Now that the furor has died down a little, and nearly every possible interpretation has been bandied about, I’d like to say a few things about what happened on HBO Sunday night. Or, more accurately for me, Monday night, since I was on a plane Sunday night and had to spend all of Monday avoiding blogs, TV, and radio in order to not spoil the The Sopranos finale. And yes, stop reading now if you don’t want spoilers, but at this point, I’d be surprised if you’ve managed that for the entire week.

First, I think that despite what you may have felt about the final scene, it’s hard to argue that the episode wasn’t consistent with the quality and mood of the entire series. It was strong where the show is usually strong – that is, the characters, the dialogue, the tension, the humor, the realism – and weak where it’s usually weak – the disjointed scenes, the false notes (e.g., A.J. quoting Yeats). And as usual, the penultimate episode of the season carried the bigger bangs and significant plot advances. But the show has never been a stranger to odd final scenes, and has always valued the Soprano family dynamics over the more mundane mob machinations, even in the plot-heavy first season.

Still, it’s the final scene that everyone has been bickering about, not the 50-something minutes that preceded it. What’s my take on it? First, I think the most compelling interpretation is that the ending portrayed the final moments of Tony Soprano’s life. The evidence is ample: the conversation with Bobby earlier in the season (“You probably don’t even hear it when it happens”), the mysterious man at the counter going to the bathroom, Godfather style, and most of all, the sudden several seconds of blackness after Tony looks up to see Meadow walking in.

But David Chase chose not to show Tony get killed, if that is really what happened, so that leaves the door to other interpretations. Many believe that the ending represented the possibility that Tony lives with every day, that the happiness he has with his family is always fleeting, but that there’s no reason to believe that the final moment actually represented his death. Perhaps. But then why the several seconds of darkness? How does that fit into any other interpretation?

And there’s this: Tony has been obsessed with mortality throughout the entire series, especially in the last couple of seasons. It’s one of the major themes of the show – Tony fighting for his own and his family’s safety and stability. So it’s clear to me that the ending strongly has to do with that theme, even if not with finality.

Of course, my biggest problem with the ending initially was the use of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.” I understand why Chase chose to use the track – it was a hit when Tony was a teenager, its lyrics, the unexpected tension it created – I just couldn’t get past the cheesy song itself. But on subsequent viewings, it works a lot better. Which is kind of true for the entire last scene.

Lastly, I think the ambiguity of the last scene (did Tony die or not? if so, would I be sad?) is representative of the audience’s perception of the Soprano family as a whole. It’s hard not to want Tony and his family to be happy and safe, especially if one sees similarities with their own family, but they are all selfish people, even if somewhat in a typical American middle-class way: A.J. with his eventual acceptance of privilege, Meadow with her eyes gleaming over getting a high-paying firm job despite her original ambitions, Carmela with her convenient ignorance and narrow-minded value system, and Tony, well, with his life of crime and murder.

So is the Soprano’s last supper a portrayal of a normal American family, the kind we should root for, or of a microcosmic tableau of what’s wrong with America, ultimately? That’s the real ambiguity that cuts to black.