‘Sopranos’ Creator Finally Confirms What Really Happened to Tony in Show’s Final Scene

Fourteen years after The Sopranos left TV, its creator David Chase has finally confirmed what really happened to Tony Soprano in the series finale. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Chase admits the popular character was killed off in the final episode –– as many fans already suspected. But Chase’s idea to close the episode with an abrupt black screen left fans without the climactic resolution they were hoping for. 

“The scene I had in my mind was not that scene. Nor did I think of cutting to black,” Chase explained, clarifying how the scene eventually came to be. “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.”

Chase’s change of heart happened two years prior to the final season’s production start. As he went on a drive, he says his sudden epiphany prompted a quick rewrite. “I saw a little restaurant. It was kind of like a shack that served breakfast,” Chase said. “And for some reason I thought, ‘Tony should get it in a place like that.’ Why? I don’t know.”

The finale, “Made in America,” ends with Tony (James Gandolfini) taking his family out to Holsten’s restaurant (which was inspired by the same one Chase visited on “Ocean Park Boulevard”). He sits down at the table with everyone when an unknown man suddenly enters the establishment and sits down at the counter. When the restaurant door opens, seemingly the entrance of his daughter Meadow Soprano (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), the screen quickly jumps to black. The outrage that immediately followed from fans who expected more was something Chase never considered. “I had no idea it would cause that much…of an uproar,” the series creator said of the cut-to-black ending. “What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. They wanted to see him go face-down in linguini, you know? That bothered me.”