David Chase Confirms What We Suspected All Along About The Sopranos Finale
As endings to epic tales go, you can't get one more divisive than "The Sopranos" finale. More than a decade ago, fans around the world were either enraged or in awe at the concluding moments of Tony Soprano's life that we, at least, were present to see. Following the iconic cut to black in the Season 6 finale, "Made in America," numerous theories were made to confirm if James Gandolfini's anxiety-stricken mob boss had really been got or not (even by some of its cast), which continued long after its eight-year run.
During that time, David Chase, the show's creator and writer of "The Many Saints of Newark," was probed about what the intense cut to credits meant and if Tony had lived beyond them. Speaking to the New Jersey Star-Ledger in 2007, he said, "I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there. No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God. We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people's minds or thinking, 'Wow, this'll [tick] them off.' People get the impression that you're trying to [mess] with them, and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them. Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there."
As sworn to silence Chase may have been back then, the passage of time and frequent interview questions seen to have worn him down. In a recent interview, "The Sopranos" creator finally told us the truth.
Tony Soprano can finally rest in peace
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, David Chase was as serious as an organized hit when it came to the matter of Tony Soprano's fate in the series finale. After being reminded of a 2007 interview in which he said, "Well, I had that death scene in mind for years before," confirming what many fans had always feared, the man behind "The Sopranos" revealed he had very different plans for Tony, but still with the same ending.
Chase recalled that "the scene I had in my mind was not that scene. Nor did I think of cutting to black." He went on to explain, "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."
David Chase took a drive while deciding Tony's fate
Of course, fans who have watched (and re-watched) "The Sopranos" know that things played out very differently. There's Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" playing on the jukebox, Tony's daughter Meadow failing to park a car, and a family dinner interrupted by a fate we don't see. In the end, the decision to set this final scene at the diner location came to David Chase's mind while taking a drive a few years earlier.
"I think I had this notion — 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 rest, as they say, is history. What we got was one of the greatest closing moments ever put on our television screens for one of the most revered shows in history. Now, who wants some onion rings?