Last Word

...on the end of "The Sopranos."

I don't know if Tony is dead or alive. I don't know if Chase was trying to say, "Tony's life goes (like that Journey song) on and on and on" or, with the blank screen, "Tony is gone." I'm okay with not knowing, although I already miss Tony.

I wish the writers of "Sex and the City" had shown similar restraint, though. "Sex" began so bitterly. Remember the characters talking to the camera? Men with impossibly obnoxious standards. Women whose exasperation with and cynicism about men knew no bounds. But the show mellowed as it went on and by the end it was a fairy tale that didn't ring true at all. Of all the characters, Miranda (ironically, the most cynical of the four) was the only one I believed would have settled happily into family life. I doubted that anyone could have ever proven acceptable to Charlotte. And, Samantha? Please.

What really killed me, though, was Carrie. I didn't believe she and Misha as a couple for even a second. And while I thought she and Big were much better suited for each other, I didn't think they'd ever walk off into the sunset together. Both were way too independent, way too adventurous, and way too commitment-shy.

I thought Carrie needed a "Sopranos" type ending. It would have gone something like this:

The girls send Big to Paris to "rescue" Carrie where she falls into his arms. They agree to meet back in New York and be together forever. She leaves him, goes home, breaks it off with Misha and then goes for a walk. As she walks, she looks at the city, at men, and at herself and thinks. ("Is this what I want? He's flaked out before. What about Misha? What about Paris? What about New York? I can't go through this again. I can't stay in this forever.") And at some point, probably with the Seine in the background, she takes out her cell phone and dials a number we can't see, and says,

"Hi. This is Carrie. I think I've made a mistake."

/fade to black, then credits

I could have lived with that.