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I’m finally ready to start talking about the Sopranos finale. For those of you that haven’t seen it yet, get a fucking grip. It’s been weeks. Seriously. If you don’t want to ruin it for yourselves just turn away, but for those of you that have seen it, let’s rap a bit, shall we?

Let’s just start by saying that The Sopranos is pretty much my favorite show of all time. Or definitely in the top 2 with The Wire (and I guess we’ll just limit that to dramas, since The Simpsons and Seinfeld are both way up at the top, too). Andy and I got in on the ground floor back in the day and, with the exception of an HBO-less time of my life, pretty much stuck with it through thick and thin.

I mean, come on! What’s not to love about The Sopranos? Hot Mafia action? Check. Gratuitous nudity? Check. A guy named Big Pussy? Roger. Paulie Walnuts? You got it. Paulie’s hair? It’s a package deal, my friend. I could go on and on. The Sopranos were my regular Sunday night thing back before I had a regular Saturday night thing. It sucks to see it go, but it has served me well. It provided a reason to get together with friends, an excuse to talk like a goombah, and inspiration for some pretty decent Italian dinners.

And Tony Soprano? The motherfucking man. He got the power. He got the sweet gumars. He curbed that dude in the restaurant for being rude to his daughter. He beat the shit out of some dude (it’s been a long time, but I thought it was Phil Leotardo) after running him off the road and making him wreck his car, perhaps my favorite Sopranos moment of all time. If you needed your weekly dose of bad-assery  look no further than the fat guy from Jersey who sounds like he’s always sleeping. I love that guy. But I digress…

Now you know you can’t just close up an institution like that and make everyone happy. You just can’t. Remember the Seinfeld finale? Did you just curse or think about cursing? Then yes, you do remember. When you flip the switch on something that’s become a part of people’s lives prepare for bitching and cursing. It comes with the territory. My initial thoughts on the end were Tony and the family carry on, constantly looking over their shoulders and never knowing what’s going to happen next. This is the life they cut out for themselves and they will carry on accordingly, just like they always have. They’re the average American family that has to put up with shit just like we do: dipshit kids, job troubles, bears in their swimming pool, people constantly trying to kill them. We can all relate.

I lived for the past two weeks with this mindset, but there was always a part of me that doubted. Maybe it was the Journey that got to me, but I didn’t want to stop believing. Here was a batch of characters that I’ve grown attached to (ok, Tony at least. Fuck AJ, Carmella can eat a dick, and Meadow just needs to take her top off. That is if she can get that car of hers parked.) and I’ll be damned if I’m willing to let them go. And now, thanks to this dude Bob Harris, I am totally convinced and living in denial no more. Tony, he dead. I mean disco dead. That’s just the way it is, baby.

You can check out his take on it here. It is long. Like, my Johnson long, but it’s definitely worth the read if you 1) have ever considered yourself a fan and 2) have seen the finale (which if number 1 is true should be a foregone conclusion, unless you no longer have a tv or are now a Buddhist monk, in which case isn’t Nirvana waiting for you? What the fuck are you doing reading this?). He goes deep, but some of the coincidences are just too much to dismiss.

In a nutshell, if you paid far much more attention to The Godfather movies than I ever did (and I love them, but I’ve only seen them once, really. Someone get me the boxed set, will ya?) then you’ll notice some things. And not just the dude in the Members Only jacket going into the bathroom, then emerging right before your cable didn’t go out, although that is the most obvious one (even my dumb ass picked up on that but thought it was way too obvious). Even that dumbass jacket has significance, according to this guy’s theory. And I have to say, it makes sense. Perfect sense, for the most part.

Why do we love The Sopranos? Besides all the stuff I mentioned before, it was just amazing television. Written tremendously, shot beautifully, characters that were rich and deep like two layers of cannoli flavored cheesecake. Yes, all of those things. But don’t ever forget that there was always more going on than what we saw. The proverbial “little things,” the tidbits that the real hardcore fan and detail obsessed viewer would pick up on, the type of things that you’d point out to your friends when watching and everyone would say “oh shit!” That’s what made this show better than great. That’s what made this show transcendent television, a true happening.

David Chase took over the director’s chair for his series’ finale. Do you think for one second that every little thing wasn’t obsessed over? Do you think that one little “hey did you notice?” from the finale was there by accident? Hell and no. When asked about the finale, Chase said “anyone who wants to watch it, it’s all there.” Well of course it was all there, television is a visual media, but can you see it all? That’s a taller order, for sure. It’s the attention to detail that made this show stand out, and it’s what makes the finale fucking genius and gives it permanent home on my DVR, or at least until a Shannon Tweed movie (pre-botox, please) comes up to record and I need some space.

I think I was too wrapped up in the what that was going on, it being the finale and all, that I didn’t pay attention to the how it was going on. When the credits started rolling I wasn’t sure what to make of it. An hour later I was okay with the ending. Confused, but satisfied. Here, some 2.5 weeks later, I’m loving it, and I can’t see how it could have ended any other way.

For 6.5 seasons a lot of folks thought they were watching a great mob drama. They were right. Some folks took it a step further and said not only is it a great mob drama, but it’s a great family drama, too. They were also right. But there were some who knew that a lot more was going on there than the script had to say. Everything from the scenery, to the soundtrack, to even the episode titles; they all helped tell part of the story. I wasn’t always aware of this while it was happening, I’m man enough to admit it, but we’ve never really seen anything like this on television before, and we probably won’t see anything like this on television again. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to start poring over those old episodes like the Zapruder film.