Like there aren't enough of these. Everybody with cable and a blog has written a review of The Sopranos finale. But screw them—I wrote about it yesterday, I'm writing again about it today. Because the series finale will go down in history as one of the most influential, controversial, and quite possibly brilliant endings to a series television has ever seen.

SPOILERS AHEAD THERE I SAID IT NO BITCHING

The episode itself was extremely entertaining, but moved slowly. The climax—didn't quite feel right. Though the “crunch” of Phil's head was satisfying to say the least, it didn't feel like the climax of an episode that was supposed to end this story. So my friends and I were just sitting there, waiting for the big “BANG” in whatever form it came in. The only bang there was in the end was my feet hitting the floor when the screen went black, while I screamed “What happened to the fucking cable?!?”

Only one person died in the episode. There was very little gunplay. And for anyone who regularly watches The Sopranos, that was no surprise. The series isn't about that. We've gone three, even four episodes in this series without a gun even being drawn. What was so impressive about The Sopranos was the complex dramatic elements to the storytelling, with violent deaths simply highlighting the microcosm we were being shown.

But that's just it—those deaths just highlighted the story we saw. We weren't the ones who had to live in that world. And for four minutes last night, David Chase gave us the opportunity to step into the shoes of the man himself, Tony Soprano.

In the last scene, to the tune of Journey's Don't Stop Believing”, we watch as Tony, Carm, AJ, and Meadow congregate at a restaurant for dinner. One by one, Tony first, they arrive at the restaurant. Meadow brings up the rear, and actually has enough trouble parallel parking that the last we see of her, she's running across the street to the restaurant. The whole time, camera cuts make us completely aware of everyone in the diner: a group of boy scouts, a man in a trucker cap who is shifting suspiciously, another who continually stares at Tony, and a group of thugs that seem to be looking his way a little more than normal. While you're watching this, your heart is thumping—you know it's the end, you know something has to happen, this is the big one, will you even hear it coming...

...and then instant black. Silence. And a shitload of really, really pissed off people.

I was one of those pissed off people. I felt jipped. I felt like David Chase was flicking off all the loyal fans who have been with this series from the beginning. I needed closure, dammit!

And today, after reading reviews and debates online about the ending, I realized something. I didn't need closure. Tony needed closure.

What that last scene did was put us into Tony's shoes. Let us see what the world is like for him. How he is constantly on guard, watching over his shoulder, constantly thinking, “Is this it? Will I die here, tonight?” And he never had an answer. So he had to cope with it just like we all have to cope with the shit that we don't know about life. Tony had to be the kind of guy that could go out into a public place, not knowing whether there was a bullet in that place waiting to be put in his head. In the end, Tony was a metaphor for the human condition, and we got to experience that last night.

One of the reasons some people might not have liked the ending (and the reason I didn't like it in the beginning) is that it had a significant impact on your affect. Chase built up more tension in that four minutes than in any other place in the series, and then he yanked the fucking carpet out from under us. It was a shock. There was no resolution for our tension, our anxiety, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling. But Chase did that on purpose. It was his way of saying to us, “You fools have no idea what it feels like to be this guy you've watched for almost sixty hours worth of film. Let me show you for a second.”

It was a surprise ending, because if you see it the way I do, you will never watch an episode of The Sopranos in the same way again. I've suffered from panic attacks and anxiety, but last night, just watching the end, my adrenaline was pumping so hard I thought I was going to go crazy. A lot of therapists and psychiatrist agree that the release of adrenaline is directly related to anxiety disorder. And for me, Chase gave us the best ending possible. Now we know exactly why Tony was in therapy. Yeah, he had issues with his mother. Sure, he lived a fairly immoral life, was shitty to his wife and kids at times, and went through more deaths than most of us do in a lifetime. But in the end, it was what he had to deal with every day, all the little things, the constant fear, the responsibility to keep other people safe—that's what made Tony go into the therapy that became such a staple and pleasure of the show. I'm not sure I would have made that connection had I not been on the wild ride that was the last four minutes of The Sopranos. And so, with as much passion as I had last night when I cursed David Chase for the travesty of an ending, I praise him now.

Give me a break! Sometimes it takes a little time to recognize brilliance.

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