Im loving listening to people completely missing the point about the last episode of sopranos. People are mad that Tony, or presumably his whole family werent killed in the last episode. Besides not making any sense within the plot, the point of the show was not to display a simple rise and fall story. We came into the series and Tony wasnt being born, so why should he necessarily die at the end?

This show at its core is about a man and his family, not the mob family, but his real family. Sure there are lots killings, but I believe the point of the series is that regardless of whether or not you're a gangster, or a shrink, or a restaurant owner, you're still just a man, and the kind of mundane shit that happens to you happens to everybody. Life's not easy, and in the end you die.

The other most prominent theme in the episode and maybe the series, is that the inevitability of change is the only thing that never changes. Case in point, Phil's consigliere with the wacky eyes is talking to Phil on the phone in what used to be Little Italy, and the tour guide is saying how it used to cover 40 blocks of the city, and he looks up after being chewed out by Phil and sees nothing but Chinese people. He realizes then that Phil has to go, because he wont change with the times. Starting a war over some guy being a fag, always talking about the fact that he did his time without squealing (when that is what you are bound by oath to do anyways), talking down to his men, not listening to any advice: he just wouldn't bend, so he had to go.

The AJ story fits into this theme as well, as he gets older and just keeps on fucking things up, acting like a baby. He was all depressed and "deep" for a little while, then, after threatening to join the army, he got what he always wanted, a cushy set-up from his folks, and a beamer (which I believe he was asking for several seasons ago). He will no doubt eventually find a way to fuck that up. He's weak, like Fredo in GF. This doesn't change.

Janice is still scheming to get ahold of an old dying relatives money, so that takes us right back to the first season

And Tonys life keeps getting more and more complicated. He's got indictments coming down, a guy who flipped, Paulie acting like a superstitious goombah, and two of his best guys out of the picture. His son is acting like a goofball, his daughter is causing mild grief to her mother, with the college switch. Even the "suspicious" presence of the lone guy in the restaurant and the two black guys and finally understood in the context that Tony would have always been suspicious of people like that, because that is who he is. Nothing has really changed, and it wont until it does.
The faces change but the story doesn't.

As for the very last shot, my belief is that the black-out is as much a cop-out as it a success. I think the point would have been made better by a simple fade-out with them eating dinner, but I think that would have enraged people even more than they are now. As for people who expected some kind of Scarface ending: what series have you been watching? Who should have died that didn't? Tony killed off his biggest and most powerful enemy ever, survived a huge clash with New York, and now he's gotta run things while under indictment. His life is complicated and difficult, and will continue to be until his role is filled by someone else.

Thats it for now until I think of something else.