Sopranos Blogging

Matt’s argument here can be engaged with on a couple levels. Certainly, there’s no question–even granting that it generally takes at least 2 viewings to sort these things out–that this season has been the weakest by a significant margin, and I’ll even concede that for the first time The Sopranos is somewhat inferior to Deadwood (or at least Season 2, which pace Matt is much superior to the fine first season) and The Wire, although the atrocious dream sequence aside it still towers over any drama on network TV.

As for the claims that the finale was “criminally terrible” of that “the writers have just totally lost respect for both their audience and their product and they’re basically just mocking us for watching at this point,” this is just silly. This ain’t 24 we’re talking about here; it remains an entertaining, very well-written and marvelously acted show. I would again concede the limited point that the finale wasn’t really a satisfying finale qua finale (although this has also been true of other seasons); one problem with the dream sequence was that it wasted two episodes, and this one did feel more like a setup for a conclusion than the conclusion itself. On its own terms, though, it was a terrific show. It was strong throughout, and two of the scenes–AJ’s bike bribe, and Carmine’s catastrophic sitdown–were minor Sopranos classics. (The latter scene did, however, clarify for me one thing missing from this season: Philly was useful as a thug, but as a boss he’s much less interesting than Johnny Sack or even Carmine Sr.) And while I agree that Chris’ relapse was the least interesting plot line, even there dramatization of the fact that he’s willing to risk his life for an affair even though if he gets the drugs he couldn’t care less about the sex was compelling and a logical character development.

The penultimate episode was also very good. It did (like, as I think Matt pointed out, Carmela visiting Melfi early in the season) provide an example of the show making more network-level compromises, providing screen time to characters whether the story demands it or not. Overall, the episode was a brilliantly structured example of various forms of bad faith; first, the comic version of AJ explaining that he stole from Blockbuster for environmental purposes, then the superb, bitter sequences with Tony’s corkscrew logic trying to convince himself about the killing of Vito (“If he wanted to pursue that lifestyle he should have kept it quiet.” “Wasn’t he?”), shifting between economic and homophobic rationales. And then there’s the dinner scene with Rosalie and Carmela, in which they engage in a discussion of Jackie Jr. pregnant with the knowledge that they probably know why he died but would prefer not to. (And, of course, we also remember who pulled the trigger on Jackie.) The problem with the latter, though, was that it was the only useful part of the absurdly distended trip to Paris, which was pretty clearly a “give Carmela 15 minutes” storyline that served no useful purpose. And there’s no question that these kinds of duff sequences, so rare in the first 3 seasons, were a lot more common in this one. But we’re talking about the distance between “very, very good” and “great,” not anywhere close to intelligence-insulting terrible, and while the season took way too long to get started it actually finished pretty well.