I turned off the Sopranos years ago after a particularly brutal beating of a woman by Ralph Cifaretto, played by Joe Pantoliano. I’ve just never been a big fan of gratuitous violence. An old friend wouldn’t watch the show as a protest of the depiction of Italians in it. Perhaps my boycott helped me to swallow last nights um, ending of the HBO series. I had picked up again toward the end and endured the last few episodes. My heart was pounding in the last, brilliant few minutes to the point I could hear the blood surging through my heart in anticipation of Tony’s spraying on the screen. Creator David Chase wrote and directed the finale and he used every trick in the book, even stealing shamelessly from “the Godfather” to peak the tension, but the climax never um, came… That left many fans feeling frustrated and blue.