I think the ending was great. I have a friend who doesn't. He does make a good point that really any show could do the same thing. Lost could just end their show by not answering any of the questions we've had for so
long, just fade to black and make it up to the viewer to decide. He said "why did I even bother watching the last episode? If it's up to me as the viewer to determine what happens, then I could imagine everything from any point forward."
Those are good points but the way I look at it is there are really only two outcomes to that final scene. If he was shot, it was beautifully done. Tony didn't see it coming because it would have been that guy coming out of the bathroom and he would have been shot from behind.
He didn't see it coming so we the viewer shouldn't either. The surprise of the blackness was experienced by us just the same as it was experienced by Tony. The other outcome is that nothing happened at all and they just finished their onion rings and went home. If that's the case, the final scene was great because it highlighted how nervous Tony was by every little
thing going on around him in the diner. Every schmo that came in was totally unimportant but in his mind he could be finally meeting the guy who was going to kill him. He'll have to go on the rest of his life that way
and really he's lived that way up to this point too even though they never highlighted that as much as they did in the finale.
My heart was racing so much in that final scene with all of the mundane things happening like the people coming in and Meadow trying to park her car. That's the kind of suspense Tony always has to live with. His next step could always be his last. In that way, it doesn't matter which of those two outcomes really happened. If it didn't happen then, it will happen some time. I think
that scene was so great because of the impact it had on the viewers.
I have another friend who said he watched it for the first time on Sunday and he didn't really see what all the fuss was about. You can't watch the finale of a series as your first exposure to it and expect to get anything out of it. But it shows that by itself, that episode wasn't really anything special. There wasn't much closure, it was just part of an ongoing story
that keeps going after the show is over. That final scene would have no meaning to someone who didn't understand the intensity of the mundane. |