In the series finale of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) is seemingly killed when the show suddenly cuts to black when the gangster is approached by an unseen person in a diner. Some fans have criticized this ending, arguing that they’d have been more satisfied with something far less ambiguous. Bracco, who played Tony’s therapist, Melfi, agrees with these fans about the ending. She also prefers to believe that Tony wasn’t killed during the final Sopranos scene, imagining that he’d continue to bump into Melfi afterward.
“Honestly, I think they bumped into each other in restaurants and stuff like that,” Bracco said on The Spotlight With Jessica Shaw, per Variety. “I don’t know. I think part of me wants to believe that she took a moment away from him, and they got back together, back in therapy. I could believe that.”
I was also not very happy the way David ended it.
She added, “I was also not very happy the way David ended it. I thought it was bad and wrong. I was annoyed. I told him, ‘How do you invest five years into someone’s life and just walk away?’ I said, ‘That is not cool.’ And you know, that was it.”
Series creator David Chase has also commented publicly on ending the series the way that he did. At one point, she shared how the idea came to him one day when he happened to drive by the kind of diner he thought would serve well as a place for Tony Soprano to meet his maker. Chase also admitted that it bothered him that fans wanted to see some actual confirmation of Tony’s death.
“I think I had this notion — I was driving on Ocean Park Boulevard near the airport and I saw a little restaurant,” he told THR in 2021. “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.”
David Chase Was Bothered by Fan Complaints Over the Ending
Chase added about the fans complaining about the ending, “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 sh*t for seven years.’ That bothered me, yeah.”
