Sopranos Ending: Biggest Ripoff Since Pottsville Maroons

Everyone is talking about the final scene in last night's series finale of The Sopranos, in which millions of viewers spent a few breathless seconds thinking their cable had gone out and then spent the rest of the night wishing it had. The final episode was good ... except that it didn't end. It just stopped.

So I've been thinking about what the sports equivalent might be. Has there ever, in the history of sport, been an ending so unsatisfying? I had to go all the way back to 1925 and the Pottsville Maroons to find one.

For our readers younger than 90, the Pottsville Maroons were, along with the Chicago Cardinals, one of the two best teams in the NFL in 1925. The NFL didn't have a championship game back then, but when the 9-2 Maroons and the 9-1-1 Cardinals met in Chicago on December 6, it was the two best teams meeting at the end of the year. That's as close to a championship game as pro football would have.

Pottsville won, 21-7, and the Maroons, having finished their 1925 schedule, figured they were the NFL champs. But then they scheduled a game against a group of former Notre Dame players, and the NFL was furious: The league didn't want one of its teams playing a non-league game. So the NFL suspended the Maroons, and later declared the Cardinals league champions, even though the Maroons had shown they were the better team on the field.

And so the 1925 NFL season ended not with a game on the field, but with a declaration by the commissioner. It was an anticlimactic ending that some in the NFL still want to see overturned -- as recently as 2003, the league's owners held a vote about changing the record books to make Pottsville the champion, but only two teams voted in the Maroons' favor. It's hard to believe the owners actually voted on such a thing eight decades later, but it's also hard to believe that an NFL season had such a strange ending. And eight decades from now, a few people will still be arguing about the last scene of The Sopranos, finding it hard to believe that such a great show gave its viewers such an unsatisfying ending.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-11-2007 @ 10:24AM

Dave said...

I don't know about you, but I thought the last episode of Seinfeld was most unsatisfying, too.

6-11-2007 @ 10:37AM

ray said...

i thought the ending of the sopranos was awesome. unsatisfying, yes, but the show has never pandered to the audience and went out on its own terms. that last scene was one of the best the show has ever produced.
it made you think instead of just ending in the predictable bloodbath that everyone was expecting. this is what separates the sopranos from "normal" shows.

and hey, at least phil got his head crushed by an SUV. you can't complain about that.

6-11-2007 @ 10:49AM

Alice said...

All the episodes of all the programs that are on their last leg, Seinfield, and the Sopranos are the best.

6-11-2007 @ 10:50AM

As for the Pocono Speedway, the driver that was bounced around like a beach ball, surely had a big guy looking over him. Amen.

6-11-2007 @ 11:07AM

VJ said...

The ending of the sopranos was brilliant. I understand that people want closure when they invested so much time watching the series, but when in life do we have closure? This was the only way it could end, at the peak of the climax. Think about it, if we had a real ending to all of this our suspense would have faded once we had seen what occurred. But we didn't see what occurred. Our last scene of the sopranos was left in complete suspense, and we were left there forever. Most people can't deal with that. There are many scenarios that could have played out. I have done some reading and forming of my own opinion and I think that these two ideas are the best.

1) The idea was to show that the Sopranos never end. It goes "on and on and on" (Don’t Stop Believing Lyrics)
2) The blackness represents Tony's Death. Remember, a common theme is that when you get whacked in this series, you never see it coming. And since this show WAS Tony Soprano, when he dies, everything ends, hence, why there was no music and just blackness at the end. This would be the best educated guess if you need an ending.

6-11-2007 @ 4:30PM

Bernie said...

The last scene reminded of the scene in the Godfather when Al Pacino gets the gun in the mens' room. Then my TV went blank. I thought I had lost my cable and almost lost my mind.
What was with Meadow having a hard time parking her car? There was more tension watching her trying to parallel park then watching Tony eat onion rings.
Maybe the group of boyscouts did it or maybe the cat did it.

6-11-2007 @ 11:17AM

i would say tony survives and his life "goes on and on" as it has for years, surrounded by his family, replete with unbearable tension, suspicious characters and paranoia. that last scene was a microcosm of tony's life and i believe the screen going black was a message stating that it's the same as it ever was... the only change? we're shutting off the cameras.

6-11-2007 @ 11:27AM

Lex said...

The ending sums up the charecters for the entire show's run... Tony is a mess, and every stranger, different cafe, forever will have him spooked, wondering is this the moment ? AJ, is the same spoiled weak son who is appeased by his latest toy, a new BMW, instead of gong into the Army. Meadow is slowly self distructing by following her latest man, instead of using her intelligence to make a difference, do what she always thought she wanted, becoming a doctor. Carmella , is back to her fantasy of being taking care of of, and not wanting to know how the sausauge is made, just give me the cash...
Chase did it his way and no simple, soda pop American TV ending that made it simple...all wrapped in bows and simple story lines in an hour that people are used to...
Understand Mr. G. doesn't want to continue this charecter anymore for his career, but like 'Sex in the City' , this would have made a great movie continuation... !
Thanks HBO and Chase for 8 years of great writing and shows...

6-11-2007 @ 11:51AM

tacobellmanager said...

This is a reach. Sopranos have nothing to do with a football result from antiquity. You want to blog about the Sopranos, do so, we don't mind, but man, don't come up with a forced context like this.

6-11-2007 @ 1:55PM

Ken said...

David Chase mailed this one in from home after spending maybe 3 hours writing it. A sorry conclusion for what had been a great series.

6-11-2007 @ 1:37PM

milton thuroughgood III said...

Perhaps the screen going black was the audience figuratively dying, and not Tony. After all, those shady people in the Diner were just as likely FBI than Mafia. But I'm biased, i don't want Tony to die.

6-14-2007 @ 10:03AM

drwilson65 said...

I just sat there and said "what was that?" for the 30 minutes following the finale. While the show never pandered to the audience, it sure made a fool out of us by having the strange guy come in the restaraunt, Meadow delaying her entrance, the two other guys who came in right before Meadow, and all the other little things that made us think an ending was about to come. If I wanted to see a Godfather reenactment in the restaraunt, I would go rent The Godfather. The Sopranos was supposed to be original.

6-11-2007 @ 12:39PM

Thor Thorson said...

Great responses (VJ, Lex) to this inane post ("Sopranos Ending: Biggest Ripoff Since Pottsville Maroons")- yeah, there will be disappointed people, too many viewers want shows to be neatly packaged, morally unambivalent, all resolved. I am glad that David Chase left Disney endings to the network shows and completed the Sopranos by leaving things incomplete, unresolved, messy. Things change, life goes on, stereotypes with a deep truth that made Tony misty-eyed when he left uncle Junior. There has been an increasingly elegiac tone in the Soprano shows as time takes its toll on everyone and political and environmental developments spiral out of control. In the end, your family and some friends are your best last bet and Tony and we understand that when things fade to black.

6-11-2007 @ 12:45PM

Sandy said...

The argument for and against this finale reminds me of the Blair Witch Project.

I remember all the hype and praise that movie got and when I went and saw it, I hated it. And when I told people I hated it, I was made to feel un-hip or like I didn't "get it." WTF?

For some reason I'm reminded of this...

6-11-2007 @ 12:54PM

acsports said...

What a stupid way to end the show. I hated it.

6-11-2007 @ 1:28PM

Budo said...

Ray and all others with brain cells, congratulations. So many individuals were waiting for a huge whack session and thank goodness it didn't happen. I)t closed some questions, opened new ones, showed the family a bit better for the experience and paths being chosen, the Feds are still on the tail, Phil is blown away, Syl is in question as to his future, Junior is actually gone, the New York mob switching sides and that life goes on. It is just that we won't see it. They are unusual in family but only by Tony's chosen profession. In a great many aspects they have the same problems as real people do.

The ending in the diner showed clearly that even though life goes on, it still carries some uncertainty with every look.

What better way to end????

6-11-2007 @ 4:39PM

Brennan Browne said...

The Soprano's finale was a complete and utter psychological and emotional rip-off! Showing 100% CONTEMPT for loyal viewers who have stuck it out over the ridiculously long and repeated hiatuses throughout the past 3 years...all David Chase could come up with at the end, was to leave story lines dangling in mid-air and then cut to a blank screen at the end! I thought my TV had taken a dive! Save for the death of Phil Leotardo this episode proved to me that the talent pool of creative writers on this show has evaporated...and the time was ripe for the Sopranos to get whacked!

6-11-2007 @ 3:46PM

well it is a thinking man's show so i can understand how some people didn't like it.

The Sopranos a thinking man's show?...hardly! The series was based on the mindless violence of mainly one-dimensional, dysfunctional, sociopaths. I fail to see the depth.

In contrast, I think one of the most well written shows in recent history was SIX FEET UNDER. It was smart, sensitive and always respected the intelligence and loyalty of its fans. The ending allowed viewers closure and the ability to come to terms with the loss of the characters.[For better or worse when there are years invested in watching a program, there IS a psychological connection.]

Over the past several seasons, viewers received nothing but shoddy treatment by Sopranos creators. One gained the distinct impression that David Chase and those who became enormously wealthy from the show, couldn't have given a rat's behind for the viewers. This was proven without a doubt by the last episode which could have been turned out by anyone with NO writing talent.

6-13-2007 @ 10:38AM

hazerns said...

Thank you Brennan Browne and your post. Thinking man's show?? Hardly! Just because a show references literature, art, pop culture, current social issues, etc does NOT make it a thinking mans show. It's how you USE the material and Chase fails to use them correctly to succeed as a "thinking mans show". I feel cheated as a loyal sopranos viewer but I'll chalk it up to me just not liking Chase's style. Its unquestionable that Chase was going for the open ended-you fill in some of the blanks-ending but WOW was that a horrible way to do it. For me, the end was just a smaller version of the whole show. Will he go to jail? will he flip? will he die? etc These were basic questions from day one....season one, but yet, this last episode does nothing to help us answer these any more or less than every other episode from any other season. Thats what makes this ending and this series weak. Its like walking down the road following one straight line. That straight line being the core of the show. Every few episodes we get to step off the main line and encounter conflict, but after the conflict, we get to step back onto that same main line and travel along with the saaaaaaaame basic core and questions (like jail? death? ratting??) When a series should constantly be creating NEW lines for the viewer to travel on and WITH our characters!!! Anyone who watches Lost can relate. Lost CONSTANTLY creates new paths for the characters to travel on. Which again brings me back to the last episode of the Sopranos. It left us with the saaaaaaame basic core questions that we have had ALL THROUGH THE SERIES and we are truly no further along in answering them or deeply exploring those journeys. (please, Tony getting in a car crash 3 times every season is NOT a journey)Im not even asking for an absolute answer to some of the questons.... like i said, i dont mind a think-it-yourself-ending. Just give me something fresh and new to think about?? Instead we got.....well you watched the last episode.....thats what we got