Lorraine Bracco hated how David Chase wrote off Dr. Melfi on The Sopranos, thinks Tony survived

When the screen went black and “Don’t Stop Believing” cut out, everybody watching The Sopranos wondered: Did my cable just cut out?! But after that, we wondered what happened to Tony Soprano. Was he whacked inside of an ice cream parlor or did he finish his onion rings? Did the man in the Members Only jacket do him in or will he constantly live in state of uncertainty? David Chase has given his final say before but that doesn’t stop the theories, be it from fans or Sopranos cast members. Now, Lorraine Bracco is giving her own hopeful ending for The Sopranos.

Bracco – who played therapist Dr. Jennifer Melfi throughout The Sopranos – said she thinks that Tony survived his tense night out with his family. And despite her final scene of closing the door on her patient of seven years, she imagines Melfi and Tony would have kept in touch. “Honestly, I think they bumped into each other in restaurants and stuff like that. 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.”

On her final appearance – which occurred in The Sopranos’ penultimate episode “The Blue Comet” – Bracco said she felt like creator David Chase shortchanged the character. “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.”

We can imagine what might have happened to some of our favorite characters after the events of “Made in America” (Paulie will forever be haunted by cats) but I really don’t think it’s open for interpretation as to what happened to Tony. Even without Chase’s say-so, it’s obvious that Tony was killed in Holsten’s. Why else would the previous episode cut back to “Soprano Home Movies” when Bobby says, “You probably don’t hear it when it happens,” especially when the show so rarely did those sorts of flashbacks?

How do you feel about the way The Sopranos handled Melfi? Was it well done or was it a disservice to the character?