The TV Zone

The extraordinary ending on last week's "The Shield" has led some (ok, by some I mean "me") to ponder the ending of great TV shows, and why we - the dedicated if occasionally unbalanced fan - invest so much energy, thought and passion in that last screen shot.

Will the Meaning of Everything then become clear? Will a bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder, accompany a searing insight that says, " oh, so THAT'S what Vic was really all about."

Of course not., The final shot of "The Shield" was perfect because it captured Vic Mackey but also got him off the hook (sort of) for his manifold sins. Imagine: He forsakes immunity for his family, though of course his family had already happily forsaken him.

The ending of "The Sopranos?" It coulda ended with Tony raking leaves.

This interesting clip features David Chase surrounded by show stalwarts (including Edie Falco and Matthew Weiner) talking about an alternate ending - or rather a trick ending that might have been used instead, but otherwise was a red herring. As Chase points out, the rake scene did appear earlier in the finale, and it sparked much debate. Check out this website (The Chase Lounge) which goes into excruciating detail about how Chase foreshadowed Tony's bad end.

What would have been the meaning of the rake? What sort of leaves...? Why couldn't he hire a crew to do it for him...? Would the bear turn up? Would the tree fall on him?

Oh the questions, the questions we'll never have answers to.

Clip appears on the new DVD set ($400), and thanks to TVTattle.com for uncovering.

Rich people are different from you and me - they got money! (Ba dum...) And they got money to spend on stuff that I can't imagine spending it on. Case in point: Today's Christie's auction, wrapped a little while ago, in which a few dozen Tony Soprano et al costumes, clothes, shirts, pants, and other generally assorted wearable things, were sold for $187,800.

What went for the highest price, by FAR? Tony's blood-stained shirt and pants - the ones he was wearing when Uncle June came down the stairs in a fit of insane dementia, shot him and left him for dead, setting up that great multi-episode dream sequence where (among many other things) Tone was slapped around by monks at an elevator. This went for $43,800. If the cleaning person had washed off the clothes after this memorable scene, it probably woulda gone for $500.

That would be essere fottuto.

Don't you agree?

Got me to thinking: What would Pussy's talking fish head have gone for? (It wasn't on the block.) Those funky statues in Melfi's office? The fridge in the Soprano's kitchen? (An empty orange juice carton, proven to have been drained by Tony himself?) The newspapers in Tony's driveway?

My point: There are billions to be made here.

Here's the Christie's site with the full list. A hoot worth checking out.

Now, this is a nice story, and I'm sure "Sopranos" fans will agree: The old gang from The Best TV Drama Ever will hold a fund-raiser this Saturday night at the Mirage (on Merrick Ave. in Westbury...)

And who from the old gang? Pretty much all the major players, with an exception here and there: James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Robert Iler and Michael Imperioli will show up at the club at 10 p.m. - you can see them all, sitting in the VIP area. Go up. Shake hands. Get autographs.

The cause: To raise $50,000 - or more - for a pair of former colleagues on "The Sopranos." One is suffering from cancer; the other has recovered but is now suffering from financial hardship.

Jeff Marchetti - "Petey" and long associated with the show in a number of back-stage roles - is organizing the benefit, and said a little while ago that the cast wants to help "one of our most beloved prop guys, who's been on the [show from the beginning]. His name is Anthony B., but he wanted to remain nameless. He's battling lymphoma and nobody knew about it, [until] a month and a half after we wrapped...Everybody loves the guy because we are absolutely a true family and we're gonna support him in every possible way we can."

Marchetti said the goal is to also raise money for another former colleague on the show, as well as a childhood friend of his - both who had been ill.

According to Jeff and the Mirage's website, all the major players will be at the club but Marchetti said as many as twenty are scheduled to show up.

More details: Cover is $20 though the cast will hold a private party from 8 to 10, and to join that: $1250 per couple, according to Marchetti (who says to go to einnonmedia@aol.com to confirm.)

Yup, it's no secret "Sopranos" cast and crew have been pretty tight over the years while Gandolfini has gone out of his way countless times to help people behind the camera. This makes countless-and-one.

It’s been rough, these last few months, surviving without any new episodes of The Sopranos. Starting on December 6, LIFESKOOL TV will be offering some palliative care. The new On-Demand series, Steve Schirripa’s Hungry, follows Tony’s portly lieutenant as he explores Italian food in New York. (On Cablevision, LIFESKOOL is Channel 502.) The first episode finds Schirripa musing about meatballs and then repairing, attractive young woman in tow, to Rao’s of East Harlem where he is greeted by the legendary restaurant’s owner, Frank Pellegrino (whom Soprano’s fans will recognize as FBI agent Frank Cubitosi).

Pellegrino walks Schirripa through the meatball recipe, then serves the finished dish (with spaghetti) to great acclaim.

Schirripa is a genuinely charming presence and he seems moderately conversant in cooking. Future episodes will find him at the Veniero’s pastry shop in the East Village, Peasant in Little Italy and L&B Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn, among other Noo Yawk locations.

Is there anything left to say about "The Sopranos" ending?

Of course there is. There will always be. That's the genius of it (even though I STILL don’t like it): Without resolution, there is endless speculation, and anyone's speculation can be right and anyone's can be wrong. It's kind of what - and please forgive the highfalutin' reference here - physicists might refer to as a Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle paradox applied to my favorite TV show: Tony either lived or Tony died, or he's alive AND dead at the same time. (There's another famous physicist paradox called Shroedinger's Cat, which means that a cat hidden inside a box is both alive AND dead...and what this means…oh forget it.)

If I haven't turned you off thoroughly at this point, then read on. Last week, "American Gangster" premiered – how’s that for a segue! - and there's an actor who appears here but who also labors in the long shadows of Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. (He plays McCann, opposite Josh Brolin's Trupo.) That would be Bobby Funaro - a terrific character actor who also appeared over the years in "Sopranos" as Eugene Pontecorvo, a harrowing member of Christopher's crew who inherited a million bucks from his aunt and decided he wanted out of the family. Tony said no way, and Gene began cooperating with the Feds. Finally, realizing there was no way out of his predicament, he killed himself in the episode entitled "Members Only." Bobby Funaro – in other words – soared in one of the finest episodes of maybe the greatest “Sopranos” season. It was also a pivotal episode, and here’s why:

Whachoo looking at? Funaro: Scary guy, fine actor.

“Members Only” was not only the premiere episode of the final season, but it also mirrored some elements of the finale as well, including the (famous) moment when someone wanders in to the diner wearing a "Members Only" jacket. Signifying? That there's no way out for Tony e la sua famiglia.

Whether he's alive or dead, his fate is an endless loop. There is simply no escape from this peculiar kind of hell.

Anyway, I had a long chat with Funaro recently; he's a good guy, smart, and like a lot (if not all) "Sopranos'" regulars harbors - I suspect – just the slightest ambivalence about starring in the greatest drama in TV history. His – their - professional fortunes will be forged by “The Sopranos” from this day forward. That's good, but also troubling (if from now on, the only roles they can get are mobster ones…)

We had along talk about his recent career (he starred in an off-off-Broadway production, called "The Lady Swims Today"), his hometown (Brooklyn/ Coney Island), and his future (he's using - what else? - the Internet to market himself. Here's the official website.)

So, Bobby, your thoughts on The Ending? "I enjoyed the ambiguity....and it gave it that kind of twist that was open ended. It was thrilling to watch [and] I was rooting for Tony, that he didn't get killed and that he pulled through the whole thing. He's a survivor, the ultimate carnivore. He's one of the guys that gets by. A lot of people wanted some sort of finish, but even David Chase said, 'how can I kill this guy...? He gave the audience such a thrill...’ But if you look at crime, it goes on.

Funaro said there was a screening for cast and crew at the HBO building, and people later gathered at the Hard Rock Cafe for a party. "When I walked out, I was surrounded by the press and everyone was looking for a reaction. I was one of the first to walk out...It was kind of surreal. I said 'I loved it [the ending] and the press was like, ‘get outta here! We wanted to hear that you hated it...’[Chase and producers] told us don't even try to defend it, and we shouldn't have to defend it because it ends the way it ends...”

He said Peter Bogdanovich (Dr. Elliot Kupferberg) offered the best defense: If "you look at the final scene [with] all those symbols of America, that's a whole collection of who we are...that there isn't any security, there isn't any sanctuary for anyone…We have this sense that as we grow up in TV world and watch TV, that there's always a happy ending. But when you get to be an adult, there’s something entirely different. You’re really hungry the next day - happiness is ephemeral, short-lived. Tony's happiness? It's there one second, but look what’s around him? The guy with the Members Only jacket...You can never get out of there. The last scene at first suggests that he has it all back together, but he doesn't have it all back together at all."

“Sopranos” creator David Chase has finally spoken out about his controversial send-off to the HBO series. The comments appear in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly and are excerpted from Chase’s upcoming “The Sopranos: The Complete Book.”

Was he surprised by the reaction to the final episode?

“No,” he says. “We knew there would be people who liked it and would try to go with it and other people who would be perplexed by it and shut their minds to it. This just felt like the right ending.”

Chase says he didn’t expect people to be so angered about the ending:

“We didn’t expect them to be that --- for that long. It’s one thing to be deeply involved with a television show. It’s another to be so involved that all you do is sit on a couch and watch it. It seemed that those people were just looking for an excuse to be --- off. There was a war going on that week and attempted terror attacks in London. But these people were talking about onion rings.”

Many fans have developed their own elaborate theories – like the one that says Chase was re-creating the Last Supper, but he insists there is no puzzle to be solved.

“There are no esoteric clues in there. No Da Vinci Code. Everything that pertains to that episode was in that episode. And it was in the episode before that and the one before that and seasons before this one and so on. There had been indications of what the end is like.”

About 12 million people watched Sunday night's finale of "The Sopranos," reports Television Week here.

That made it the year's most-viewed episode -- yet this season was still the series' lowest-rated in years, said the trade publication.

Sunday night's cut-to-black ending nonetheless stirred "Sopranos" fans enough that the flood of would-be online commenters temporarily crashed HBO's chat boards, where viewers are debating still whether the series' controversial conclusion was brilliant or insulting.

Newsday readers are discussing their reactions by clicking the Comments links below.

I'm not in the habit of re-directing readers over to other papers, but if you read anything else on "The Sopranos" non-final-finale today, may I suggest Alan Sepinwall's terrific wrap in the Newark Star-Ledger? Alan - a fine critic under normal circumstances - is something of the Godfather of "Soprano" critics, and a guy who has studied the show as carefully and as thoughtfully as anyone I know. Today he has THE scoop: A prearranged interview with David Chase, that gets into a lot of things (with the exception of the final scene.)

Here's the URL - http://blog.nj.com/alltv/2007/06/david_chase_speaks.html.

Plenty of headlines here, but Chase doesn't debunk the idea of a movie. Under the heading "never say never," here's the entire section of the piece on that subject:

"I don't think about (a movie) much," he says. "I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, 'Wow, that would make a great movie,' but I doubt it.

"I'm not being coy," he adds. "If something appeared that really made a good 'Sopranos' movie and you could invest in it and everybody else wanted to do it, I would do it. But I think we've kind of said it and done it."

Another problem: over the last season, Chase killed so many key characters. He's toyed with the idea of "going back to a day in 2006 that you didn't see, but then (Tony's children) would be older than they were then and you would know that Tony doesn't get killed. It's got problems."

There's a lot more and no need to spoil - just go and read. But Chase does debunk the theory (one part of which I fell for as well) that all the characters in the diner had grudges against Tony. The theory had plenty of problems, but vacuums tend to suck in all kinds of information indiscriminately. Anyway, forget the theory. Time to make up new ones.

Kudos to Sepinwall on this wrap and his coverage of TV's greatest drama all season.

Newsday readers don't seem so hot to trot about last night's "Sopranos" (non-)wrapup. By noon Monday, almost half the 4,000-plus who'd already voted in our online poll called it TV's worst finale ever.

And nearly as many expect the tale to continue in a feature film.

You can still add your vote here.

So it ends not with a bang, nor a whimper, but -- a blank screen?

Or maybe -- The Movie!

Is there yet more money to be made off "The Sopranos"? One has to wonder about a prospective future after tonight's non-ending ending to six HBO seasons, with Tony, Carmela, daughter Meadow and son A.J. meeting for dinner at an ordinary Jersey diner amid ominous warnings. Uneasy peace in the NY-NJ mob war after rival boss Phil gets messily offed at an Oyster Bay gas station. Suspicious characters at the diner counter and in a booth solo. Meadow's parallel parking woes on her way in. Something, something, SOMETHING'S going to happen! -- the foreboding mood seemed to promise, anyway.

And then, nada.

Not even "fade to black." Cut to black. With Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" playing as Tony's selection on the push-button tableside flip-the-titles jukebox: "Doooon't sto – "

And then it did, mid-lyric.

For now.

This leaves the field wide open, doesn't it, for a big-screen, big-money "and then they lived yet-more-agita ever after" follow-up. There's plenty of meat to mine:

• A.J.'s "movie development" career, arranged by a couple of parents afraid he'd get himself killed in Afghanistan. Or will the whiner yet join the Army, learn Arabic and eventually become Donald Trump's helicopter pilot?

• Meadow's legal career. She dumped her med school plans to learn to defend the honor of Italians grievously wronged by feds hauling them in for arrest for things they actually did.

• Carmela's new beach house. Will the kitchen island survive final design, or will she rip up the plans and start over?

• Uncle Junior. Follow the money. Where's his? Will Tony find it? Greedy Janice? The drooling guy hanging nearby in the Alzheimer's wing of the "state facility"?

• Paulie. Did he really see the Virgin Mary at the Bada Bing? What did she have to say, anyway?

• Silvio. Like Franco, still dead? (Effectively, at any rate, after that nasty shootdown, still hooked up to life support in the hospital.) Or maybe this is where the Virgin Mary steps in.

• Tony. "The subpoenas are flying." Underling Carlo has disappeared, and we learn he's set to testify. Can Tony evade the law yet again? More important, can he find a new therapist?

And what about the cat?

Series creator David Chase seems to have this to say: Doooon't stop contemplating . . . He leaves everything open for us to ponder. If anything seems clear in his finale's lack of clarity (Chase both wrote and directed the episode), it's this:

Life goes on, as always, the next generation repeating the mistakes of the previous one, especially all the harder they try not to. It's no accident all the characters are always listening to classic rock -- the Vanilla Fudge pounding through "You Keep Me Hangin' On" this week, the Doors' "When the Music's Over" last time. The past haunts the present -- dead mother Livia's "Poor you" reproach coming out of Tony's mouth, her perpetual self-pity parroted by daughter Janice, her excuses for everything now being manufactured wholesale by grandson A.J. The kids are still giving Tony and Carmela fits as parents, and his lot in life as boss remains that you can't get good help these days. Even Paulie is playing the not-me card in trying to shirk the responsibility Tony needs him to take.

You just can't win in this life, whether you're a mob kingpin or a frustrated viewer seeking some closure, OK, Mr. Chase, is that so hard?

Guess so. That's it. Episode 86, "Made in America," ends without ending, and so does the series.

The music's over. Turn out the lights.

Unless it's that other song we should heed: You just keep me hangin' on.

[HBO photo by Craig Blankenhorn.]