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Much of New Jersey is in mourning today for the hit HBO series, "The Sopranos." The series finale aired last night.

Millions in America tuned in to see the finale, but the fate of Mafia boss Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, remains a mystery.Series creator David Chase's dangling ending seems primed for the big screen. Although there's been no serious talk of making a film, "a couple of years from now, who knows?" said Steven Van Zandt, who played Tony's consigliere Silvio Dante, who added cryptically, "We're not sure it's ending."
Fans lined up three-deep at the bar of Satin Dolls, the Lodi strip club that doubled as the mob family's headquarters, the Bada Bing. Out of respect, the dancers took an hour off and joined the customers in marking a moment of television history. The series ended with a final cliffhanger scene of Tony and his family eating onion rings at a cozy family restaurant, where one shadowy figure slipped into rest room and two other suspicious looking people entered the diner just as the mob boss' daughter arrived and the screen went black.
TV critics and viewers were divided about the Sopranos finale, with many complaining that millions of Americans believed their cable had gone out at one of the most important moments in the history of televised drama.Others say Chase, faced with deciding between a bang and a whimper, chose neither. "The suspense of the final scene in the diner was almost cruel," according to New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley, who wrote, "The abrupt finale Sunday night was almost like a prank, a mischievous dig at viewers who had agonized over how television's most addictive series would come to a close."Tom Jicha, of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, called the ending "a bizarre, infuriating conclusion."Michael Imperioli, who played Tony’s nephew Christopher Moltisanti, defended the ambiguous curtain call.“I think it's a great ending. It’s a good way to go out,” Imperioli said. Most fans said they would truly miss the show, particularly residents of the blue-collar north Jersey that were home to most of its locations. They had closely followed Tony, Carmela, and the rest of the cast since the show debuted on Jan. 10, 1999.Not everyone has been enthralled with the depiction of Italian-Americans as mobsters, a stereotype that has become a staple of popular culture."It seems as though bigotry is not OK, except when it comes to Italian-Americans," said Emanuele Alfano, head of Italian American One Voice, a coalition of Italian-American organizations. "They have shown us as the lowest of the low: Killers, drug addicts, wife-beaters. The women are always promiscuous, the young people are always stupid. People don't see it; as long as they're being entertained, they don't care."