David Chase Clarifies The Final Scene of The Sopranos, Talks Reaction to Finale

David Chase has long avoided specifying what happened in the final scene of The Sopranos, but he looks to have finally clarified what happened after the infamous cut to black. As Sopranos fans know, the series finale ended with Tony Soprano and his family at a diner and what looked like someone about to make a hit on Tony when the episode cut to black for several seconds.

Chase has often refused to clarify the ending, though he said in an interview for the 2018 book The Sopranos Sessions that he had “that death scene in mind for years.” Now, in an interview with THR, Chase has said that wasn’t a “slip of the tongue” and explained why, while clarifying that he chose the diner because he thought “Tony should get it in a place like that.”

You can see some highlights from the interview, including Chase talking about the fan reaction and why he’s “not anxious” to do a Sopranos prequel series, below:

On why his comment for Sopranos Sessions was not a slip of the tongue: “Because the scene I had in 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.”

On when he thought of the ending as it was: “Yeah. But 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.”

On fans’ reaction to the finale: “Yeah, nobody said anything about the episode. No, it was all about the ending … 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. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me.”

On fans wanting confirmation at the time: “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.”

On his reaction to Many Saints of Newark: “New Line always wanted to do it — Toby Emmerich, the boss, was always on my case about, “Let’s do a Sopranos movie!” So I said, “Okay.” So then we wrote it, and I was not happy at all during the shooting, during making of it, until we added some additional scenes after COVID … I didn’t like the movie.”

On if the additional scenes made it better: “I know so. I mean, I saw the difference.”

On Many Saints being released on HBO Max: “Oh, I think it’s disgusting. And there’s all kinds of reasons for it, which you kind of can’t argue. But what they could have done was give every movie a four-week theatrical window, or a two-week window, or a one-week window, and then go on TV. But that was not their idea. So they did it with all 17 movies — like Dune right now; King Richard, this movie that’s coming up; every movie that they made. But I tried to explain to them, “Don’t do this with this movie because our IP is a TV show and now you’re going to put us back on TV at the same time we open theatrically.” I said, “If you’re sitting at home and you say, ‘Oh, look, there is a Sopranos movie! I can see it in the movie theater, or it’s going to be right here at home. Well, to go downtown to the mall, park the car — screw it, we’ll just watch it on TV! It worked on TV before.’” I think it hurt us a lot.”

On WarnerMedia wanting another Sopranos series: “Well, of course, the movie didn’t do well in theaters, but it, like, broke the machine on streaming — it was huge. So now they want me to do another series of Sopranos from the time the movie ends ’til the time the series begins.”

On if he’s interested: “I’m not that anxious to do it … No. I would do one more movie. Yeah. Because I have an idea for that that I’d like to do. But I don’t think they want that.”