Brief thought on the final scene of The Sopranos.

[Embarrassing: Read the comments.]

From a comment I left over at South Dakota Dark [I repeat myself, but I'll repeat myself: read Todd's site]...

That last cut shocked me, but as the surprise faded, a smile set in. There were those rumours at first about the identities of the people coming into the diner; they never mattered, though I'm not surprised such talk surfaced. The tension in that last scene is extraordinary - and Meadow's parking troubles made for one of the show's cheekiest jokes, this one entirely at the expense of an audience that tends to feel at sea without strong genre clues. I didn't think she'd get hit by a car, but I covered my mouth in fear as she crossed the street: enjoying the joke, enjoying the thrill, mourning the end of the show, loving its audacity, loving that ridiculous (awesome) rock tune [Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing'] - and best of all the way that song is irrevocably linked, for Baby Boomers of a certain stripe, with Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign (it was his theme song). Another man of gross appetites and great shrewdness combined with a self-destructive streak and a complicated marriage: not for nothing did Tony appear at the tail end of the Clinton years. I couldn't stop laughing at 'Made in America.' It was a great sendoff.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to see Tony and Carmela as a dark ethnic undereducated mirrorworld Bill & Hillary - the physiques, the complicity-in-adultery, the complex negotiated (and negotiable) attitudes toward social welfare, the calculated united-front marriage, the mysterious deaths of friends and coworkers (I kid). The finale's final scene made that nasty little parallel clearer than ever before. Lovely.

Comments

[Goliath's Daddy]

Wasn't Clinton's theme song "(Don't Stop) Thinking About Tomorrow" by Fleetwood Mac?

pwnd.

[CR]

How f'ing weird is this? (Sorry to use the Althouse link - too lazy to find a better one...)

What a strange situation for you. You totally blow this post through bad evidencing, look a bit foolish doing so, and then Hill goes and ties the knot as tight as it possibly can be tied for you.

Bet you were wondering who all those Westchester hits were coming from...