Phyllis likes the ending of The Sopranos, but Hank smells a Hollywood-sized rat

Hank: Phyllis, it says on the Internet that practically everybody in that diner at the end of The Sopranos had a connection to Tony's crew. The man at the counter we kept seeing was a Leotardo, Phil's blood relative, and there was a trucker whose brother was killed by Christopher, and two black men who tried to kill Tony once, and some boy scouts who--I forget, sugar. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I am inclined to say that if the point is Tony Soprano spawned a lot of hard feelings and his bad karma is going to catch up with him any minute, that is cheap, and it is cheap to end the series with such a cute little in-joke. But then I think there is something poetic in the image of this feral, rapacious man, who has played at seeming human without ever learning a thing along the way, sitting uncomprehending in the midst of the carnage he's made. Made in America, like the poster says.

Darling, I am confused. The only thing I am sure of is that we are not supposed to think Tony will be killed in the diner that night. But was it a good ending or a bad ending? I cannot tell. Help me.

Phyllis: There sure are a lot people out there today commenting that they think Tony was killed in the diner surrounded by family--his own, and the families of people killed by Tony's other family. You know. The mob.

I don't know if Tony died last night. I don't really care all of a sudden, either, because the way it all ended, you know that eventually, he will die. And I don't think it's an in-joke having all those relatives of dead or wronged characters appear in the diner as extras, or as extra-special assassins. Because only the biggest nerds watching The Sopranos would recognize them. Without the recognition, the ending was tense, sensical, banal, right. Nothing changed.

I loved the last episode. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen I was wrong. And the blackout just made me think that that the ending, not the show, was about how we project our own expectations and ideas onto this family, this show. It was a meta-finale.

There will be no movie.

Hank: I am glad that you enjoyed the ending, sweetie, although I am not sure I understand the part about psychological projection and meta-whositz. Are you saying that Dr. Melfi got to direct the last episode? I don't think they would let her do that. It reminded me of the Seinfeld finale. Do you remember "No hugging, no learning"? The Sopranos hugged a lot, but they didn't mean it and they didn't learn anything. They also wound up in the same kind of limbo. The last time Tony looked up at the sound of the door, I was waiting to see Jerry and Elaine walk in when everything went black.

I certainly hope you are right and there is no Sopranos movie. But they always say there's going to be no movie. It's just like mobsters referring to their enemies as "our friends." I have already found three Sopranos movie treatments published on the Internet:

What Made Tony Run: In the opening scene, Tony is killed in the diner by Phil Leotardo's cousin Nikki. A public television reporter decides to make a documentary about the rise and fall of New Jersey's top crime boss, Tony Soprano: In the Shadow of the Five Families. She interviews friends, associates, antagonists, and family. Carmela speaks extensively about the role real estate development has played in coping with her pain. AJ refuses to talk and tries instead to sell movie rights to his version of the story, Unfortunate Son. The reporter, despite her best efforts, is never able to sort out whether Tony's dying word was "goomah!" or just "Ma!"

The Sopranos Behind Closed Doors: After finishing their meal, the Sopranos get up to leave the diner but find that they cannot. The doors have vanished. Even bullets cannot shatter the windows. Tony tries to call Paulie to come and get them out, but there is no cell signal inside the diner. They spend eternity playing songs by Journey, Styx, and REO Speedwagon, ordering fries and desserts every few hours, and keeping a wary eye on their fellow customers.

My Dinner With Silvio: In the opening scene, the entire family is killed in the diner. Nikki Leotardo shoots Tony, the truck driver stabs AJ because he won't stop whining, and the Boy Scouts rape Carmela and Meadow and then kill them to keep them from talking. This sequence, directed by Quentin Tarantino, is nine minutes long and lovingly, graphically brutal. A title card then appears on the screen: "Five Years Later". Cut to a trattoria in Little Italy, where a mechanical-voicebox-equipped Silvo Dante has a far-ranging conversation about the Sopranos and about life over gabagool with Janice Soprano, who has founded a chain of yoga studios.

I was hoping they would kill Tony to save David Chase's soul. How else can a producer walk away from that much sequel/spinoff cash?

The Gilmore Girls finale is a sore disappointment to Phyllis

I am not so sad to see these two masters of inanity go their separate ways. For the last few years I have watched The Gilmore Girls through the fast forward button, stopping briefly to see if anything true happened when Rory or Lorelei were in a scene that did not feature local color: Kirk, Babette, Sally Struthers, or the town boob, Taylor. I always liked Lorelei the best, though I never understood why an upper-class teenager who left home at 16 had a baby would name her daughter after herself. Call me Jewish.

Maybe I just liked Lorelei and Rory because they were pretty, but when Rory became a self-satisfied crust of her former brainy self, I started to lose interest. And then when Luke got himself a daughter who talked just as fast and cute as L and R, I really lost interest. And yet I watched. I hated Logan, so smarmy and foil highlighted. I didn't even like what's his name--Rory's first boyfriend. Big dumb lunk who had the dumbest exit: marry at 18, sleep with Rory, go all Supernatural...

I did like Paris, who was mean. And I liked it when Emily and Lorelei were together. Emily was mean, too, but there was something honest about her desire to be a part of Lorelei's life. Mrs. Kim was mean, but like Emily, she knew who she was and there was a loving consistency to both of their characters.

The premise of seeing a mother and daughter who actually like each other, and having the mother be good at taking care of herself, her kid, her charming house, and on top of it all, dress well, was fun to watch for a while. It was good when Lorelei never married, and it was stupid when she married Christopher, the helpless father of Rory. It was asinine that when Luke and Lorelei finally got together, Luke was a total idiot about keeping Lorelei out of every thought and decision he had or made: where to live, how to be a parent, what to wear.

So I guess I have nothing nice to say in the end. But I will watch the finale through fast forward, stopping when Rory and Lorelei are on screen together with their shiny hair and frittered-away potentials.