Seinfeld No Longer Worst Series Finale

And the final, nail-biting mini-plot of the Sopranos was…

Ready?!?!?!

Meadow parallel parking.

Welcome to what passes for brilliance in television writing. Show About Nothing, meet the Show Where Nothing Ever Happens.

Sure, there was some suspense: why was that guy staring at them like that? Who were those menacing looking young fellaz walking through the door? But alas, all we got was Meadow demonstrating her inept parallel parking skills while Tony, AJ and Carm ate onion rings and listened to Journey. Then a few seconds of black. The end.

After a 2 part season that featured such meaningful story arcs as a long and utterly inconsequential dream sequence, and Tony’s 2 episode gambling problem which came out of nowhere and ended up leading to the same place, this is what we get: A literal non-ending. Yawn.

I’ve taught a couple painting classes — laugh if you want, but at least I was good at it, which is more than Don Surber can say about his job. Anyway, there’s this thing that happens ALL THE TIME with certain students, particularly with abstract painting, and particularly with students who think they’re better than they are: they’ll get a certain portion of the image worked up, and it will be really nice, great, luscious or whatever. The problem is they’ll be so in love with that one little corner of the canvas that they’re afraid to do anything else meaningful to the painting. They’ll play around in the paint some, always far away from the portion they love so much, but ultimately the image as a whole goes nowhere, and they wind up with a big muddy mess instead of a finished painting.

I think this is what happened with David Chase and his precious little mob family. He created these wonderful, lush characters that truly resonated with America waaaaay back when the show debuted in 1999. And he became so enamored of his precious creation that he was afraid to do anything with it. I mean, yeah, things “happen” in the series — Ade gets wacked, Ralphie gets beat to death with a frying pan, Vito’s son shit himself in the shower — but this was a series where ultimately, nothing substantial ever happened to the main characters. They never grew, never learned, never evolved, and what’s more, they never faced consequences for their actions, good or bad. Tony and Carmella are basically the exact same characters they were when the Sopranos pilot was filmed in 1997. AJ is just as annoying and misinformed as ever, and Meadow is still the good little daughter who’s a little too spoiled for her own good.

I think it’s worth noting that many, if no all of the “big things” that do happen to characters happen off screen, between seasons — like rehab, weddings and childbirth. A major happening for sure, but time we rejoin the family, everything is “back to normal,” just like we remembered it in season one. So I don’t think you can make the case that David Chase was just “challenging the audience” when he can’t even be bothered to challenge the writers. The king has no clothes, fanboys.

So how fitting it is that in the show where nothing ever happens, nothing happened in the finale, either. Ooooo, did Tony get wacked in front of his family? Or ooooo, was it just another red herring, just like ALL THE OTHER shitty red herrings this show has served up for nearly a decade?

Who cares. David Chase didn’t want to finish his painting.