Bada Bing

Warning: Post Contains Spoilers

So that’s it. It’s over. I wonder how many other millions of Americans yelled as the screen went black. The constant ineptitude of cable and satellite companies must have caused quite a few people to assume that something had gone horribly wrong at the worst possible time. The sudden, dead darkness screamed. All of us stared in disbelief over our tremendous bowls of penne and plates of manicotti. My mind raced, “It’s okay. This is the East coast feed. We can catch the ending on the Pacific feed. Damn DirecTV! What the …” and then the credits started rolling and the realization dawned: That’s it.

Seven-plus years stopped dead in their tracks. Snuffed and squashed like Phil’s head under the gas-guzzling, anti-Bush/Iraq/hardly-veiled-symbolism SUV. Blown up like AJ’s gas-guzzling, anti-Bush/Iraq/hardly-veiled-symbolism SUV. No loose endings were resolved. The shady character walking, Godfather-esque, into the bathroom while Journey blasted in the diner meant, like all the rest of the episodes, absolutely nothing. There you go. It’s just a TV show. Go back to your life.

I can think of about a million better ways to have ended it all. And yet … I can’t think of any better way to have ended it all. If you can’t please everyone, you might as well please nobody. Bada bing.