• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, June 2, 2017

Even after 10 years, I still insist that the way “The Sopranos” ended was right on the money.

It was an inspired piece of creativity, suddenly ending the revered series in the middle of the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believing” as Tony Soprano looked up from a table at Holsten’s to see who was coming through the front door. 

The episode and its momentous final scene -- which people have been arguing about ever since -- aired on HBO on June 10, 2007. The 10th anniversary is next Saturday. It hardly seems possible that an entire decade has passed, but there it is.

The finale would air on HBO at 9 p.m. in the evening back on that date -- a Sunday -- but HBO’s publicity department invited a group of reporters and TV columnists to watch the episode earlier that day a few hours before airtime in a small auditorium in the headquarters building at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

The ending was a great moment. When it happened, I remember my instant first reaction, which I have never wavered from since: I thought it was great.

I remember being so delighted with this abrupt, surprise ending -- as the show suddenly jumped from Tony’s upward glance (seen in the screen-grab above) to a silent black screen -- that I think I let out a laugh. At the very least, I know I sat there with my mouth open as if reacting to someone playing a prank on me.

And it was true: I felt as if I had been had, in the manner of a prank. But I liked it because this manner of ending the show was completely unpredictable. None of us who had spent the better part of the previous week speculating on what would happen ever thought of this scenario.

How naïve we were to think we could outthink the writers and producers of this show, which in retrospect might just be the best TV drama ever made for American television.

My take on the ending has always been this: Having Tony or any member of his family suddenly get whacked would not have been right because that was everyone’s first prediction. The alternative would have been a happily-ever-after ending -- which you might think of as an ending opposite to the whacking scenario. 

The black-screen choice, however, deftly dodged both of these clichéd outcomes. The abrupt ending denied the audience the ability to learn who was coming through the door and left them with a question they would never be able to answer.

It may have just been Meadow Soprano, who was last seen parallel parking outside. Or it could have been a hired killer. Or anyone else. Who knows?

For me, the ending symbolized a simple fact about the way in which Tony Soprano lived his life. For him, there would always be someone coming through the door, any door -- either a loved one such as his daughter, a member of his crew (loyal or otherwise), police with a warrant for his arrest, or some adversary intent on doing him harm.

Tony never really knew who the next person through the proverbial door would be. So he was always keeping a watchful eye out, glancing upward or sideways in the way made famous by the immortal James Gandolfini.

So much has changed in the 10 years since the “Sopranos” finale. No show anywhere has come along to engender the same affection as “The Sopranos.” And series finales don’t have the same impact anymore. And sadly, James Gandolfini is no longer with us either.

What came afterward? Among other things, the following month, a show about the New York advertising business in the 1960s called “Mad Men” premiered on AMC. The creator was a former producer and writer of “The Sopranos,” Matthew Weiner. 

As for the “Sopranos” finale, the way it ended received the lion’s share of attention after it aired, but the entire episode was one of the finest single episodes of any TV show that has ever been made. I know this because I just watched it.

Of the hundreds of TV shows I have received over the years on DVDs and VHS cassettes from dozens of networks, this episode -- on a DVD that HBO sent to columnists a few days after the show aired -- is the only one I’ve kept. The episode is subtitled “Made in America.”