The Sopranos Creator May Have Finally Shed Some Light on That Infamous Final Scene

2 minute read
By Megan McCluskey

After nearly 12 years of ambiguity surrounding the final scene of The Sopranos series finale, creator David Chase could have possibly shed light on Tony Soprano’s ultimate fate.

In The Sopranos Sessions — a new collection of recaps, conversations, and critical essays covering every episode of the show — TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz share an interview with Chase in which he appeared to give more weight to the popular theory that the screen cutting to black was intended to signify Tony’s death.

Here’s how the conversation with Chase reportedly unfolded:

Sepinwall: When you said there was an end point, you don’t mean Tony at Holsten’s, you just meant, ‘I think I have two more years’ worth of stories left in me.’

Chase: Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end. I remember talking with [Sopranos writer and executive producer] Mitch Burgess about it. But it wasn’t — it was slightly different. Tony was going to get called to a meeting with Johnny Sack in Manhattan, and he was going to go back through the Lincoln Tunnel for this meeting, and it was going to go black there and you never saw him again as he was heading back, the theory being that something bad happens to him at the meeting. But we didn’t do that.

Seitz: You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene.

[A long pause follows]

Chase: F—ck you guys.

However, according to Uproxx, Chase went on to say that he only meant that “[Tony] could have been whacked,” not that the diner sequence was a definitive death scene. Very interesting, indeed.

Watch the final scene of The Sopranos below.

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Write to Megan McCluskey at megan.mccluskey@time.com