Did You *Really* Understand the Last 'Sopranos' Episode?

I'm sure I'm not the only Sopranos fan around these parts, and I'm sure I'm not the only person to be a bit baffled by the last episode. It seemed like all lead up and no payoff. True, Tony's big rival and head of the New York mob was, er, dispatched of, but what really seemed resolved in the lives of the core characters?

The Sopranos main theme to me really seemed to be one of loss and death. By the last episode, many characters we had come to love over the years were physically dead (Tony's mom, Christopher, Adriana, Bobby, Sil (mortally wounded?), and many more could be considered emotionally dead or hollow. But I think a secondary theme was one of apathy to this loss; as gangsters, they had to be willing to die at any moment or to kill anyone (even a friend or lover), and to keep on going about daily business as usual. Christopher was expected to do this (and largely did) when Adriana was murdered; Tony in turn did it with ease after he murdered Christopher.

So, in all this death and apathy, it seems unlikely that the creators/producers of the Sopranos would have let the core family out so unscathed. Writer Bob Harris wrote perhaps the most interesting and (I think) on-target analysis of the last episode, and his verdict is embodied in his title: Tony Soprano didn't just get whacked; he practically got a funeral . Reading over his analysis (man, I love it when smart people pick apart pop culture!), its obvious that most of America were inadvertantly apathetic to the passing of Tony Soprano. Perhaps its easier to believe that the abrupt cut-off of the last scene simply meant that the family just kept on keepin' on, riding off into the Jersey sunset, except we just don't get to see it.

Nope.

At first, thats what I thought too, but reading Bob Harris' blog changed my mind. Check it out yourself and let me know if you think he's onto something.