Don't Stop Believin', aka The Sopranos Final Episode (post deux)

Ironically, my last post regarding the Sopranos final ending was more on target than I thought.

What seemed to be a mundane scene of Meadow Soprano (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) feverishly attempting to parallel park across the street from my favorite local ice cream parlor, Holsten's (.4 miles from my front door, and again ironically to me personally because it's the exact spot where I was nearly arrested by Bloomfield police for driving on a suspended license I was unaware of on Jan 30 2006), was actually the most pivotal moments of the anticlimactic climax of the series.

I stood in the cold that night, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, thinking that I had missed the best of that day's shooting in my neighborhood. The crew had started closing off the sidewalks surrounding Holstens early that Sunday, and I was excited like many of the locals here in Bloomfield to hear that the final episode was being shot so close to home, but I had a busy day involving (how fitting) family, so I returned to watch for an hour later that evening. Jaimie's scene seemed inconsequential at the time- she parallel parked about 20 times or more that night, scripted that she bump the curb twice before finally exiting the car in a very urgent manner.

I thought it was destined to make the cutting room floor at the time, but I was surprisingly mistaken. There was much more importance in the scene in its subtlety. Why was she in such a rush? Was she just late, or was it more? From watching the direction of the scene, I noticed that David Chase had her play the scene two ways- many times she crossed the street almost getting struck by an oncoming SUV in a rush to the door of the ice cream parlor, and one take they had her cross much slower with less urgency.

What does this mean to the ending that left many people scratching their heads last night? Did she have news? Was it simply portraying a young woman in a rush to meet her family? Was it fate that she rushed in at that moment only to put herself in the path of the assassins' bullet intended for her father?

We may never know.

Then again, there is a rumored series of Sopranos movies being planned, but this could just be the Sopranos hungry fans waiting for the other shoe to drop in a quest to stay immersed in the family drama of the Sopranos and all it's subtlety.

I was satisfied to be left to wonder what may have happened. If Tony Sopranos' fate was to be murdered in front of his children, I feel that he had made peace with everyone in his family at the very moment the scene abruptly cut to a black matte. Tony had made peace with his sister, with Junior, Paulie, even the relationship with AJ, he said, "Isn't that what you said to me one time, focus on the good times?"

Maybe that's the message David chase wanted to end the Sopranos on. Don't stop believing- "some will win, some will lose, some are born to sing the blues".  Tony Soprano remains a portrait of a mobster in america, but what are we supposed to draw from it? We all do things we aren't proud of, hold pain deep inside regarding failures, shortcomings, family disagreements and letdowns, but what's most important when the walls are crashing in around us, that family is what matters, and what you leave behind inside of them and those you touch.

By the way, when Meadow backs up in to that spot, I am in the reflections of the gas station across the street...maybe we all see a little reflection of ourselves and our families in the Sopranos series...focus on the good times, amen Tony, amen.