Sopranos Creator David Chase Confirms the Fate of Tony Soprano

Television

After all this time, David Chase has finally confirmed what that cut to black in the diner ultimately meant.

The final scene of the greatest television show of all time, The Sopranos, has been debated amongst fans since the series conclusion in 2007. Previously, series creator David Chase let slip in an interview with Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall for their book The Sopranos Sessions in 2018 that the scene was actually a “death scene,” something on which he would later renege. But in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast, Chase set the record straight on the matter.

Speaking about one idea that he had for the finale, Chase described a completely different and rather unceremonious ending for Tony, which he also mentioned in The Sopranos Sessions.

“I had a scene in which Tony comes back from a meeting in New York in his car. At the beginning of every show, he came from New York into New Jersey, and the last scene could be him coming from New Jersey back into New York for a meeting at which he was going to be killed.”

The Sopranos is better for not having that ending; it’s pretty hack writing and not becoming of the series. The actual conclusion in the diner was theorized by Chase a few years before the fade-out. “I was driving on Ocean Park Boulevard near the airport, and I saw a little restaurant. It was kind of like a shack that served breakfast. And for some reason, I thought, ‘Tony should get it in a place like that.’ Why? I don’t know.” Clearly, the idea was further fleshed out than a simple “Dunno, sounds cool.”

Chase continued in the interview about his annoyance with fans wanting to see Tony get dropped explicitly, without any subtlety. “They wanted to know that Tony was killed. They wanted to see him go face-down in linguini, you know? And I just thought, ‘God, you watched this guy for seven years, and I know he’s a criminal. But don’t tell me you’re not on his side in some way. And now you want to see him killed? You want justice done? You’re a criminal after watching this shit for seven years.’ That bothered me, yeah.”

Chase would go on to talk about the process behind the scenes of the recently released prequel, The Many Saints of Newark, talking about working with the late James Gandolfini’s son Michael in his father’s legendary role, something that may be expounded on as he has a large development deal with HBO to explore many more stories of the DiMeo Crime Family.