KEY POINTS:
Wanted dead or alive: closure to The Sopranos, the most consistently compelling drama on TV. That unkind cut to black for the final 30 seconds of Made In America, the last episode ever of the show last night (TV One, 9.30), was the ultimate tease, creator David Chase
leaving fans literally forever in the dark.
Did death steal up "suddenly and without sound" on the North New Jersey mob's main man, as he famously feared in an earlier season? Or was that final song - Journey's Don't Stop Believing - the sign that life simply would go on?
Who was the boss looking up to see arrive as the curtain fell: was it daughter Meadow on her way to join the happy nuclear family in the all-American diner or was it his executioner, the mystery man checking him out from that stool in the bar?
You can understand why the episode provoked an outcry among dissatisfied fans after it screened in the US.
Who wouldn't feel the infuriation after a season in which the suspense was building like one of the storms off the coast of Tony's favourite haunts, Florida?
Surely after the body count in the past few episodes, including snuffing out the nephew he once looked upon as a son, Tony's earned himself an especially grand piece of real estate in the underworld. Or, at least, like Don Giovanni, a spectral invitation to dine in hell.
On the other hand, that final black-out could look like a punishment of another kind. The depressive boss condemned to a life sentence of responsibilities: keeping the wayward members of his two families in check, the turf wars, the crises, boredom, fear of betrayal, being whacked or finally run down by the hellhounds of the FBI.
The boss' fate aside, the Soprano offspring provided a nicely ironic finish to one of the drama's grand themes, the dissection of the American dream.
The last few episodes have really belonged to Anthony Junior, whose botched suicide attempt in the family swimming pool and continual playing on the depressive legacy from dad has been some of the best stuff of the season.
With war on his own turf, Tony couldn't quite get his head around AJ's obsession with the remote "War on Terror". Never mind, AJ's newly awakened political sensibilities were neatly diverted by mum and dad with the lure of a manufactured film job and a BMW.
With New York at bay, his kids' ideals sent packing, dumped by his therapist - who's finally forced to face the notion that the talking cure perhaps can't do much for a psychopath - there wasn't much left for Tony to do except confront his nemesis Uncle Junior.
What better preparation for the end. Junior's dark, dead eyes, magnified to alarming proportions by his owl glasses, have always been one of the most terrifying aspects of the show. As empty as Thursday nights will feel now the best drama on TV is over.
