SOPRANOS BY CHECKOV

The ending that wasn't comes right out of turn of the century Russian Theatre when Constantin Stanislavsky started a revolution that has not run its course even today. The main jumping off point for the fame enjoyed by the Moscow Art Theatre was the successful presentation of what was then brand new in theatre: realistic plays. Anton Checkov wrote "realistic" dramas where nothing really ever happens until finally it does......and that is the point. All of his plays had real endings, none left you just sitting there. Stanislavsky criticized one of his plays called The Seagull (most famous I suppose for the line, "Do you remember, you shot a sea gull? A man comes by chance, sees it, and out of nothing else to do, destroys it") while it was in rehersal because it just wasn't working. At the end of the first act there was talk about a suicide, one that doesn't happen. Stanislavsky told Checkov something that is a sort of matrix for all drama, "If you leave a loaded gun on the table, it has to go off before the play ends." In other words, it's a play and not real life. You must tie certain things up.

Well in the Sopranos there were rifles, pistols, and machine guns left sitting on the table and none of them went off. A totally shitty ending, one that Stanislavsky would not have allowed, no matter how good the writing. Were the Sopranos a play it would close out of town, if it was a movie the box office would drop 90% on the second week.