FINALLY, CLOSURE ON THE SOPRANOS (The Onion)

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FINALLY, CLOSURE ON THE SOPRANOS (The Onion)

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Brilliant satire from the
Onion!

FINALLY, CLOSURE ON THE SOPRANOS

"I had to tie up
the loose ends, I just had to, I'm
positive this is exactly how [creator and executive producer] David
Chase wanted fans to interpret the ending." David Bowen / confessed killer of James
Gandolfini

James Gandolfini Shot By
Closure-Seeking Fan

The Onion
/ 6/25/07 / Issue 43•26

NEW YORK—Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his
portrayal of mob kingpin Tony Soprano on the hit HBO show The
Sopranos, was shot to death Tuesday in a Greenwich Village
restaurant by a fan unable to accept the open-ended conclusion of the
series finale that aired earlier this month.

According to police reports, 28-year-old marketing
research assistant Louis Bowen walked into the small Italian restaurant
Occhiuto's at approximately 7:40 p.m. and headed directly toward
Gandolfini's table. Bowen then drew a snub-nosed .38 revolver from his
jacket and shot Gandolfini point-blank in the head three times before
dropping the gun and calmly exiting the eatery.

Bowen was apprehended two blocks away by two NYPD
officers and reportedly put up no resistance.

Gandolfini killer Louis Bowen, seized minutes
after the shooting, confessed: "There could be no other way."

"I couldn't let it just hang,"
Bowen told police in a post-arrest confession released to the media. "Eight
years of my life, and a fucking artsy cut to black? It was eating me up
inside."

In his statement, Bowen also used the word "betrayal"
to describe the series's resolution, which he was convinced set up a
climactic death for the sociopathic mafia don. The realization that
Soprano's brutal life of constant fear and anxiety would have no real
end slowly drove the obsessed Bowen over the edge.

"I had to tie up the loose ends, I just had to,"
Bowen said. "I'm positive this is exactly how [creator and executive
producer] David Chase wanted fans to interpret the ending."

NYPD spokesman Charles Krann expressed regret over
the Gandolfini slaying, saying that law enforcement "should have known
this was coming," considering the heavy foreshadowing of impending doom
in The Sopranos'  final season and the lack of payoff.

"The symbolism and dialogue clearly conveyed an
ominous sense of death and decay," Krann said. "Particularly the scene
in the second-to-last episode where Tony and his brother-in-law talk
about death. So for Bowen, murdering the actor brought a kind of
justice."

"It probably would have all been
different,had there been a realistic chance of a Sopranos movie,"
Krann added.

Gandolfini's murder comes in the wake of several
recent attempts on the actor's life following the airing of the series
finale, which included a car bomb that exploded when he remote-started
his car, and an attempted garroting while he rode in the front seat of
a cab. Though the star is mourned by millions, many expressed relief
that Tony Soprano's saga is definitively over.

"Thank God it finally happened," said Lenox Hill
Hospital general surgery resident David Kinsky, who was sitting at a
table adjacent to Gandolfini's at the time of the murder. "I just knew
that was how the story was meant to end. After the finale, I was so
anxious and depressed I could hardly sleep."

Yet other eyewitnesses characterized Gandolfini's
death as "predictable," "cheap," and "devoid of imagination."

"I'm an intelligent person—I didn't need
to be spoon-fed an ending like this," Occhiuto's
bartender Kim Romano said. "The killer obviously didn't
get that the finale was meant to show Tony doomed to live out his
violent gangland existence in an infinite, monotonous loop. Like the
Journey song at the end said, 'It goes on and on and on and on.'"

Ironically, far from satisfactorily resolving the
fate of Tony Soprano, Gandolfini's brutal slaying will most likely only
intensify the controversy among fans, and will serve as prime
water-cooler discussion material for days, if not weeks, to come.

In a late-night City Hall press conference, New York
mayor Michael Bloomberg refused to comment on the killing.

"No, no, don't tell me what happened," said
Bloomberg, hastily plugging his ears. "I TiVo'ed the last six
episodes but I've been too busy to watch them. No spoilers, please."