Were 'Sopranos' Fans Whacked or Blessed?

And so on the first day of Year One A.T. — After Tony, that is — the "Sopranos"-viewing world was split in two camps.

One was muttering bitterly into its morning coffee at the open-ended conclusion of the epic series, a banal family moment over onion rings that would have delighted existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, author of "Being and Nothingness."

The other was lavishly praising the iconic HBO drama for capturing life's essential ambiguity and disorderliness.

Forget Tony for a minute — the guy's been psychoanalyzed for years. Does all this say anything about US?

For some popular culture critics, the two reactions speak to the difference between entertainment and art, and which of them we want. If we wanted pure entertainment, there was obvious disappointment — no, aggravation — in a finale that set up threats to Tony's life in that last diner scene, then ended abruptly.

But if we see it as art, they say, then why should we object to the artist — series creator David Chase, said to be vacationing in a French chateau Monday — painting final brush strokes on his masterpiece as he wishes? And in retrospect, aren't unanswered questions in perfect keeping with the moral ambiguity that's infused the whole series? And aren't loose ends a huge part of life?

"In our popular culture, we've come to expect things to get tied up neatly," said Jerry Herron, a professor at Wayne State University in Michigan, who found the ending brilliant. "The claim that Chase is making as an artist here is, real life doesn't have neat endings.

"You want Tony blown away? You want him in jail? Chase is saying, 'Fine, you write that script,'" Herron said. "He's saying that life goes on, and art goes on, and he's just going to end it right here."

Brilliant wasn't a good enough word for screenwriting professor Richard Walter, of the UCLA Film School, to describe Sunday night's finale. "That's too tame," he said. "This was genius!"

"Sure, I was frustrated," Walter said of the final cut-to-black as Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" played on the jukebox.

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