It has been a bittersweet week. Legions of fans were treated to the 86th and long-awaited conclusive hour of a dramatic tour de force on Sunday. Yet, at the same time, we had to bid farewell to our favorite visual tale when The Sopranos officially ended its six-season, nine-year run on cable television. A lot of people were disappointed by the story's “non-ending,” its Dada-like non-sensical final scene. But for many of us, no other ending would have been appropriate for a TV series that has always been so powerfully unconventional and steeped in narrative ambiguity.

I am grinning - at times laughing - as I reflect back on Sunday's final Sopranos scene. Set in a Bloomfield, New Jersey ice cream parlor, each family member of mob boss Tony Soprano assembles for a cozy dinner. Just as Tony’s daughter Meadow is about to enter the restaurant (which is patronized by several menacing characters) to join her father, mother and brother, our TV screens abruptly and silently faded to black in mid-scene and . . . ten seconds later . . . the credits rolled. We don’t know what happens next. Does Tony and/or his family get brutally murdered? Does life go on? I am currently left remembering the last moment the Soprano blood family is seen carrying on with their messy, tangled, compromised life together. Though we'll never know for sure, perhaps they were about to enjoy one of their lighter, more content familial gatherings. In that sense the series is permanently frozen in a “happy mid-ending," which is the ultimate irony considering that the series drew such a deeply cynical portrait of contemporary American life.

I will certainly miss seeing fresh episodes of the compelling and darkly funny Sopranos. Thankfully creator David Chase left fans with plenty of open-ended plot lines to "complete." It was the perfect way for such an inventive series to go out.

Posted by Teresa España, Associate Curator of Programs. You can reach her at teresae@fresnomet.org.