all the shows (save the Sopranos b/c I don't get HBO) you mentioned, and was relieved about all of their endings. Gilmore should have ended two seasons ago, or at least when the Pallandinos left. Veronica was a bittersweet ending, so much right with that show but it didn't always measure up. And Battlestar I'm really relieved is ending. It truly feels like it will be a whole entity, not something being milked to death. I love that show, don't get me wrong, but having it end will seem right.
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    Claire, I couldn't agree with you more about Gilmore Girls. I liked the final scenes of the last episode, but the last season of the show simply wasn't that strong.
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    Chuck,

    That was most excellent. I enjoyed this episode as much as any and am satisfied with the ending. That's the superlative I think best describes it: satisfying.
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    For my money, Cheers had the best ending of any modern television series (and I was a semi-fan, not aregular). "We're closed" was perfect ending - and the spin-off was a rip-snorter. That's the way to do it.

    Suck-o endings:
    Seinfeld
    MASH
    Twin Peaks (long over)
    Crime Story (cliffhanger - cancelled over summer)
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    For all the "life is like that" justifications for the failure to tie up story lines, I'd note that this most recent season didn't even have many interesting story lines to tie up.

    The whole approach to the finale struck me as contemptuous of the audience. I mean that in a very speicific way: for example, like an old rocker playing only his new stuff. You can say he's giving his audience credit for being up to his newer, more complex material, or you can say he's being contemptuous of their desire to hear his hits. More often, I think it's the latter.

    Once you've decided to subject your audience to the absurd sort of "extended hiatus followed by directionless return" that the Soporanos has been implementing over the last several years, a conclusion like this is, at least, internally logical.
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    I agree with the “extended hiatus followed by directionless return” take on this year. It lost me.

    I predicted in the comments on an earlier post that the series would purposely meander off and it did. Sadly, Ihave to disagree with the majority opinion here - I think Chase, Gandolfini and Co. were in full Roger Clemens mode - they pretended it was all about the art ("another ring"), but it was about the money.

    Unlike Deadwood - which was a crime to kill.
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    Tom K, I think I experienced the extended hiatus differently because I watched the show primarily on DVD, and I have to wonder whether DVD and other factors might not be changing the lives of shows. In a sense, the show never completely dies because it is readily available on DVD--which is quite a bit different than waiting for episodes, often presented in random order, on syndication. But I imagine that series DVDs may change the lives of TV series in complicated ways.

    I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that the show was made for the cash, but I can't really blame Chase, Gandolfini and others for that motivation. If the work sucks, I won't follow, but this past season continued to interest me, if not on a specific story level, in terms of how individual characters (A.J., Christopher) were explored.

    I'm intrigued by your rock band analogy, Tom K, and while I don't feel the need to defend Chase's approach to the story's end, I do think that a number of common themes were revisited in new ways (especially when it came to the nuclear family). But I have a hard time believing that Chase could have "contempt" for his audience, given the amount of money he's made off of us over the years.

    Tom W, the Cheers ending is one of my favorites, too.
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    Tom K, Salon has a write-up of the Sopranos finale and Heather Havrilesky thinks that the ending might have been a big f-you to watchers as well.

    http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2007/06/11/sop...
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    Yeah, as she says:

    Chase really does have the last laugh, here, making us pick apart lyrics to a Journey song, for Christsakes.

    Indeed! The episode was the big middle finger...
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    Maybe he just wanted to pay tribute to the "Godfather" saga by ending with a really lousy product.

    But no, I'll stick with my view that the roots of this can be found much earlier, in the "now that I've got your attention, wait around a few years till I feel like giving you a few more episodes" attitude.
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    Hi Chuck
    I'm not clear how the assessment works?could u plz leave more details?
    i'll appreciate if so
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    M.A. Peel mentioned the Alan Sepinwall interview with Chase, but I just wanted to add it here as well, because I think it reinforces my point that Chase isn't contemptuous of his audience at all, as he explains in the interview.

    In fact, like M.A., I think Chase is showing tremendous faith in his audience by offering two of the more memorable final scenes in recent TV history (see her entry on this). Sorry to belabor this a bit, but I do think the final scenes offer closure even while keeping Tony alive ("the movie goes on and on...").
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    I know I'm far from the only one to raise the "contempt for the fans" issue, but I would like to clarify what I meant by it.

    I didn't mean that there is a subjective contempt, in the sense of "I'm gonna jerk these folks around." Rather, as in the analogy to the rock star, it's more like, "I'm gonna do what I want", with the unstated and perhaps unconscious subtheme being, "without regard to what they want, 'cause I'm not here to entertain *them*".
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    Intention is definitely complicated business. I don't think that Chase intends the contempt you describe, but you're right that it could be manifested textually in the way that the final season was put together.

    Another thing to take away from the interview is that Chase was operating within the constraints presented by HBO in terms of how many episodes he was asked to produce and how that informed certain storylines.

    Again, I'm not that eager to defend him, but I am interested in how this perception of Chase gained such traction.
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    Can I evolve my own opinion? I was talking with a colleague, and saying that the change in tone bewteen Tony entering the diner in his leather jacket, and the Tony sitting in his golf shirt at the table, is so strong, maybe something else is going on.

    I noted that Tony is smiling and relaxed. But it's more than that. He seems like the mild-mannered Ray from Everybody Loves Raymond. Is that who Tony really thinks he is? Is that whole scene in his head?

    Another colleague doubts it was a Mafia hit (besides the fact of who wanted him dead) because a mob hit is from the front, so you see who is killing you.
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    M.A., I like the comparison with Everybody Loves Raymond. After all, in what follows, he generally engages in friendly banter with Carm and A.J. (while they wait for Meadow to parallel park). The scene brings things back to the domestic dramedy that dominated many of the early episodes (and, oddly, while watching this scene, I kept thinking about all of the times that Tony cheated on Carm during this scene and how all of that seemed to be forgotten, at least briefly). But Tony as lovable lug dad is essentially the last image we see.

    The fast cutting worked against the sense of relaxation that you describe (at least for me). The quick cuts and furtive glances, underscored by the crescendoing Journey song, prevented me from fully relaxing. But I think that either reading (Tony dies or Tony lives) can still feed the main thematic point that I take from the scene: that everything Tony has accumulated and achieved, including the (temporary) family harmony is tenuous and contingent, that it could be taken away at any moment.
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    *Another colleague doubts it was a Mafia hit (besides the fact of who wanted him dead) because a mob hit is from the front, so you see who is killing you.*

    I think the point of view when the screen goes dark makes the "hit" scenario unlikely, but I would note that, if I recall the scene correctly, Phil L was taken out from the side, not the front, at roughly the angle the bathroom presented for the final scene.
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    Tom K, you're correct about the angle during Phil's assassination and about the relative angle between Tony and the bathroom.

    I'm still safely in the "Tony lives" camp, but that visual parallel is worth noting (as is the Godfather allusion). I think that the main reason I'm skeptical about there being a hit involved is that the feud with New York is supposedly over because Tony brokered a deal with Phil's underlings, at least as I understand that scene.
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    I think the shot came from the grassy knoll...

    Seriously, if Chase wanted to cap Tony as the ending, he would have. Now he gets the best of both worlds: fans obsessing whilst they build a market for a huge movie gross. He can make his choice when he wants to.
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    All good stuff, but I osdon't think we'll ever see anymore Sopranos episodes or movies. I don't think future revenue was the motive for his ending.
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    I think the ending was as close to invoking the spirit of "in media res" as it should have been. Most series start at a given point in the characters' lives, and move forward from there, with little narrative sidetrips into providing backstory (or not), so I think that's entirely justifiable to end a series in the middle of their story. Chase doesn't need to tie everything up for us, as life seldom does..I think Chase did the right thing by not trying to force an ending where there wouldn't be one, were Tony et al actual people.
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    Hi Mike. As my comments hopefully suggest, I'm basically in agreement with you on this point. In fact, I genuinely loved the ending.
 

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