Chasing Climaxes

From the narrow vantage point of one solipsist (i.e., The Laughorist), the closing scene of "The Sopranos" final episode demonstrated both brilliance and courage on the part of David Chase. The scene takes place at a New Jersey diner called Holsten's (having lived in Jersey for 10 years, with two children born in the Garden State, I must confess to harboring very fond memories of those joints). The hypertense tableau is set, with all of the Soprano family poised to sit down and eat, all in one place and at the same time. This is itself a rare event for any family (nuclear or otherwise) in America, as ably demonstrated by Steven Spielberg in the opening scene of "E.T." You might say, the Sopranos are in a Tension Envelope (as I have blogged several times before). In the words of the summary provided by HBO:

Tony is the first to arrive at Holsten's for a family dinner. He sits in a booth and plays a song on the jukebox, watching the door. Carmela enters and joins him, asking about his meeting with Mink. He tells her Carlo's gonna testify and she takes the news with a sigh. AJ arrives next, complaining about the more mundane tasks of his job but quotes old advice from his father: "Try to remember the times that were good." Meanwhile, Meadow struggles to parallel park outside. Customers come and go - a shady looking guy who's been sitting at the counter enters the restroom. Finally parking the car, Meadow runs inside to join her family, just in time for dinner.

But of course the summary cannot convey the electric fear pulsing through this ordinary moment. As viewers, we expect the whole family to be sprayed with bullets, or at least Tony, or for him to be arrested. Something. We crave some spectacular climax. The bell at the door rings; SCREEN GOES TO BLACK. (The bell at the door, reminiscent of Thomas DeQuincey's essay on the knocking at the gate in Macbeth.)

Many, if not most, fans and ordinary viewers feel cheated by this anti-climax, this impotent lack of climax, this "nothing" nonending. But this David-Chased climax of the quotidian, this climax of the ordinary, is perfect because it's like a Chekhov slice of life. This is it. That's it. Just see it, folks, with all its laden possibilities.

Did I lust for and expect the Big Bang Bada Bing Climax? Sure. But here's why I like what Chase did:

1. The cut to BLACK was so abrupt it was like experiencing the shock of a hit (if indeed they were assassinated; maybe they weren't).

2. It was like death itself (I know; I can only surmise) in that it was the rudest of interruptions. You want to say, "Hey! Wait! I'm not finished here. Something's wrong with my freakin' TV. Hold it. something's wrong. I'm not ready for this." Which is more or less what we want to yell at Death anyway, eh?

3. I'm not likely the first to observe this, but wasn't David Chase obviously echoing T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men (1925) with:

"This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."

4. C'mon! Aren't most climaxes more ordinary than extraordinary if you're really honest? (I freely expect a veritable chorus of satiated and panting readers to shout: "Speak for yourself, buddy!")

5. Isn't life really not as tidily wrapped and explicitly resolved as we have come to expect through supermarket novels and conventional (American) dramas, at least as depicted in television series and movies?

Plus, isn't life