Don't Stop Believin'? Really? Was Born in the USA too cheesy?

I'm going to talk about the Sopranos now, so if you don't want to know the series ending, go play this addictive little game for a bit and check back tomorrow.

I guess the smart money is on Tony getting killed by the dude wearing the Members Only jacket at Holsten's. That's where the dramatic tension in the scene was heading. (I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest every time Meadow's sweet car bumped the curb.)

But I have three good reasons that I don't think he was killed.

1. With his Brooklyn rival Phil Leotardo dead (and the member's of Phil's crew giving tact approval ahead of time -- "You gotta do what you gotta do."), who needs Tony dead so much that they'd shoot him in front of his family?

2. In this half season, each time the tension has built and made you think someone was going to die, it hasn't happened. There was Bobby with Tony in the car, after their fight at the lake. There was Paulie with Tony on the boat during their Florida vacation. And when Tony did kill Christopher, it came out of nowhere. No dramatic buildup at all. If that pattern were to hold true, the gut-wrenching scene at the diner would end not with a bang.

3. There's an argument to be made that when the screen went black, it was Tony dying. But that isn't what happens when Tony dies. When he was in the coma, his heart stopped; the afterlife was a warm and bright house where his mother and cousin were ready to greet him.

I rewatched the episode yesterday and was struck by how short the final scene was. The first time around, it felt like a lifetime. It was actually only two or three minutes.

But what do I make of Sopranos producer David Chase's decision to leave the show up in the air? I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. None of the previous 85 episodes conformed to what you usually see on TV, so why would episode 86 be any different.

Take a look at this quote from Chase from a few years back:

I don't think art should give answers. I think art should only pose questions. And art should not fill in blanks for people, or I think that's what's called propaganda. I think art should only raise questions, a lot of which may be even dissonant and you don't even know you're being asked a question, but that it creates some kind of tension inside you.

He certainly thinks of TV writers as artists. How else would you explain the Twilight Zone scene he chose to put on in the background at Tony's safehouse. The dialogue went like this:

--Julius, what do I have to do? What do I have to say to get you out of here?

--Gimme a chance. Gimme first dibs at this television series thing or whatever it is. Lemme do the pilot, please.

--Julius, my boy Julius. I'm not a hard man, I'm not a mean man. But the television industry today is looking for talent. They're looking for quality. They're preoccupied with talent and quality. And the writer is a major commodity.

Somebody should've told Christopher that before he whacked Joe from Wings.