In the final ever scene of the acclaimed mob drama, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) is having dinner with his family. Seemingly expecting trouble, he keeps glancing at the door every time someone enters the restaurant. The scene, the episode, and the series itself end on an ambiguous note by cutting to black.
Since the finale aired in the summer of 2007, fans have been debating the fate of Tony. The show's creator, David Chase, has spent the past 14 years refusing to address the ending.
Now, while appearing on a Hollywood Reporter podcast, Chase has finally opened up regarding that much debated climax.
Chase revealed that cutting to black wasn't part of his original plan.
"The [death] scene I had in my mind was not that scene," he admitted. "Nor did I think of cutting to black."
Chase went on to detail his original concept for the show's ending.
"I had a scene in which Tony comes back from a meeting in New York in his car," he said. "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."
Chase refused to address the question of whether we should assume Tony is dead or not however.
The 76-year-old veteran TV writer did reveal the origins of the diner scene, which he devised a couple of years prior to the finale.
"I was driving on Ocean Park Boulevard near the airport and I saw a little restaurant," he said. "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. That was, like, two years before."
Chase admitted that the final episode was overshadowed by its ending, which was all anyone could talk about for days after it aired.
"Yeah, nobody said anything about the episode. No, it was all about the ending," he acknowledged. "I had no idea it would cause that much — I mean, I forget what was going on in Iraq or someplace; London had been bombed! Nobody was talking about that; they were talking about The Sopranos. It was kind of incredible to me. But I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar."
Chase revealed that he was troubled by how many people wanted to see Tony die in the finale.
"What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed," he said. "That bothered me. 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 don’t love him in some way, 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 recently returned to the world of The Sopranos to write The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel movie that details the young Tony Soprano's beginnings as a mobster. It's available to rent on VOD now.
