Sopranos: Made in America

I had several different theories about how the Sopranos would end. I realized, that Sunday night before the episode ended, that none of them were likely to satisfy me. But it didn't matter, David Chase pulled off an ending that no one predicted.

Like many viewers, I'm appreciating the ending more in retrospect. I think, first viewing, you're too caught up in the fact that you're watching the last few minutes of the Sopranos to think about the entire season, which I later did.

I thought about the title of the last episode. "Made in America."

And I came up with a theory that (amazing) I haven't seen. Yet.

I began to see the last season of the Sopranos as an allegory about the state of the union. About our national paranoia and fears. And how, as Dr. Johnny Fever once said on WKRP, “when everyone’s out to get you, paranoia just makes good sense.”

That is to say, the Bobby flashback in the boat (in the penultimate episode may be a “clue” to what happened to Tony, but it's also rather typical of the (reality-based) paranoia that has been building throughout this last season. This last season brought in global fears (terrorists), environmental fears (toxic waste), fears that we may not have an effective leader (Bush’s poor leadership and poor decisions about going to war and about who the real enemies; with counterparts in Tony's mob life. You can add onto that, health care (Uncle Junior) and what will happen to us when we get old (Uncle Junior and Johnny Sack), and loss of income as well as our national debt (the gambling metaphor).

I think this is the message of Made In America. Paranoia, based on legitimate fear, is what is “Made in America.” The fears that permeate the last season are fears we all have. Tony has an acute fear of getting whacked, but the message comes from A.J. (the most changed character on the show, who,unlike Tony has no illusions anymore and sees the world as it really is) and from Meadow, “it’s a fucked up world.

I think Chase’s last season is mirroring the state of our country. The end says – I don’t know what’s going to kill me –but something will and it's something distinctly "Made in America." I thought maybe Chase was giving us a wake up alarm and then also realized that a wake up alarm is what starts the final episode.

And the last scene is paranoia personified. It doesn’t matter if Tony lives or dies. The point is the nagging realization that at some point (like the Sopranos series itself) it all has to be over.

So that's what I was thinking about last week. Then, this week, I received my Daily Dharma message and although its message is not related to the Sopranos, it feels like it is:

"Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not.

And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.

I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid. I fear to see what I am: an ever-changing energy field...

So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud cover to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it's anything but safe. But we don't like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality.

The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal searchlight: seeing things as they are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere." --Charlotte Joko Beck