Just rewatched The Sopranos again and still don’t know if i’m a fan of the ending. I remember when I first watched the show, I was pissed because you don’t know what happened (Tony obviously got whacked though). Any fans of the ending?

When they are meeting to eat and you know there are only like 30 seconds left of the entire show I realized he was gonna get shot. I liked the way they handled it from his perspective and everything going black instead of watching his brains get splattered all over his family. Especially cause earlier in series he was wondering what it would be like and if things would just go black. Thought it was pretty perfect.

Never seen the show

Actually had a theory I haven't seen anyone else make. I think the final scene was a daydream. It was shot just like all the dream sequences throughout the show, but done far more subtle cuz it was a daydream. He reaches the restaurant, and then there's a quick camera cut to him already sitting down in Holsten's. The quick cut was a transition to Tony playing out what could happen next, in his head. The cut to black is a panic attack like in the Pilot. He has no Melfi, even though the war was over his crew got picked off, and he knows someone ratted on him. AJ mentions his favorite scene is in the Godfather, the bathroom gun assassination. So Tony daydreams his own death, and bases it on his favorite movie scene ever. Another hint is the fact there are doppelgangers in the scene...two guys look like his carjackers in season 1, one guy looks like Phil Leotardo, one guy looks like Eugene. In his DREAMS, these would be the actual people, as shown throughout the series. But in his DAYDREAM, they just look similar.

Smacking my tv and punching remote buttons furiously, then asking everyone else if their internet went out too.

I saw The Sopranos for the first time just a couple years ago. The ending was a little confusing but once you recall Bobby saying something about how you never see it coming when you get whacked, it makes sense. Also the series has a tendency to play classic rock songs when someone was about to get murdered. So it was obvious Tony got whacked, and not much else of the story really needed to be told.

My reaction (I saw it when it came out) is still the same today: it made perfect sense.

Because by then Chase had shown everyone that Tony is effectively a psychopath; even his daughter is corrupted by him, his wife's hypocrisy was displayed by that therapist who told her what she had to do. Carmela's face when she saw Angie's success.

The point is, you're meant to see that Tony would get whacked by some random druggie, in front of his family. Maybe not in that scene, but at some point - because there was no happy ending for him or his family.

That's also plausible, but the whole scene is predicated on the "Point of View" shots setting up the final cut to black. THE FIRST of these shots (him taking up most of the frame before the camera cuts to his POV shot) is him looking into the restaurant, and a quick cut to him sitting down. The first "POV shot" set up is of him sitting down. It's his daydream, and that ties more into David Chase saying the ending was about "Tony not knowing what was gonna happen" more. It just seems way too fantastical that his death would mirror 1:1 the scene from The Godfather, which is previously noted as his all-time favorite scene. He's basically fantasizing about his own death but cannot cope with the thought. And he is back to square 1 in mental health because Melfi ditched him.

I threw out all of my gabagool that night.

Ya, I've read that theory before, it's really well thought-out and in-depth. I just think the very first POV they set up is a quick cut to him standing outside, to immediately sitting down without his jacket. To me, this signified a shift into one of the shows infamous "dream sequences," only this time he's awake and not sleeping, food poisoned, or in a coma. The whole scene plays out cinematically and thematically like every dream sequence throughout the show, just way more subtle cuz again, he's just daydreaming, so the whackiness is less pronounced and more between the lines.

Could believe either, but I lean towards him fantasizing the worst case scenario while also lionizing himself...dying in front of his family, just as his daughter is about to tell them she is pregnant, by a stranger in the same exact fashion as his favorite movie scene ever. BOOM. Panic attack. IDK, makes even more sense to me. But I think they set it up to have multiple interpretations, all the same, which is why we still talk about it over 20 years later. It was genius.

I hated it.

I mean I already knew what happened because I didn’t watch The Sopranos in full until after it already went off the air, but the sudden cut to black felt too jarring for such a masterpiece of a show. Over time I’ve grown to appreciate what David Chase was trying to convey, but I still think he could’ve done better srs.

5/10 ending for a 15/10 show.