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Pearson: 'Sopranos' swan song goes out on less than high note

Published June 11, 2007 at midnight

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The end is here - finally - yet it arrives with a whimper instead of a bang.

Tony Soprano sleeps with the fishes - or maybe he sleeps with a basket of onion rings or even snug in his own bed.

It's hard to tell based on the lackluster series finale of The Sopranos on HBO on Sunday night. If this were a mob hit, it would be a botched job.

Consider the final scene of the popular drama: Tony and his immediate family sit in a restaurant as several suspicious-looking guys lurk nearby. Tony glances up to see his daughter, Meadow, enter the eatery. Then the screen goes black. Then the end credits.

Was Meadow the last sight Tony saw before getting shot? Did the family enjoy a pleasant meal and head home? Was there a power outage in New Jersey?

By any measure, Sunday's finale was a mediocre episode of The Sopranos, even before you factor in the last scene. The previous two episodes were packed with so much action that the finale seemed lethargic. As one longtime fan I watched the show with opined: "That was the worst ending ever."

There was a lot of sound but little fury as Tony made the rounds to visit friends, family (Janice, Uncle Junior) and enemies (another crime family he hoped to ally against the one that put a contract on his life). The latter plot thread provided the show's lone visceral moment: Phil, the head of the New York family, is shot at a gas station. Then a runaway SUV rolls over his head. It wasn't a bowling ball bag, but it was effective.

Most Americans have never seen The Sopranos; this is a fact. It averages only 12 million weekly viewers. Yet, given the amount of ink expended on the season finale, you'd think Paris Hilton was guest starring as Tony's angel of death.

And what's that business with the cat in the final show? Was he a reincarnation of Christopher, whom Tony killed several weeks ago? Somebody call a ghost whisperer!

A cynic might think the door is being left open for a Sopranos movie. Star James Gandolfini says he's done playing Tony Soprano. Why, then, didn't he insist on a script that put the nails in Tony's coffin?

More immediately, fans of the show have every right to be disappointed. A show filled with high drama during its seven- year run ended on less than a high note.

The ending may seem clever from a production standpoint (neither pro- nor anti-Tony factions will be appeased), but there's no sense of closure, no sense that a man who caused misery for so many others has gotten his comeuppance.

Instead, it's left to our imagination to decide what happened. Loyalty is rewarded with expositional indifference. Hey, viewer: Make up your own ending.

That's just wrong.