Don't (Stop) Believe(-in') The Hype

Don't listen to the haters. (Or, hell, go and judge for yourself.) The Sopranos finale was brilliant. From Start to Finish. Yes, the ending, too. Especially the ending. Tony got shot and was killed. Instantly. Right in front of his family. End of Story, kids. No way Tony somehow survives that scene and lives to see another day. As to the question of, "why not just show it?", well, what is it that you were hoping to see? If Carmela, Meadow and AJ got shot, too? I doubt it. Phil Leotardo got taken out in front of his daughter and his grandkids and nothing happened to them; you know the Mafia doesn't touch family when performing a hit. Or did you want to see the three of them crying over Tony's body? You've seen that already, at the very beginning of the season when Uncle Junior shot Tony. Oh, and this: "But he looked up and saw Meadow come in." Really? Did he? How do you know? He looked up and saw something, I'm guessing the barrel of a gun. As the recently-late Bobby Bacallieri foreshadowed at the end of last week's episode (itself, a flashback to when he said it in the first episode of this mini-season), "you probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" Instant death. CUT to black.

Anyway, Tim Goodman, of the San Francisco Chronicle, sums it up and doesn't miss a thing. Good read.