Can I sue a tv show for wasting my time? No, this isn’t another American Idol post; I’m talking about Sopranos. What was once a great show ended with a pathetic final season and the worst finale in the history of television. Shows that have been suddenly cancelled have had better send-offs. So why did I watch the full season if it was so bad? Simply put, I was duped (is dupage a valid reason for legal recourse)? Allow me to explain the Sopranos’ trickery:

The first half of the season aired about 10 years ago and the format had changed drastically from previous seasons. The episodes featured a bunch of choppy scenes that were virtually unrelated and didn’t go anywhere. I gave the writers a pass that they hadn’t caught their stride after the long hiatus from season five (which aired about 20 years ago). By the time I realized they were sticking with this format for awhile, I was already halfway through the half-season and stuck with it out of loyalty.

When the second half of the season rolled around a couple months ago, I hoped they’d learned from the mistakes of the previous half and the show would get back to being its old self. The first episode started out all right, with sweet Bobby making his first kill on a guy folding his tighty whities. I thought, “All right! Action! Bloodshed! Will Bobby get caught? What’s going to happen to him???” Turns out, nothing. His kill was never mentioned again. In fact, nothing of any interest was mentioned for the next few episodes. The show was so bad that I made a call to animal control and asked if they could please put this beast down. I really wanted it over already but after five and a half seasons, I had to stick it out to the end.

Then nothing else happened for a few episodes until Christafuh killed that dude from Wings. Then the next episode, Christafuh himself ate it when Tony gave him a no-blow job (you’d think with a shnoz like Christafuh’s, he’d have reserves of air to last a little longer than he did).

In the penultimate episode we finally got a little action: New York was blowing the crap out of New Jersey. It looked like the series was set to end on a bang. Instead what we got was a whimper. A.J.’s whimpering to be specific. Half the episode was about him. Of all the great characters who got killed off over the years- Ralphie, Adriana, Christafuh- why did they let that whiny bitch A.J. live??

The finale was dullsville and I kept checking the clock to see how much time was left for a big climax. With little time to spare, we finally got the big series-ending action scene we were all waiting for: 10 minutes of Meadow trying to parallel park her car in a 50 foot space. I’ll give 100 Shrute dollars to anybody who can explain to me what the point of that was and why it necessitated more than five seconds of screen time. And what was the significance of playing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” to close out the show? Obviously the point of the last scene was that Tony will always have to watch who’s coming through the door, so wouldn’t the perfect choice have been Springsteen’s “Born to Run?” C’mon- Springsteen’s a Jersey boy, the lyrics are relevant and it would have been a little wink to dying Sil’s E. Street days.

Finally, I’ll give a million Stanley nickels to anybody who can explain what the purpose of the closing blackout was. Was it a big joke to make millions of viewers yell in unison, “MY FUCKING TIVO CUT OUT TOO EARLY!!?”

In the end, Tony’s alive and free with a peace accord with New York. Zzzzzz… After six loooooong seasons, the biggest mystery the show closed with was what was the reason behind that look on Meadow’s face as she ran into the restaurant? Was someone chasing her or was her doctor out of the pill???!!! We’ll never know.

I don’t know what the hell happened to this show but I’m bitter and angry and first thing tomorrow I’m filing a class-action lawsuit against HBO and the creator of Sopranos. I’ll be requesting reparations in the form of a season six do-over, one in which Adriana, Christafuh and Bobby don’t die, in which A.J. knows how to properly measure a length of rope and in which shit actually happens. I encourage all fans to join this suit so we can send a message to all television show creators that if they’re going to start out making a quality program, they need to finish with a quality program. If they can’t do that, they should stick to making shows like According to Jim so that nobody’s disappointed in the end.