13 years ago this week HBO aired the final episode of the Sopranos. The nation was abuzz about the final scene. It takes place in a diner in the middle of a fight between the New Jersey and New York Mafia, and there’s a hitman waiting outside for Tony. As Tony and his family leave the scene cuts to a blank screen with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” playing. What did it mean? Did Tony know there was a hitman out there and kill him before he was killed? Did he obliviously walk into eternity while in a good mood having just filled his belly with some of his favorite food surrounded by those he loved the most?
David Chase is the creator of the show and was being interviewed about it this week in celebration of the anniversary and accidentally revealed what he was thinking when he wrote it.
"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.”
Sopranos writer Matt Zoller Seitz said. “You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene”.
Chase took a long pause. Then said “F--- you guys”.