The Sopranos creator David Chase reflects on final scene, seems to accidentally confirm Tony’s fate

Fans may have an answer to whether Tony perished in the show's closing moments

The Sopranos creator once seemed to confirm what happened in the show’s controversial final scene, which first aired 13 years ago this week.

David Chase was being interviewed for The Sopranos Sessions, a book celebrating the HBO series, when he seemed to reveal whether Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) died in the show’s closing moments.

The exchange reads as follows:

Alan Sepinwall [co-author]: 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… 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.

Matt Zoller Seitz [co-author]: You realise, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene.

[A long pause follows]

Chase: F*** you guys.

It’s important to note that Chase does well to ensure that the ensuing exchange ends up leaving Tony’s fate up in the air.

The Sopranos ended in 2007 with a finale that continues to be meticulously analysed to this day. It depicts a seemingly ordinary restaurant scene between Tony and his family, which ends with the screen cutting to black.

Following its broadcast, many assumed this symbolised the show’s protagonist getting whacked.

Later, in the book (page 389 for those with a copy), Chase added: "[The point was] that he could have been whacked in the diner. We all could be whacked in a diner. That was the point of the scene."

Chase recently completed world on Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark, which will feature a young version of Tony Soprano.

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The project – a co-production between New Line and Warner Bros – was confirmed in 2018. It has been directed by Alan Taylor, who oversaw nine episodes of the series, with Alessandro Nivola starring as Dickie Moltisanti, the father of Sopranos character Christopher (Michael Imperioli).

It’s set to be released on 21 March 2021.

Find a ranking of the 20 best Sopranos moments here.