"The Last Supper"

David, haven't we been loyal? Suffered through some terrible seasons, didn't question the Boss when you decided to write in the terminally grating “A.J” as a featured character? After all, he was Tony's son. We didn’t revolt when you killed Adriana and sent Syl (Stevie Van Zandt!) to do it. We took care of Janice as if she were our own and mourned when Jackie Aprile, Jr. was sent to live with the "mulignans" in the projects only to be "hit" by Ralph Cifaretto.

We fell in love with Pie-Oh-My only to see him burned to a crisp by that snake Ralphie in a metaphorical exchange for the son who ended up in a coma thanks to Ralph's own narcissism and drug abuse, the same pathology that led him to take out his “ho-a”. And we cheered, in a way, when Tony and Chris Moltisanti cut him up into little pieces. An eye for Pie-Oh-My. We never questioned.

Now we have come to the end and it was as unforgiving and unsatisfying as a search for Jimmy Hoffa in the Meadowlands. We're left with only with questions. A myth. Tony, Carmella and the kids munching on Onion Rings... at an ice-cream parlor?

What did you mean? Was this a trip back to their innocence? Back to where they met? The songs on the juke box certainly had meaning. "Only the strong survive"..." Who will you run to" and "Magic Man" by Heart; "Don't stop believing" and "Anyway you want it" by Journey and, finally, "I've gotta be me" and "A Lonely Place" by Tony Bennet. You chose "Don't stop believing" to end it for all of us....Then, the screen just went blank and some of us really did just stop believing! Everything you wrote, or left un-written, had always meant something but what did this mean? Was it Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust...did it all comes full circle? If so, why? Maybe it had something to do with that first episode. When the show began, there was that one scene with Dr. Melfi where Tony, depressed, said "Sometimes I get the impression I've come in at the end."

Did Tony get whacked? Was the guy in the baseball cap a hit man or FBI agent? Was the blank screen a reference to when Bobby asked Tony, "I wonder if they ever see it coming"? I could write a doctoral thesis on the complexity of these characters, the richness of the dialogue, the brilliance of the musical score but as “A.J.” would say......why bother? "Is this all there is?"

At first blush, David, you let us down- or maybe, in your own genius way you've left us mystified, never to close the book on the never ending saga that has been The Sopranos. Always to wonder what really happened to Tony- were the rappers the last thing he saw? A last gift from Hesh for murdering his "gooma"? Maybe it was nothing. Maybe they'll all be living in the Caribbean in the Witness Protection Program and, someday, there will be a movie But none of us will come. You dealt us one blow too many. Loyalty only goes so far. This season, you have to admit, our envelopes have been light.

There is no other crew to join, no other Family that can even compare. You've given us something most of us have never seen in our lifetimes: Inarguably, the best drama ever made for TV.

Thanks for the memories, David. You've given a lot, we've given more. In the end, you walked away with the money. All we have left to do is to ponder, like Phil Leotardo, whatever happened to “this thing of ours"?

© N. Beaujon.com, June 12, 2007, All Rights Reserved. Letters to the Editor