This didn't give any resolution to that tension, it was just kind of random. It was peculiar. Sopranos have had a wide range of moods and approaches to a given episode and this one just didn't feel energetically, editing wise and emotionall what I would expect from the end.
I think that was intentional. It wasn't the end. It was just the last episode. Chase didn't build everything up to a big crescendo here. He did resolve certain things (the war with Phil, Christopher v. Tony, Junior, Sil, Paulie, Melfi and Tony, where Meadow and AJ are headed), but he didn't resolve them with rising action leading to a big conclusion. (e.g. Godfather) I was listening to public radio and they had someone on that said the Sex in the City finale wasn't true to the show. Everybody paired off and adopted babies. Apparently that isn't what the show was about.
This show was never about the mob v. the Feds, NY v. NJ, the big score, or Tony retiring. It was about the family next door, who just so happened to be mobbed up. The episode was uneven because that was Chase's format. He didn't do a show that had a beginning, middle, and end with each episode about a story that built to the last ten minutes and was resolved. He could have given you Tony and Junior in the last minute, but he chose to do it in the middle of the episode. While Junior's fate is sealed, the thing that they discussed, the missing money, is not.
David Chase created a show that told the story the way he wanted to tell it. We enjoyed it. But he didn't cater. He told it the way he wanted to the end.
