Well, we’ve finally done it. Humanity and its unrelenting thirst to end ambiguity as we know it has finally worn poor David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, down on what exactly did or didn’t happen to Tony Soprano on the last episode of the show. Given that the episode aired seven years ago, I was sure Chase had made it through the worst of it and would take the secret to his grave, but I guess not.
Before we go any further, because I’m not going to spoil what happened for you above the jump, I’d like to say that I loved the ending of the show. At first I was angry, but a few days later I began to really appreciate the way Chase allowed us into the lives of these characters for eight or so years and then simply closed the hatch when it came to the audience’s ability to access them. I totally get why some people didn’t like it, but I found it intriguing. Hit the jump to find out what happened to Tony Soprano. [Update: David Chase's publicist has clarified his comments. More on this below.]
Update: Chase's publicist Leslee Dart has released a statement negating this information. It almost reads as though the Vox journalist published an off-the-record comment. Read it below followed by our original story:
"A journalist for Vox misconstrued what David Chase said in their interview. To simply quote David as saying,“ Tony Soprano is not dead,” is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true.
As David Chase has said numerous times on the record, “Whether Tony Soprano is alive or dead is not the point.” To continue to search for this answer is fruitless. The final scene of THE SOPRANOS raises a spiritual question that has no right or wrong answer."
Vox point-blank asked Chase if Tony was dead. “No,” Chase answered. “No he isn’t.” This has been my reading of the ending for quite sometime, though I can’t claim I was positive that I was correct. Rather, it was my preferred ending. To me much of The Sopranos was about the banality of evil, and I saw the ending as an indicator that Tony’s life would continue on in just as banal a fashion as it always had, regardless of the many bad deeds he had committed.
I recommend reading that entire Vox piece by the way. It’s a fascinating profile on David Chase and I think you can find the answer as to why he ended the show the way he did in the psychology of the man himself.