‘The Sopranos’ ended an eight-year, six-season run Sunday with a finale that has the fans brewing.

I know, I don’t regularly follow Sopranos on here.  I used to watch it religiously, but sometime around the third season when the show went on its first super-long hiatus, I stopped subscribing to HBO, and never could get caught back up.  I did, however, go on a six-hour marathon over the weekend (by the way, when you watch several hours of ‘Sopranos’, you inadvertantly become quite the potty-mouth.  FYI)  and got caught up on what’s been going on with the show since it returned for these last episodes, so that I could be prepared for the end of a show that really changed television drama.

And, you know, I wasn’t terribly upset about the finale like so many others were…and maybe it was because I had the past few episodes fresh on my mind.  For those of you who didn’t catch it, Tony and family are gathering to eat in a diner.  Now, every viewer is expecting Tony to die at the end, and the show knows this, dwelling on each patron in the diner, making us wonder if that’s the guy that will do the deed.  One guy, who is focused on several times, moves to the bathroom, recalling the scene in “The Godfather” when Michael does the same thing to retrieve a gun that is hidden there.  Just as Tony is watching Meadow enter the restaraunt, the music, “Don’t Stop Believing”, drops, and the screen jarringly goes black for a good ten seconds before the credits roll. 

At face value, there’s no closure.  But you may recall a few episodes back, there was a statement made…”they say you never hear the shot that kills you”, or something like that.  So, just my opinion, either the bathroom guy, or some other unassuming diner customer, took Tony out. 

But don’t look for any official word from creator David Chase.  He told the Star-Ledger of Newark:

“I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there…People get the impression that you’re trying to (mess) with them, and it’s not true. You’re trying to entertain them,” he said. “Anybody who wants to watch it, it’s all there.”

See, it’s all there. 

Anyway, love it or hate it, Sunday saw the end of a television great.  Sopranos…we’ll miss you.