I have long clinged to the hope that David Chase's "smash-cut" (technical term for the harsh cut-to-black with no sound) ending was meant to be an ambiguous conclusion that let every viewer walk away with their own interpretation. Mine, being a Tony fan, was that Chase was telling us it could always happen at any minute and MAYBE it happened then . . . but, mebbe not!

Well, after the finale, I let it rest, and then I spent last year and the beginning of this year watching the entire boxed set, and as I perused the final season, I was struck by the Bobby Bacala's response to Tony on the subject of getting whacked (when they were fishing on the boat):

“Our line of work, it’s always out there. You probably don’t even hear it when it happens right?”

Then there's that Private Ryan-like loss-of-sound bit when Sil is talking to a prostitute at a table in an Italian restaurant and suddenly he's sprayed with blood, and he's confused, and then the audience point-of-view is re-established and we suddenly realize that a shooter is dispatching the other guy.

The loss of sound . . . you never see it coming . . . the smash-cut.

And so my 15-year-old son Kevin watches a few episodes of the first season (he's already confirmed, so he's in charge of his own soul now), and, being an Internet/videogame kid, he starts searching the web for cheat sheets and backgrounds and good sites to explain the story-behind-the-story.

And then he starts assaulting me, day after day, week after week, with a slew of interpretive theories about the history of the series (which he's just about finished) and how Chase lays it all out for the viewer and the ending is crystal clear--not vague, not open to interpretation, but oh-so-very Chase.

And then he makes me watch the last scene one more time with him online, giving me the detailed explanation, and then he makes me read chunks of this site:

The Sopranos: Definitive Explanation of “The END”

Do not go there unless you want to know the end--definitively. If you harbor any hopes or interpretations or personal philosophies . . . don't go there.

Because it is brutally thorough in its research and logic.

And I am cruuuuuushed!

Kevin plans to go into law enforcement. He is RELENTLESS!