Over a week since it was broadcast, the world is still stunned, angry and confused about the anticlimactic final scene of the last episode of The Sopranos – but the good news is that none of the Sopranos cast have an effing clue about it either.
Although you'd expect that Sopranos bigwig David Chase would have explained to the cast of The Sopranos exactly why 86 hours of ever-growing tension ended with a preposterously cheesy piece of 1980s power ballad, a man looking at a door and ten seconds of blackness, it turns out that they're in the dark as much as the rest of us, with even James Gandolfini – Tony Soprano himself – admitting that he's more than a little stumped at the way the show ended. And he's not the only one – personally we're furious that the last scene of The Sopranos didn't even begin to reveal if Tony Soprano and his family ever got off the island or if the smoke monster ate them or whatever.
People just can't stop talking about the ending of The Sopranos, or – if they do stop talking – it's only so they can go onto Wikipedia and call David Chase a homosexual for not really explaining much. It's been a week since the deliberately vague finale of The Sopranos confused everyone, and still nobody's any the wiser. Did the 10-second blackout mean that Tony Soprano got shot by the man in the toilet? Did it mean that the rest of his life would be spent constantly looking over his shoulder? Did it mean that not even David Chase at his most sadistic would ever dream about letting viewers sit through an entire Journey song?
Nobody knows. And, for once, we don't mean 'nobody' as in 'a bunch of morons who watch too much telly', we mean not even the actual people who were in The Sopranos know what the ending was supposed to signify. While we're still maintaining that, following the Sopranos ending, Meadow runs into the restaurant and does some form of sexy poledance in her underwear, James Gandolfini won't be drawn on the matter. E! Online quotes:
"You have to ask David Chase about that. Smarter minds than mine know the answer to that. I thought it was a great ending… The ending was exactly what it should have been."
And nobody else from The Sopranos seems to want to hazard a guess either, possibly in case they're wrong and Chase bans them from any movie of The Sopranos that he may be planning:
Edie Falco says she was equally in the dark about the last scene. "I think the ending was just great. I mean that. I have never second-guessed David Chase, and I'm not about to start now… Yes, I was at that table, but I have no idea what happened after the screen went blank." Steven Van Zandt, whose consigliere Silvio Dante was last seen comatose in a hospital, was even more blunt. "A conventional ending would have been a fraud," he said.
Yeah, we can't even begin to tell you the amount of times we've felt defrauded by the way some books and films have satisfying conclusions. For example, the ending of The Usual Suspects pissed us off so much by not just cutting to black right before the identity of Keyser Soze was revealed that we burnt down an orphanage out of spite. And then we kicked a dog over because the final scene didn't even have any power ballads in it.
In fact, The Sopranos should be congratulated for this bold new method of storytelling, and that's why we're urging all our readers to go to their local library right now and rip out the final page from every single book there, as a sort of tribute.
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Warren says
The screen went black because IT WAS ALL A DREAm=
Allan Griesdorf says
I always thought Sopranos was a lame show after I watched only the very 1st episode.
The lame ending is no surprise, given the calibre of the writing. and of no interest to me. The Emperor really had no clothes on. I’m not reluctant to say so.
Hundreds of channels available and the Sopranos was top-rated. Give me a break !
edwardclayton says
the sopranos is the best show ever though. even better than shakespeare not that I have ever read shaky as books are boring
Mark says
“I always thought Sopranos was a lame show after I watched only the very 1st episode.
The lame ending is no surprise, given the calibre of the writing. and of no interest to me. The Emperor really had no clothes on. I
Richard Phillips says
“not that I have ever read shaky as books are boring”
Says it all…..
not worth discussing with a bunch of lamebrains…
Nobody says
Oh, those endings DO stink, don’t they?
x says
LOL…. good one.
Matt says
The kind of narrow mindedness displayed on this webpage is highly frustrating. i.e., people claiming to have watched one solitary episode of the series and yet believing themselves to be in a position to cast an opinion on its quality!
It’s a great ending, and clearly something Chase put a lot of thought into, in no way cliched and entirely original. This has nothing to do with liking power ballads, and is television that actually encourages viewers to think for themselves – surely not a bad thing!? The three quotes from Gandolfini, Falco and Van Zandt add absolutely no weight to the argument this article attempts to make.
Str8 says
Actually the ending was quite clear if you paid attention. It’s obvious you didn’t, Stuart, or you wouldn’t have written such ignorance. Best.Ending.Ever.
Chantal says
Genius ending. Brilliant. How TV should be. Challenging up to the last ten seconds. How refreshing for a programme to not be dumbed down for the masses. If you didn’t get the ending, watch it again. It’s all there. Gave me cold chills. Just watched it ten minutes ago. I am in awe of how it’s made me feel.
Muggz says
After 86 hours of the whole sopranos I can see it took a lot of hard work making it and great story line may I add, but the ending sucks ass after all that good filming what the hell was this guy Chase thinking about? After all the mobb story line shows and movies I seen in my life time I will be happy to say this was the worsest ending in mobb entertainment.
Muggz says
What I’m really trying to get at is after all these mobsters and other cast crew members getting wacked in the series how can you have Toni Soprano have a ten second black out at the ending? At least have a gun shot go off before the black out pops up!
Silvio says
So much impotent rage…such a butthurt review.
zev says
ending was beautiful in the sense that it made you speculate.
We all probably know what was about too happen to Tony sadly, and that’s the beauty. We have no evidence that’s what happen, but we all THINK that’s what happen. Gotta admit, it’s kinda brilliant.
Radley says
The whole series was an over-rated ball scratch. I didnt watch the ending due to I-don’t-care-edness. We don’t even have Gabagool in Hawaii so how was I supposed to relate ?