Frankie from Real World Dies

Realityblurred.com is reporting that Frankie Abernathy from Real World San Diego has died of complications from cystic fibrosis.

You can see the pic of Frankie above, but she was the skinny redhead with all the piercings. Always kind of goth. I have to admit that at the time of the show, I thought Frankie's health problems were about as grave as former Seattle cast member Irene and her lyme disease. Frankie was such a drama queen and was always playing the martyr.

But I was officially wrong, I guess. I don't know a thing about cystic fibrosis, but with her health issues it was actually quite remarkable that she chose to do a reality tv show. Or maybe she did it just so she could take her mind off her health. In any event, though I never knew the real Frankie, it's strange that a "character" from one of my most longterm shows has died. After like 16 Real Worlds, Frankie is only the second cast member to have passed away--the first being Pedro Zemora.

Sopranos Finale

I just read an interesting article which talks about the phenomenal ratings of The Sopranos finale last Sunday. Evidently the episode was the 2nd highest rated show on television that week, even though only 30 million American homes have HBO. A staggering 11.9 million people tuned in.

I'm not sure how many of you watched, but I thought the show was completely back in form. It reminded me of the early Sopranos, funny, tension-filled, and compelling. For me, the show's only real problem (aside from breaks that were sometimes over a year long) has been the widely inconsistent tone. I get that the show's a mob drama, but there were a number of episodes that were so obsessively dark, and so awkwardly horrible, that they weren't worth watching to me--they became cartoonish. Just as there were other episodes that wandered into complete writerly masturbation--David Chase making a clear choice to see just what he could actually get away with.

But all in all, I can't think of show with more painstakingly crafted characters. We witnessed moments in these peoples' lives--ha, these character's lives--that ranged from the mundane to the extraordinary, and so many were completely moving, and terrifyingly genuine. That is why I was completely satisfied with the series finale last Sunday.

The humor, the paranoia--it felt right to me. I'm not always the biggest fan of David Chase--he can be as heavy handed as anyone I've ever read, pounding out the obvious--but the last scene in the diner was pitch perfect. Did Tony die? Was it just a dinner as usual? Could Meadow be the only one spared? We'll never know. But I think I'd rather not know. People who say the ending was a cop out are wrong. Stopping mid-scene with a jarring black screen and no music--for me, that was a risk. The obvious thing would have been for there to be a bloodbath in the last few minutes, and The Sopranos rarely ever worked toward the obvious.