Page 48 - 2017 08 Post.indd

she sAID, she sAID

The Russian, Tony Soprano and the joy of uncertainty

By sAMAnthA sciArrottA a gunshot wound suffered in the episode. reality instead? Great. And I’m not alone—a use it, in a way. It’s a different kind of dis-
ssciarrotta@mercerspace.com For the most part, they’ve remained lot of people I know, and certainly not just traction. Sometimes these shows force me
ambiguous. “You know, not everything millennials, have followed a similar path. to consider big-picture issues, like the idea
I think about the Russian a lot. gets answered in life,” Winter once said I also tend to be pretty impatient. I that malevolence might lurk inside all of us
It’s been several years since I first saw in an interview with Entertainment love a detailed itinerary, even for day (Twin Peaks), what my purpose is (Lost),
“Pine Barrens”—season three, episode Weekly. In the same article, Chase added, trips, and I often map out locations the nature of selfishness (Breaking Bad).
11 of The Sopranos—but I still find myself “This is what Hollywood has done to beforehand down to where the bath- I don’t know why television—rather
wondering about Valery, the Russian America. Do you have to have closure on rooms are. I get to the movies no later than a movie, video game or book—
mob associate who disappeared in the every little thing? Isn’t there any mystery than 30 minutes before start time, and I makes me feel this way. Maybe theo-
woods after a botched money pickup and in the world? It’s a murky world out there. am a serial “Just in case”-er. rizing about what will happen week to
attempted hit by Paulie and Christopher. It’s a murky life these guys lead.” I lose all of that when I’m watching a week and thinking about the show in
Whether or not he survives is never clear, And I think that’s exactly what I’ve great TV show, though, like Twin Peaks: between episodes does it for me. The
and David Chase, who created the show, taken from these episodes and similar The Return. It’s been, so far, 10 weeks weeklong wait, I think, forces me to be
has been asked countless times about scenes from other shows. I saw “Pine of episodes that feel too short, some- patient, and it gives me a lot of room to
Valery’s fate. I’d guess the only thing he Barrens” for the first time four years ago. times answering questions we’ve had speculate about how a show might relate
gets asked about more is whether Tony But I still go back to Valery, not because since the beginning of the series, and to real life. It’s the perfect incubation
lives or dies after the well-known cut to I need to know what happened. Actually, often bringing up new ones. There are period. While watching The Sopranos, I
black in the series finale, another ambig- it’s the opposite—I like that his fate is a lot of things in the series that might actually limited myself to a few episodes
uous scene I find myself returning to. never revealed. I was even tempted to plug stress me out in real life—a five-minute a week just to let everything sink in.
I recently went to a screening of “Pine my ears when the panel at the screening broom-sweeping sequence, 15 min- Real-life me could learn a lot from TV-
Barrens” at the IFC Center in New York threw around ideas they had when the epi- utes of nuclear bomb footage, watching watching me. It’s OK to not arrive some-
City as part of its Split Screens television sode was written. I like that there’s room a character whose 25 years in an evil where 30 minutes before everyone else!
festival—followed by a discussion with for viewers to make their own conclusions. extradimensional place left him nearly Not everything has to have a specific
Chase, Steve Buscemi (who directed the I like television that doesn’t coddle me. mute and unable to remember anything end time! I will find a bathroom, even-
episode and later appeared in The Sopra- I’ve found that my attention span has about himself fumble around a new life tually! Every question I have doesn’t
nos), writer Terence Winter and television shrunk as technology becomes more he was warped into. There is a lot that need to be answered immediately. And I
critic Matt Zoller Seitz, who moderated advanced. I used to start and finish a new isn’t explicitly told to the audience. But shouldn’t let myself get so tied up in lit-
the talk. At the screening, they discussed a book every few weeks. Now, it’s closer to every second of it has been enjoyable. tle details that I miss the bigger picture.
scrapped plotline that saw Christopher run- one every few months. I can get in bed and Shows with ambiguous endings, long Tony Soprano doesn’t have to worry
ning into Valery only to find that the Rus- watch 30 Rock for the fifth time through arcs, uncertain plot points and the like kind about any of that, though.
sian unable to speak or write, the result of while I fart around on my phone and ignore of turn off my brain while forcing me to He totally died at the end.

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48Hamilton Post | August 2017