Revisiting "The Sopranos" -- the final season looks better than ever

The famously (and deliberately) enigmatic final scene of The Sopranos, as the Soprano family arrives one by one -- or nearly, since Meadow doesn't quite make it inside -- at the agreed-upon dinner site, Holsten's

by Ken

Thanks to the miracle of "On Demand," I've been taking a riveting trip through the "final season" (really two not-quite-full seasons) of The Sopranos, from 2006-07, which HBO has been posting in blocs of four episodes -- three for the 12-episode Season "6A" and two for the 9-episode Season "6B," with those final five episodes appearing in time for this weekend, when I devoured them rapaciously.

I don't have anything startling or, really, new to say about the show. There is, perhaps, the obvious question to answer: How does the show hold up? And the answer is: It looks better than ever. Now that it's no longer necessary to focus on the progress of the assorted plot lines, it's easier to focus on the stunning precision of detail, and how brilliantly creator and master producer David Chase's extraordinary team of writer-producers -- developed and mined the roster of characters created in the earlier seasons. This is still something that top-quality TV-makers can do which can't be done in any other medium, and while Chase certainly didn't invent it, he brought it to a level that I don't think anyone else has matched.

David Chase had done brilliant work as a writer and producer on The Rockford Files, I'll Fly Away, and Northern Exposure, but The Sopranos was his own creation, for which as overseer he also assembled the amazing team.

In the Season 6-es we see the full development of Tony Sopranos monstrousness, but we also see a renewal of the fascinating relationship between the Soprano children -- such different people (Meadow who fails at hardly anything she tries, Anthony Jr. who tries hardly anything and usually screws up what he does) and yet still bound by that special closeness of siblings, at least on Mead's part. There's so much more that I wouldn't know where to begin.

A re-viewing naturally also makes it possible to appreciate in greater depth and astonishment the work of the entire huge cast and of all the behind-the camera people, not to mention the corps of directors. And in some way I'm most awed by the size of the team Chase assembled -- so many amazing writers, directors, actors, and all the categories of technical people, all producing work of such uniform terrificness.

As for the legacy of The Sopranos, the Season 6-es continue to showcase the work of one of the series' mainstay writers, Terence Writer, now the driving creative force behind HBO's terrific Boardwalk Empire, and even more the work of future Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who had emerged as a Sopranos writing force in Season 5 and now, a full-fledged executive producer, emerges as the most important single writer.

Next I guess I'm going to have to go through the whole series, an undertaking complicated by the fact that I have the first few seasons on VHS. (I was a late convert to DVD.) The nice part is that I have a feeling the show is going to continue looking better and better.


It never occurred to me to check it out, so I only just realized that Holsten's is an actual restaurant, in Bloomfield, NJ.

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