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Don't stop believing
And why shouldn’t the best dramatic TV series ever have a perfect ending? Okay, maybe it was a little ambiguous, and I’m sure people will have different ideas about what happens after the final curtain. But I’ll tell you what I think. Nothing happens. Life goes on as before, except that Tony is forever looking over his shoulder, the way he did in tonight’s final scene at Holsten’s. Every stranger might be the hit man, and there’s no chance to relax and forget. That’s the price he pays for the years of living as a crime boss. That uncertainty might be the only price he pays, but it will keep his next psychiatrist in business for a few years, I’m sure. (And if you don’t know I’m talking about The Sopranos, why are you still reading this?)

It’s so much better than any of the other ways David Chase could have ended the series. Tony going out in a hail of gunfire? Too pat, too final. Tony going into witness protection? Out of character. One of his underlings turning state’s evidence? Well, that did happen, but we’ll never know how it plays out. What we do know is that Tony has been jammed up before, time after time, and has escaped without doing hard time, as poor Phil Leotardo pointed out last week. (Was it only last week?) In fact, Phil was the only person whacked this week, having been given up by his own guys because he had gone too far over the top.

Was there ever any doubt that Paulie would give in to what the chief wanted? No, because that’s how he’s survived all these years when so many others have been lost. Was there ever any reason to think A.J. would carry through with any of his grandiose plans to join the military and afterward become either Trump’s helicopter pilot or a CIA agent? No, because his parents know how to push his buttons, and his buttons are so easily pushed. Still, you have to give Chase credit for making us believe that any of the alternate paths and different endings were possible. That’s what makes the real ending, or lack thereof, so plausible and satisfying.

Besides, Paulie was wearing the white shoes of death in his final scene. He’s not going to be around long anyway.

It’s hard to feel sorry for anyone on this show, because they all made choices that brought them varying degrees of pain and trouble. But I do hope that someone rescues Bobby Jr. and Sophia from the horrible Janice, who might be the most evil character in the whole series. And poor Nica. She doesn’t have any aunts and uncles that she can go to. She’s stuck with the mother from hell, and is likely to grow up to be -- well, to be another Janice, obviously. Raising dysfunctional children is the real family business.

One more thing. If Tony and his family really did get whacked at Holsten’s, I for one wouldn’t want to see it. If that’s what happened, the episode ended just in time.

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