Don’t adjust your screen. It was all a dream. Arrivederci Soprani. Wake up America.

I don’t think the last episode of the Sopranos was a cop out. I agree with Havrilesky that it was instructive and that it perfectly capped the critique of materialist consumer society and its values that was at the heart of the series. The show worked best as metaphor. All the sound and fury of the New Jersey mobsters signified not a whole lot except as a lesson to us to key on the things in life that matter, ie, not a swimming pool in the suburbs. The Sopranos lived in anxiety and denial. And that’s how they went. They flicked out of our lives just like… a TV show. When the end came, it happened in an instant and seemed like a mistake, underlining the feeling that there was no planning for it, even though we knew it was coming the whole time. Like any kind of end.