Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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Where I disagree with you Fly is that you call the clues of Tony's death "abstract". I completely disagree. You have your own subjective interpretation of what's "concrete." If MOG means nothing and he has no malice intent, then why does Chase show him staring twice in Tony's direction?; why does the camera pay so much attention to him?; why the long dolly shot of him walking to the bathroom? What exactly does MOG have to do for you to display malice? Is he supposed to look meaner? well wouldn't that tip Tony off?

I think when Chase says "it's all there" I think he's saying it's a lot simpler than you think. He uses a very conspicuous flashback to Bobby's line which he confirmed was important. The pattern of shots of Tony's POV of the door leading to the black screen as his POV is, to me at least, a highly logical and suggestive way of showing Tony's death. I don't see that as abstract and actually sort of obvious once someone realizes the pattern.

All of the "concrete" evidence you mention (MOG being hired, him taking out the gun) would destroy the suspense and unexpected nature of the scene. If we are to be Tony in Holstens, then we shouldn't know the set up either. Not to mention it would be sort of conventional and cheesy.

I have to admit, I shared dsweeney's feelings. I don't think that based on your love and passion for the show that you really didn't care about whether Tony lived or died. I think, with all due respect, you fail to see how Tony dying in front of his family has a profound meaning. Conkom linked to the blog about the meaning of Tony's death, an absorbing read that very clearly articulated how Tony dying in front of his family is how the show was meant to end since all the way back to the first episode. You believe the "Did Tony die or not?" ending is a cute gimick that has nothing to do with what made the show great. Myself, Conkom and many others believe there is a profound reason behind the answer to that question. But first, you have to answer the question to get to that point.

Think about it this way, the ending is open to interpretation, on this we agree. However, try to embrace the concept of "authorial intent." What is Chase's personal interpretation of the events in Holsten's? Since Chase created all 86 hours of this masterwork, knowing that answer should and will unlock the deepest meanings behind the rest of the series.

Just my two cents.

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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Thank you Fly for finally getting around to addressing the final scene. I know alot of us have been meticulously and even obsessively combing over every detail in order to piece together a patchwork quilt of the arcs of every charecter. It reminds me of the scene where Paulie ponder "where's my arc?" That to me seemed like a writers admission to the hated TV show expectation of the same old boring story arcs. And the ending reflects that feeling to me as well. A sort of rebellious rock and roll ending. Like Terrance said, "it was like smashing the guitar at the end of the concert!" That comment sort refers to the whole total sum of every season. The ending fits in perfectly and not only that, it defies every cliche mafia movie arc. If you want to see scarface, go see Scarface. And though elements of that movie undeniably show up in the series it still always had a deeper metaphorical lanuage telling a more mythical type story. More akin to Shakespeare and less to Coppola yet unalike anything ever made in the TV genre. The ending not only killed Tony, but even your TV screen! Maybe it was our brains splattered on the TV screen that night and not a middle finger!
You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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CamMan wrote:Where I disagree with you Fly is that you call the clues of Tony's death "abstract". I completely disagree. You have your own subjective interpretation of what's "concrete."
Well everyone’s interpretation of everything is ultimately subjective, no?

One outstanding resource for what’s “concrete” or “objective” evidence of murder in our society is the type of evidence that’s admitted when someone is put on trial for it . . . like testimony establishing a dead body (victim) and cause of death; eye-witness or physical/circumstantial evidence linking the defendant to a weapon or physical act that caused the death; and evidence of defendant’s motive, plan, purpose, or intention to cause the victim’s death. And to take it from the sterile real world of courts and into the artist’s world of drama, I think you'd be hard pressed to name any movie or television plot where a character death was conveyed to or generally understood by an audience without having at least one of the above kinds of “evidence” present onscreen. Even something like the monologue of a “dead” character speaking in clearly post-death voice over would qualify (as happened at the end of a movie called “The Grey Zone”), so I’m not being artificial here nor insensitive to the myriad creative ways that death can be decisively conveyed in dramatic terms.

There is not one shred of ANY of this kind of evidence in MIA, starting with the overwhelming fact that there is no body or confirmed victim. So it’s entirely reasonable to assert that there is a dearth of concrete evidence of Tony’s murder by MOG.
If MOG means nothing and he has no malice intent, then why does Chase show him staring twice in Tony's direction?;
That's a mischaracterization of my argument. I have never contended that he means “nothing”. He’s at least there to symbolize, suggest, hint, or raise the specter or possibility of mob-directed threats to Tony’s life, none of which is negated or neutralized by NOT having the threat spelled out or actualized.
What exactly does MOG have to do for you to display malice?
For him to unambiguously display malice, he would need to do something unambiguously malicious or have something unambiguously malicious imputed to him by other means. Looking at a guy twice is not unambiguously malicious. It's something that millions of people do in millions of innocent public encounters with strangers everyday. They look out of boredom, out of idle curiosity, because they think someone looks familiar, because they are in a great mood and are feeling particularly gregarious and interested in their social environment, because they hear part of a conversation that intrigues them, because they find a person or persons unusually attractive, and so on. In only an exceedingly rare number of instances would a stranger be eyeing another with the intent of imminently murdering them. So that simple act fails as any kind of compelling concrete evidence of malice in the absence of other, unambiguous evidence of malice that can tie a rope between the two and thereby magnify the significance of the former.
Is he supposed to look meaner? well wouldn't that tip Tony off?
The reason he wasn’t shown looking “meaner” or doing something actually malicious is not because he would have tipped Tony off but because he would have tipped the audience off (which again begs the question of what the hell Chase's real goal was.) Tony was virtually oblivious to MOG. Nearly all of what we see of him is exclusively for our benefit. Which brings me to:
All of the "concrete" evidence you mention (MOG being hired, him taking out the gun) would destroy the suspense and unexpected nature of the scene. If we are to be Tony in Holstens, then we shouldn't know the set up either.
Therein lies the inherent self contradiction in Chase’s mission, assuming it was to unequivocally portray Tony’s murder without actually portraying it or to create a “never heard it coming” murder of Tony that the audience would experience vicariously. Those are fundamentally incompatible goals.

You say that concrete evidence -- i.e., the unambiguous kind -- would have destroyed the "suspense and unexpected nature" of the scene. There are two problems with that statement.

First, the two statuses are at odds and can't both be maintained at once by the same person since suspense involves the apprehension -- the keen awareness and expectation -- that SOMETHING important or terrible or momentous is about to happen while something "unexpected" -- like "not hearing it coming" -- means just what it says, having NO foresight, NO apprehension or advance appreciation for something that's about to happen.

The second problem is that the "suspense" was felt uniquely by the audience while the "never heard it coming" was experienced uniquely by Tony. Those points of view were not in the least comparable or shared, and it's an inescapable flaw of Chase's vision if they were supposed to be otherwise. By the time MOG rose to go to the bathroom, we audience knew the last hour of this series was almost up and that the heartpounding final few seconds seemed to be inexorably leading to the murder of a Soprano in that diner. We just didn't know it would be preempted or represented by a black screen. Meanwhile, Tony's not watching himself on the Sopranos knowing it's the last seconds of the last episode and has no clue that anything was about to happen. Since the audience were already in an excruciating state of tension and expectation, adding a simple, confirmational scene of the type I've previously advocated (while shooting and editing everything in that diner in exactly the same way) would have in no way changed the essential dynamics between audience and main character. We still would have been expecting a murder. We would have KNOWN MOG was the perpetrator rather than having to assume it from lots of abstract inferences and symbolism. And when the screen went black, we would have had an unambiguous context to give it meaning.

I went over a lot of this same stuff in an earlier exchange with you which I'll reference for reconsideration.

http://thechaselounge.net/showthread.php?t=2328&page=3

Of particular note for the present discussion is the passage about 2/3rds of the way down in post #22 that begins, "We DID expect Tony's death (or something equally momentous at that table), didn't we?"
I have to admit, I shared dsweeney's feelings. I don't think that based on your love and passion for the show that you really didn't care about whether Tony lived or died.
Well, I'm not accustomed to not being believed, but I certainly have no control over that. I can only reiterate that I truly, honestly don't care whether Tony died in Holsten's, except insofar as it might affect the likelihood or parameters of any future Sopranos work. He died to me in a much more important way when he suffocated his nephew and felt not an ounce of regret or remorse afterward.

Lest you mistake my occasional involvement in threads like these for having a vested stake in Tony living, remember that I'm the chief moderator here and have often had to intervene in threads discussing the ending because they have unquestionably been the most contentious, problematic threads on the board and have led to the most bannings and requests for bannings. In an effort to quell the provocative intellectual arrogance coming from both sides (but particularly the "Tony definitely died" side) of this argument, I have involved myself more than I would have otherwise in arguing the ambiguity of the ending because that comes closest to validating all points of view while compelling none.

Beyond that, there's the purely polemical aspect of this, which this post falls under. I grew up in a house of debaters, and it's natural for me to vindicate my reasoning on an issue until I think it's fruitless to continue doing so (we're surely past that point now, but oh well.:icon_wink:) However you shouldn't mistake either that or my efforts to set a proper tone in these threads with being emotionally or otherwise invested in the outcome of Tony surviving Holsten's.

You and dsweeney are latecomers to Chase Lounge. Those who know me from way back, from the days of Sopranoland before it even moved to EZboard, know that I was all about Tony's spiritual, moral, and psychological evolution. I was all about hope for Tony. I was never one preoccupied with whackings or the mob machinations or whether Tony would make it out of the series alive. My screenname alone conveys a lot about what I valued most in the show (not the therapy scenes, per se, but the whole enterprise of investigating Tony's psyche and inner life.)

We lost a good deal of old discussion from Sopranoland when we moved to Chase Lounge, but I'm positive I took part in discussions as far back as season 5 where folks were voicing their preferences for how the series should end, specifically preferences for whether or not Tony should die. I was never opinionated on that issue. As I've stated before, I was not interested in when or how Tony would die, only in how he might better his life and reinvent his moral character before that time. If there is really such interest and doubt about the veracity of my claims, I recommend the search function to dig up some of those old posts. And as telling as what I did post are the many threads after MIA where I did NOT post. (e.g., http://thechaselounge.net/showthread.php?t=2052)
I think, with all due respect, you fail to see how Tony dying in front of his family has a profound meaning. Conkom linked to the blog about the meaning of Tony's death, an absorbing read that very clearly articulated how Tony dying in front of his family is how the show was meant to end since all the way back to the first episode.
I confess I haven't read a whole lot of the in depth stuff about the end (again, because the issue of his death or survival just isn't that interesting to me.) Can you direct me to this link?

I would welcome any read that could add depth or greater meaning to Tony dying in the diner. My immediate feeling is that I don't see any particularly profound meaning to it (any more than anyone dying in front of their family would be a profound event for that family). And I'm not aware of any particular foreshadowing or symbolic portent of the pilot episode that would have made this ending especially appropriate or resonant. But I would be happy to entertain others' views on that.
Think about it this way, the ending is open to interpretation, on this we agree. However, try to embrace the concept of "authorial intent." What is Chase's personal interpretation of the events in Holsten's? Since Chase created all 86 hours of this masterwork, knowing that answer should and will unlock the deepest meanings behind the rest of the series.
This is likely to be the only real fertile ground in this discussion. Until the Air America interview, I honestly felt Chase's own commentary post finale most strongly suggested an intent on his part to have the ending be ambiguous, to create a symbolic death but to leave the question of an actual death unanswered, to comment less on how much life Tony had left than to comment on what that life would look like and what he could expect when he died (sheer black void). I annotated the relevant quotes in a previous response to you in post #13 here:

http://thechaselounge.net/showthread.php?t=2328&page=2

With the Belzer interview, he has really contradicted himself, and the weight appears to have shifted. He now seems to be implying that he did intend to actually portray Tony's murder that night.

I have no problem accepting that, and if it ever becomes really relevant again (like if there's a sequel), then I welcome official clarification of his fate. But I remain convinced that the whole plan was flawed, that the intended effect of it was thwarted by self contradiction and a desire to be too unconventional, and that the focus of the last few minutes -- which is now so emblazoned on the public consciousness -- is not up to the best this show had to offer. If there's a stubbornness or obstinance to my position, it's because I don't want to let Chase off the hook for a technically imperfect ending that IMO didn't artistically live up to his gargantuan talents.
Tony, his spirits crushed after b-lining to the fridge first thing in the morning: "Who ate the last piece of cake?"

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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Irishwiseguy wrote:Fly are you saying that you are ultimately disappointed in the ending?
I was not enamored of the choice to spend the last 5 minutes of MIA building the presumptively ultimate "action" sequence of the series and making it about one external, physical happening: "did he or didn't he?" Because I rated the importance of Tony's survival of the series so low, I hated to see it elevated (forseeably, I believe) to the status it now occupies in discussion of the show and to see a black screen turned into the most significant Sopranos iconagraphy. It's 18 months later and even on the site with arguably the most engaged and intelligent fans, the discussion is still going on (and I'm obviously part of reason why, with posts of the length you see in this thread:icon_biggrin:).

Some would say that's the genius of the ending, that it's still generating that much debate this long afterward. Fair enough. If that's the metric for its success, then it's stupendously, phenomenally successful.

But that's not my metric. Me deepest disappointment with the show was that the prospect of Tony experiencing moral/spiritual evolution was continually dangled before us in increasingly tantalizing and promising terms as the series progressed, never more so than in Join the Club/Mayham and most of the following episodes of season 6A. The "Long Con" article by Emily Nussbaum, found in one of the MIA threads, details this well.

But once again the rug was pulled out and we who believed Chase was serious this time about Tony changing were made to feel beyond foolish with what happened in Kennedy and Heidi. For me that feeling was somewhat tempered in the days and weeks following that episode when I began to recognize what I believe to be the most neglected symbolism in the show's history -- that Chris' murder was less about Tony hating or wanting to rid himself of Chris than about the culmination of Tony's unacknowledged, unconscious rage at his father (and the other men who helped turn Tony into the gangster he became) and that the reason for Tony's lack of remorse was because of the righteous anger and catharsis he felt in symbolically killing his own father.

However, even though I'm quite confident and comfortable in that read of the story, it doesn't change the fact that nothing became of it, that Tony never made the progress in therapy that would have at least enabled him to understand the underlying reasons for his actions and his perplexing feelings afterward. That conscious realization might have been the key to Tony actually acknowledging out loud for the first time that he hated himself for what he'd done with his life and for the fact that he did to Christopher what he so hated his own father for doing to him. The end result was simply that Tony had one more murder to add to his long resume, one which never helped unlock the path to any kind of contrition or moral rehabilitation.

Of course all this disappointment deals with the last 4 episodes rather than just the last 4 minutes. But I felt a bookend approach to the way the show began, with a quiet look inside Tony Soprano -- no guns, or whackings or traditional "action" -- was most appropriate to underscore the priority that the show always seemed to maintain. Given what had transpired up until Holsten's, I would have been most satisfied if the last scene had been something like a conversation with Melfi, perhaps at her request after lamenting the very unprofessional, overly-emotional way she dumped him in Blue Comet. The scene could have subtly reinforced her reasons for terminating the therapy while also validating that she wasn't a total fool for having ever believed she could help him.
Tony, his spirits crushed after b-lining to the fridge first thing in the morning: "Who ate the last piece of cake?"

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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FlyOnMelfisWall wrote: One outstanding resource for what’s “concrete” or “objective” evidence of murder in our society is the type of evidence that’s admitted when someone is put on trial for it . . . like testimony establishing a dead body (victim) and cause of death; eye-witness or physical/circumstantial evidence linking the defendant to a weapon or physical act that caused the death; and evidence of defendant’s motive, plan, purpose, or intention to cause the victim’s death. And to take it from the sterile real world of courts and into the artist’s world of drama, I think you'd be hard pressed to name any movie or television plot where a character death was conveyed to or generally understood by an audience without having at least one of the above kinds of “evidence” present onscreen.
There is not one shred of ANY of this kind of evidence in MIA, starting with the overwhelming fact that there is no body or confirmed victim. So it’s entirely reasonable to assert that there is a dearth of concrete evidence of Tony’s murder by MOG.
A work of art is not up to the same standards of "beyond a reasonable doubt." But I think you have to look at everything in the scene and the entire episode and the episode before. The abrupt black screen interruption, which lasts for 10 seconds, along with MOG's stares at Tony and his geographic location to Tony once he enters the bathroom, along with the black screen occurring just moments after he enters the bathroom is enough reasonable evidence for me. That along with the flashback and the Sil scene talked about is enough for me to convict Mr. MOG to jail for life.
Looking at a guy twice is not unambiguously malicious. It's something that millions of people do in millions of innocent public encounters with strangers everyday. They look out of boredom, out of idle curiosity, because they think someone looks familiar, because they are in a great mood and are feeling particularly gregarious and interested in their social environment, because they hear part of a conversation that intrigues them, because they find a person or persons unusually attractive, and so on. In only an exceedingly rare number of instances would a stranger be eyeing another with the intent of imminently murdering them. So that simple act fails as any kind of compelling concrete evidence of malice in the absence of other, unambiguous evidence of malice that can tie a rope between the two and thereby magnify the significance of the former.
Yes, that's true, in real life. However, this is a tv show. When has Chase ever showed random patrons in Vesuvio's or anywhere else staring at Tony for no apparent reason? Take Chase at his word, he wasn't messing with us. Meaning MOG actions suggest a real, and probably nefarious, interest in Tony.
The reason he wasn’t shown looking “meaner” or doing something actually malicious is not because he would have tipped Tony off but because he would have tipped the audience off (which again begs the question of what the hell Chase's real goal was.) Tony was virtually oblivious to MOG. Nearly all of what we see of him is exclusively for our benefit. Which brings me to:
Therein lies the inherent self contradiction in Chase’s mission, assuming it was to unequivocally portray Tony’s murder without actually portraying it or to create a “never heard it coming” murder of Tony that the audience would experience vicariously. Those are fundamentally incompatible goals.
You say that concrete evidence -- i.e., the unambiguous kind -- would have destroyed the "suspense and unexpected nature" of the scene. There are two problems with that statement.

First, the two statuses are at odds and can't both be maintained at once by the same person since suspense involves the apprehension -- the keen awareness and expectation -- that SOMETHING important or terrible or momentous is about to happen while something "unexpected" -- like "not hearing it coming" -- means just what it says, having NO foresight, NO apprehension or advance appreciation for something that's about to happen.

The second problem is that the "suspense" was felt uniquely by the audience while the "never heard it coming" was experienced uniquely by Tony. Those points of view were not in the least comparable or shared, and it's an inescapable flaw of Chase's vision if they were supposed to be otherwise. By the time MOG rose to go to the bathroom, we audience knew the last hour of this series was almost up and that the heartpounding final few seconds seemed to be inexorably leading to the murder of a Soprano in that diner. We just didn't know it would be preempted or represented by a black screen. Meanwhile, Tony's not watching himself on the Sopranos knowing it's the last seconds of the last episode and has no clue that anything was about to happen. Since the audience were already in an excruciating state of tension and expectation, adding a simple, confirmational scene of the type I've previously advocated (while shooting and editing everything in that diner in exactly the same way) would have in no way changed the essential dynamics between audience and main character. We still would have been expecting a murder. We would have KNOWN MOG was the perpetrator rather than having to assume it from lots of abstract inferences and symbolism. And when the screen went black, we would have had an unambiguous context to give it meaning.
Well, this is all a matter of opinion, you think Chase failed at what he intended to do with the ending. I think Chase had some considerations in crafting the scene. One, he had to make Tony comfortable enough and illustrate him not being wary enough to allow MOG to be able to get him. At the same time, he has to tip the audience off that something's not quite right here, that MOG may be a danger to Tony. That danger is already inherent in the audience's response to the scene because this is the final scene ever. Chase has to balance those two considerations to ultimately get to the whole "never hear it" black screen. So, for factor one, he has Tony not paying attention and always looking down and sitting with his back exposed. For factor two, we get MOG staring at Tony and all the other attention paid to him to tip the audience off about his possible intentions. Tony doesn't know about it, but the audience does. It's classic suspense filmaking-giving the audience more information than Tony has. I think this balance by Chase works. Anymore evidence may disrupt the "never hear it" murder. You think it wouldn't and I can't really change your mind on this. Fundamentally, you believe Chase failed as a director.
I confess I haven't read a whole lot of the in depth stuff about the end (again, because the issue of his death or survival just isn't that interesting to me.) Can you direct me to this link?

I would welcome any read that could add depth or greater meaning to Tony dying in the diner. My immediate feeling is that I don't see any particularly profound meaning to it (any more than anyone dying in front of their family would be a profound event for that family). And I'm not aware of any particular foreshadowing or symbolic portent of the pilot episode that would have made this ending especially appropriate or resonant. But I would be happy to entertain others' views on that.
Go here, which will take you right to Page 2, Part II (my favorite of the entire) thing.) I have to admit, it actually moved me because it makes Tony's death so tragic and at the same time the only real way Chase could have ended it. There is also plenty of discussion with hundreds of comments.

http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/39/
I have no problem accepting that, and if it ever becomes really relevant again (like if there's a sequel), then I welcome official clarification of his fate. But I remain convinced that the whole plan was flawed, that the intended effect of it was thwarted by self contradiction and a desire to be too unconventional, and that the focus of the last few minutes -- which is now so emblazoned on the public consciousness -- is not up to the best this show had to offer. If there's a stubbornness or obstinance to my position, it's because I don't want to let Chase off the hook for a technically imperfect ending that IMO didn't artistically live up to his gargantuan talents.
Here I disagree. I think it was perfect. Besides, the final scene is just a few minutes and shouldn't tarnish the rest of the series (although I agree with you that it has taken on a life of its own). It does seem that you have made peace with the ending.

By the way, I am seriously enjoying this discussion.

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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While it seems that there is some great discussion going on presently, I still question why this subject has yet again reared its head given the thread topic of this thread (and frankly, overall.) If there is a movie after, and even if it takes place after Holsteins, assuming it's possible Tony might live after, what would be the point? Whatever Chase may choose to show us, it wouldn't be that different from what he already suggested. Look at the arc of every single season of the show we actually have. And if he died, the question is moot.

If alive, Tony will continue in the same action, one might assume. I think it can reasonably be argued that regardless of Tony's life or death after Made in America, the after would be just as bad if not worse than the before (see his Coma and the response as the ultimate commentary on that.) The man won't change and if he didn't die that day, he likely would have in much the same way eventually given his trajectory. I suppose that's why the idea of his death that night seems so myopic to me. What does it really matter if he died in Holsteins? If he did not, the same outcome would likely occur - or he would end up in jail (as he suggested himself - one of these options was likely his outcome.)

Rather than discussing the eventual end, I guess I'd be more interested in discussion of how he got there. When did he turn completely to the "dark side"? Was it preordained? Did he leave the world of moral men when he chose the life in the first place? Or was there somewhere along the way he still had a choice to leave the life and find some reasonable outcome to his (and his families) life? It's the why and how that seems more interesting to me, than the what. Tony's life, as Chase showed us on screen, will not end happily or peaceful (despite the familial mood of the scene that ended the show and one that particularly recalled the finale of the first season - much the point, in the end, as I see it.) His family will likely be scared by the event. So what does it really matter that it happens at Holsteins?

Anything that might occur in a film would be about that. Anything after Holsteins would be superfluous. We've already seen it over 86 episodes. That ain't gonna change. Frankly, I'd be more interested in seeing a young Johnny Boy and Livia and how their actions helped shaped the main character. But I seriously doubt that will occur since it doesn't include Gandolfini in the role. Nor would I really want to include it in the canon unless Carm was somehow involved.

I suppose it would also be curious to see what it would be like for Tony to leave the life. But I think that everything Chase showed us over those 86 episodes shows us he will never get to that point. If he did, I think we would have seen it.

In the end, it's the relationships and reasoning behind the characters that made this show so special. Not the actual events. :icon_wink:
"Leave the gun...take the cannoli." - Clemenza

Think Tony Died? Consider this...

Visit my Blog at Hear the Hurd

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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Detective Hunt wrote: In the end, it's the relationships and reasoning behind the characters that made this show so special. Not the actual events. :icon_wink:
I think it would be more precise to say that there is a causal relationship between the characters and the events. What happens in the end is a consequence to all that has happened in the past, a culmination of all the incidents, major and trivial. The irony is that what ostensibly appears to be a mundane, non-descript, anti-climatic scene is actually quite the opposite.

It was a brilliant ending and kudos to Chase for the way he did it.

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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Detective Hunt wrote:While it seems that there is some great discussion going on presently, I still question why this subject has yet again reared its head given the thread topic of this thread (and frankly, overall.)
Because you are a better, much more disciplined moderator than yours truly.:icon_wink:

Ever since we moved to the new domain with the vBulletin software, I've seriously become lax in enforcing notions of "staying on topic," largely because of the ability here to split and merge topics and even individual posts so that, at any point deemed appropriate and with hindsight as a guide, content could be reorganized in ways it never could have at the other sites. Plus I'm one of these who finds interconnectedness in almost everything, so foundational or collateral issues are naturally part of my posts, and I enjoy the free "bloodflow" that comes when you fracture one artery into 2 or 3 others. Of course that can lead you to bleed to death.:icon_biggrin:

I think I started this bypass back around post 28. To save DH the awkward embarrassment of having to tell the site administrator to stay on topic, I hereby chastise myself for the lack of discipline and promise to do better in that regard.:icon_redface::icon_wink:

As for the rest of your post, DH, just a simple "fantastic". Very well put. If you would like to turn your 3rd paragraph into a thread all its own, count me in.
Tony, his spirits crushed after b-lining to the fridge first thing in the morning: "Who ate the last piece of cake?"

Re: The movie is "in the works"(!)

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FlyOnMelfisWall wrote:Because you are a better, much more disciplined moderator than yours truly.:icon_wink:
Pshaw. :icon_razz:

I truly didn't mean to spoil the flow of the thread other than perhaps guide it back to original intent. In that vein, you are guilty as charged, Fly. But far be it for me to stop your posts, I do love them so. :icon_mrgreen:

Though, in truth, I am likely as guilty as you for "taking the bait" and arguing another aspect which I am prone to do. I'll start that alternate thread as I think it the truly fascinating aspect of the character. And it'll actually have the bonus of hopefully being about the thread title. :icon_wink:
"Leave the gun...take the cannoli." - Clemenza

Think Tony Died? Consider this...

Visit my Blog at Hear the Hurd

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