Still can’t fuggedabout the controversial Sopranos ending?
Well, today’s your lucky day, because creator David Chase has finally totally confirmed what he intended to say with Tony Soprano’s fate after 14 years of speculation!
[SPOILERS, obvi]
As fans will remember, the final episode of the groundbreaking HBO drama ended with a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers: mob boss Tony (James Gandolfini) sat with his family inside a restaurant, in constant fear of getting whacked, eying various sketchy potential assassins as Don’t Stop Believin’ plays. After a sketchy stranger walks in and sits at the counter, his daughter Meadow Soprano (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) finally enters, and the whole family is reunited — then the screen cuts to black. The show ends. Just like that!
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Unsurprisingly, the fan outrage that followed was intense, seeing as viewers weren’t left satisfied with the ambiguous ending. But now, Chase is giving those fans the closure they need. Well… sort of!
And if your head canon had Tony going on to live a happy life with his family, you can go ahead and stop believin’.
While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the scribe confirmed the blackout ending was indeed intended to signify the death of the show’s protagonist. When the interviewer asked about a time Chase had referred to the end as a “death scene” and whether that was “a slip of the tongue,” the showrunner said: “No.” He’d thought for years about Tony’s death ending the show.
Chase did, however, explain that it was different from the scene he originally envisioned to end the series with. The NY native explained:
“The scene I had in my mind was not that scene. Nor did I think of cutting to black. 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.”
But those plans changed two years before the show’s 2007 finale, when Chase got a new idea while taking a drive. He recalled:
“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. That was, like, two years before.”
The series creator went on to admit he was bothered by the uproar from fans over the cut-to-black ending — at least the :
“I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me.”
He understands that fans wanted onscreen confirmation — but thinks it was ghoulish to want to watch the beloved character get blown away after spending so much time with him:
“They wanted to know that Tony was killed. They wanted to see him go face-down in linguini, you know? 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 s**t for seven years.’ That bothered me, yeah.”
Seems to us he’s giving some insight into why he decided to go with the cut-to-black ending. He loved Tony too much to do that.
What do YOU think of the Sopranos ending, Perezcious prestige TV fans??
[Image via HBO]
The post <i>The Sopranos</i> Creator Finally Reveals Tony's Fate & Explains That Controversial Ending! appeared first on Perez Hilton.
