The ending of The Sopranos has been ambiguous even since that final moment cut to black. While some are sure that Tony Soprano lived on from that moment, others feel that it sealed his fate and the character was in fact killed. While being interviewed for The Sopranos Sessions in 2018 by Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall, creator David Chase let it slip that the scene was actually a “death scene,” thereby confirming what many fans believed to be true.
David Chase later backtracked, saying that his comments about Tony Soprano’s fate were taken out of context but in a new interview with THR, he confirmed that his comment wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Chase also spoke of his original idea for The Sopranos finale.
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.
The idea for Tony Soprano to ultimately meet his fate at a diner came to David Chase about two years before. “I was driving on Ocean Park Boulevard near the airport and I saw a little restaurant,” Chase said. “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.”
When The Sopranos did come to an end, fans were so fixated on what it meant that it overshadowed pretty much everything else. David Chase also expressed his annoyance at how many people just wanted to see Tony Soprano killed in front of them. “They wanted to know that Tony was killed,” Chase said. “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 shit for seven years.” That bothered me, yeah.“