"Mobsters are boring. They are among the most boring people I've ever met. They have nothing to say about anything interesting; they're shallow; ill-informed; under-educated; brutal; racist; and only inadvertently humorous. Also, they kill people and sell drugs, both of which are not funny at all. This is why I am still, five seasons later, in awe of the writing on The Sopranos... any writer who could devise compelling inner lives for such soulless and stupid people is a genius. And these writers are geniuses."
-Jeffrey Goldberg, on the final Slate roundup of the "Sopranos" season.
A few more day-two thoughts on the finale:
-The ability for a man as out-of-shape as Tony Soprano to successfully run away from a few dozen FBI agents just shows what we’ve known since the start of the series: the FBI of the “Sopranos” are the most incompetent law enforcement officials in history. Almost every one of their informers gets killed, they couldn’t get Uncle Junior convicted, their bugged lamp got stolen, and now they can’t catch a 260-pound mob boss in a suburban chase scene. I haven’t seen investigators this inept since the Chandra Levy case.
- Some have called the New-York-family-gets-pinched twist a deus ex machina, but I don’t really care- the main arc of the season and the episode (Tony and Tony) had already been wrapped up, and this was merely setting up next year. So Season 5 ends the way Season 1 did- with mass indictments preventing a final murder or two. But let’s hope the producers find a way to keep Season 5’s best character, Johnny Sack, around for the last year- but then again, the first season’s denouement marked pretty much the end of Uncle Junior’s career as an effective character.
- Nice to see the Paulie/Tony/horse painting issue dealt with again- this is what I mean when I say storylines pay off slowly but surely. And notice something- when Tony goes to throw the painting in the dumpster, behind him is a Diaco Construction truck. That’s the company owned by the father of the famous NYU pot princess.
- It was also interesting to see AJ established as some sort of junior business genius. Because aside from that one great scene with Big Pussy in season 2, the character has been both a writers' black hole and maddeningly inconsistent throughout the series- is he popular, or a dork? Is he a jock, a skater, a metalhead, a hipster? He seems to change identities almost from episode to episode- yet keeps the same girlfriend all the while.
- And after last night's Game 7 and the coming work stoppage, what do you think will return sooner: the NHL, or “The Sopranos”? But at least Sopranos ended better than hockey season- the Stanley Cup in Tampa Bay? Tampa Bay??? The Cup should never touch any bay that isn’t frozen.
Posted by Stephen Silver at June 8, 2004 07:20 AM