Sopranos Bullocks

by Nigel Farthingham

One of the greatest joys of my work here on the left side of the Pond has been inclusion in my colleagues’ discussions of all things socially important. Chief among these concerns are the rising and falling fortunes of characters from the telly. It requires but one season or series finale to send my office mates into a daylong fit of nattering, chattering away the day like a bunch of coffee addled hairdressers.

It is therefore in the interest of a return to commerce that I offer this; Tony Soprano is dead. It is not ambiguous. It is not left open for interpretation. It is a fact. The water cooler has been abuzz today with Monday morning screen-writers deconstruction the final chapter in the Sopranos saga. There was not a soul in the office who could even think of spreadsheets or faxes or reports. It was a firestorm of controversy the like of which has not been seen since Sanjaya made his inglorious exit from Colonial Idol. What was to become of Tony? Of Carmela? The children? What did it all mean? I am happy to report that not a single one of my office mates got it right.

The problem is - as the problem with the Sopranos and it's audience has always been – that Yank viewers allow themselves to believe (and Don’t Stop Believin’) that David Chase is somehow holding up a window into another world when his is, in fact, holding up a mirror. This is not to say that the general viewership is comprised of crime bosses and their kin – unless, of course, you consider your average American in the same terms that the rest of the world does – it is to say that the AJ, Carmela and Medoe, like their countrymen are all blissfully and ignorantly skipping down the same well-intended path that the sons and daughters of the original Founding Godfathers, traverse.

No better example of the American ethos is made than that presented in the figure of Anthony Junior. Here is a young man who is able to consider the real inequities and tragedies of life only in the context of his own, stupid, heart-broken, self pity. To the younger Soprano, suffering is nothing more than the temporary extension of his dismal outlook to the sound bites and info-tainment articles which comprise his world-view. AJ is only compelled to act in the interest of the larger society until another, more self-satisfying distraction comes along in the form of employment fetching coffee for a pornography mogul.

It is testament indeed to the tenacity with which Americans cling to their delusions that this final episode, so stark and obvious, could lead my co-workers to formulate an opinion that this Soprano clan should persist immune to Newton’s Third Law – that they are destined to carry on as before without result, without end. Anthony JR will remain forever unimpeded by responsibility and unmoved by ambition, Medoe will continue on the road to success defending the downtrodden, oppressed Italian American, Carmela will complete her happy transformation from homemaker to businesswoman and Tony will remain surrounded by an adoring family. He will most certainly not fall prey to the same fate he described not long before to the doomed Bobby Bacala; “You don’t feel nothing. [when “whacked”] You just fade to black.” And so they shall go on forever, seated in their diner, eating fried foods, listening to Journey, believing, believing and believing without cease.

Americans. I detest them all.