Don't Stop Believin

"That's what you said once, right? Remember the moments that were good?" This line, delivered in the last minute of The Sopranos "Made In America," the TV show's final hour, referred to a different final Sopranos hour, "I Dream of Jeannie Cusimano," season one's finale.

Remember the moments that were good - a little whistful breath of nostalgic advice coming from writer/creator/"Made" director David Chase. "Made In America" has been cited in the last 24 hours as the most frustrating hour in The Sopranos history, the "worst TV finale since Seinfeld," as a dig on the show's fans, as a way for Chase to "call attention to the show's creator rather than the characters." That last quote, by writer Jay Woodruff, said he would have preferred an "even quieter ending. would've been happier, I think, to have the camera pull back on the family snarfing down onion rings in the charming dive — with the emphasis on the characters in all their fully compromised glory, rather than on some jarring effect." That jarring effect? Tony, Carmela, and AJ sit at Hobart's, eating onion rings, listening to every last word of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." The camera observes every USA hat-wearing face in the diner staring at the family as Meadow fails to parallel park outside and nearly gets hit by a car. The scene sets you up for a tense hail of bullets, especially in the face of one mysterious face at the counter who follows AJ in and then hits the bathroom just before Meadow enters, and the camera and sound cuts just at the final "Don't Stop" of the chorus. And then...?

In a report for Entertainment Weekly discussing watching the finale in a gathering of The Sopranos massive cast, Sharon Angela, who memorably played Rosalie Aprile, sad, hardened, widow of pre-Tony boss, Jackie Aprile, described the finale as excellent, or, "I think the ending is David Chase at his finest... It's not typical predictable dumb shit."

No, no it was not. In fact, I have to wonder if the amount of anger about the finale, the amount of web space, coffee shop discussion, and publication writing debating just how much David Chase has extended his middle finger to his fans, has "made the finale about David Chase and not about the characters," is possibly anything other than a mark of incredible artistic success with "Made in America." I have to wonder if the desire for an "even quieter ending" as a camera pulls back in sepiated Wonder Years style to reveal the family at a table would simply be an ending that everyone would "get." Had this ending aired, the complaints would not imply frustration with the final scene, but would instead imply frustration with the episode as a whole - why didn't Phil's death get more gruesome? Why didn't Silvio wake from his coma? Why didn't Dr. Melfi give a tearful re-acceptance of Tony as a patient and shirk her 11th hour ethical angst?

The Sopranos had no desire to do any of those things just as it had no desire to give us an ending - or, to be honest, a beginning or middle - that people would "get" because The Sopranos does not need to be a show in which you must get everything to marvel at the breadth of its accomplishment. I say "Made In America" was not only a good episode, not only the type of "quiet" ending Woodruff asks for, but more than that - the perfect ending, and I mean perfect by saying that what The Sopranos has accomplished definitively and bravely in 6 or 7 years is the knowledge that David Chase knows more than we do, and he just doesn't give a shit how people react to these characters' lives, because his job is to present them, not to conclude them.

I want to point out a few of those "quiet" scenes Woodruff complains about not seeing - quiet like life, not quiet like TV finales.

Tony, for his part, gets saved by Matt Servitto's Agent Harris - calling from a hotel room romp with his "Brooklyn Contact," revealed to be another FBI agent he is having an affair with. Harris had been getting more and more friendly with Tony since transferring to counterterrorism at the beginning of season 6. In the previous episode, Tony asked how that was going, to which Harris responded "Great, if you don't like sleeping or seeing your kids."

My response to Harris might be influenced by the rather useless knowledge that HBO has submitted Servitto's performance in "Walk Like A Man" (a thrilling episode involving Christopher's final failure with sobriety) for consideration under the Best Supporting Actor character. However, Servitto's performance ("Walk Like A Man" notwithstanding, for which he has one scene that I remember, in which he does very little) has grown to reveal the fraying tension of a man who doesn't sleep or see his kids. In "Made In America" (in which Servitto would be more deservingly submitted for Best Supporting Actor), it's revealed Harris just may be as conflicted as everyone else - he's a man attached to Tony with his own conflicting motivations. When he's told of Phil Leotardo's death, Harris looks elated and says "We just might win this thing!" That "thing" being the War on Terror for which he fruitlessly, deludedly fights, adding his part to a mob war out of friendship, and a trumped up tip from Tony used to help himself out of jail.

My gut reaction to this revelation was disappointment, but it is right in line with the existential malaise The Sopranos has revealed itself to chronicle - the anxiety of modern culture, the feeling, described in The Sopranos premiere, that the best days are behind us. That anxiety, I think, is the true subject of "Made In America," and the true subject of that final scene. Did Tony and his family get whacked after that abrupt cut? There is no answer, of course, but I'd say no anyway - That that anxiety lurks everywhere, even in a moment of great American family togetherness is more important than an actual conclusion. In fact, the episode is filled with unease - in every turn, we wonder whether the axe will fall, whether its fulfilled (Phil waving goodbye to his grandchildren seconds before he's shot in the head and run over by his own SUV) or false (Paulie walking, uneasily, into the Bing for a final time). Even that orange tabby who can't stop staring at Christopher's picture seems to be tuned into all that's wrong with what these people have done and what might await any person in Tony's life.

Other wonderful moments? Tony's bedsite visit to Sylvio, silently grabbing his hand in friendship. Sylvio made the same gesture to Tony when Tony lay in the same hospital bed during "Mayham." Tony's allegiance has flagged for so many of the people closest to him over the years - he nearly killed Paulie 6 episodes ago, after all, only to have him as his closest compatriot at series end, and his love for Christopher was so evident even seconds before Tony killed him - but his friendship for Silvio is lifelong, beyond trust. A shot of Tony and Paulie outside of Satriale's one last time. A sign behind them that reads "Italian Sausage," except the "sa" is covered by Paulie and the "age" covered by Tony - so it reads "Italian USA." Pair this with the shot of NY underboss Butchie wandering past a tourist bus in Little Italy, one in which a driver announces that Little Italy was "once a neighborhood, now reduced to one street of tourist shops," and we get a statement on the American experience now - once an identity, now simply an absorption of the American search for wealth and security.

Because that, truly, is the statement of the series - that American life in modernity is about an escape from anxiety, and America has made that escape through money, through legitimate forms of profiteering (seen in both parts of season 6 through insurance agents, movie producers and actors, real estate brokers, big business mergers, and, in one unforgettable shout-out, Dick Cheney), and in willingness to abandon tradition for security's sake. Phil is a relic from another era, complaining that Tony has "no respect for this thing," and in the end he's killed - decapitated! - by his own modern indulgence, a giant white SUV.

There's no shortage of what I could write about The Sopranos, and especially season 6 of The Sopranos. Someday perhaps I will. I think the fan frustration of "Made In America" will fade, as it likely already is. People complained about every step David Chase has made over the year - the slow pace of Season 4, the extended comatose hallucination of season 6, the non-Adriana focused episodes of Season 5 - but they get forgotten about eventually, and that's because what Chase does best is ignore criticism and make the show he has to make.

The best turn in the final episode, though? Tony's mix of panic and loss at knowing that Carlo, a lifelong friend, has flipped, leading to what his attorney describes as a "80-90% chance you'll get indicted." In "Kennedy and Heidi," Tony revealed that every day he wakes up wondering which "piece of shit" is going to kill him or turn him in. We, like him, finally saw that other shoe drop. We, of course, know Tony to be deserving, to be as sociopathic as he is human. Tony - and later, Carmela's - uncertain but protective reaction to this news that will change their lives is a fulfillment of all their worries, the "it" Carmela awoke to in "Soprano Home Movies" when, startled by the FBI at Tony's door, she says "Is this it?" It is.