By now my readers have taken a stand on David Chase’s ending episode of The Sopranos or feigned an unconvincing lack of interest in the whole tortured subject. I have followed The Sopranos with reasonable fidelity over the past eight years and was not at all surprised by the now famous or infamous “onion rings” ending. After all, The Sopranos was always something of a long-running shaggy-dog story with many characters one wanted to get whacked, and Mr. Chase wouldn’t oblige. Life and death are very much like that. Too often the wrong people get whacked, while too many other wrong people live and prosper. My own unfulfilled hit list on The Sopranos includes the insufferable A.J. and the terminally self-pitying Paulie, who shouldn’t have gone after a cat in the last episode.