Tony Soprano was a bit me, a bit you - "The Sopranos" series finale

Like everyone else, my initial reaction to the end of “The Sopranos” finale was, “What just happened? Did the TiVo cut out?” Of course, the TiVo was fine, but I wasn’t. For eight years, I had faithfully followed these characters and I felt like my loyalty had been betrayed. I felt like a woman I loved had broken up with me - via text message. The first words I actually spoke were, “David Chase is dead to me.” Like everyone else, I wanted resolution. If the best show on television was going off the air voluntarily, I wanted it wrapped up in a nice, pretty bow.

I came home in time to catch the last scene with my roommate, a Golden Globe-winning actress, and another friend, a prominent film critic. When the screen went black, his reaction was, “No! Did the TiVo cut out?” Hers was simply, “Amazing.”

It was in that moment that I understood. I always thought of Tony Soprano as the Don of North Jersey. I had always seen Tony in a $2,000 suit, a $200 tie and a $20,000 watch. But that’s not who Tony Soprano is, that’s me imposing my ideas of who he is onto him. What David Chase spent the last eight years showing us is that, at the end of the day, Tony Soprano is every man. Nothing illustrates that better than the last two scenes of the last episode — the last time (God willing) we will ever see him. In the second-to-last scene, Tony finally goes to see his demented Uncle Junior (who shot Tony in the beginning of the season) in the hospital, but Junior doesn’t recognize him. Thinking Junior is play-acting, Tony sits down and whispers to him, “This thing of ours.” Junior interrupts, “I was involved in that?” Tony responds, “You and my dad...you two ran North Jersey.” Junior smirks and says, “hmm, that’s nice.” Tony almost tears up, then hustles out to meet his wife and kids for dinner.

The last scene of the finale perfectly encapsulates what the show, and its main character, were all about. Tony arrives before Carmela and the kids to a modest family restaurant wearing a cabana shirt and leather jacket. He picks a table where he can see the street through the front door. He drops a quarter into the table’s jukebox and plays "Don’t Stop Believing" by Journey. The bell above the door jingles, Tony looks up, and in walks Carmela(casually dressed and, for once, only moderately jeweled) as Steve Perry sings, "just a small town girl..." The bell jingles again and in walks Anthony, Jr., saying, "onion rings," as he sits down. "Best in the state, as far as I’m concerned," his father responds. After complaining about his new job, A.J. quotes his father saying, "Try to remember the times that were good." Outside, Tony’s daughter, Meadow, parallel parks her car after three tries, then hustles across the street to meet her family. Inside, a waitress delivers a basket of onion rings for the table, and Steve Perry belts out the chorus, "Don’t stop believing!" Meadow gets to the door, the bell above it jingles, Tony looks up, Steve Perry wails, "Don’t stop," and the screen goes black for 10 full seconds of silence before the credits roll.

And as we say good-bye to the Soprano family, we don’t see Tony as the all-powerful Don of North Jersey, but as a man who is just trying to make a better life for his family than the life his parents made for him. His son has been diagnosed with clinical depression, but is doing well in therapy. His daughter is engaged to an Italian-American attorney who describes one of his cases as, "bid-rigging." And his wife has a budding career of her own developing real estate.

I always thought of "The Sopranos" as a story about the Mafia family living down the street and all the secrets which lived behind the front door of their house at the end of the cul-de-sac. I was wrong. "The Sopranos" was a story about the American family living down the street at the end of the cul-de-sac, and how the secrets in their house aren’t much different than the secrets in your house or mine. Men (in general) and men in gangster movies (in particular) generally fit into one of four categories: He’s either a "Michael," a "Sonny," a "Fredo" or a "Tom Hagen." As completely developed as these four characters had become over the course of three "Godfather" movies, for this century, they had become cliché. What David Chase has done is created a fifth category: A "Soprano," the self-aware gangster.