Did Tony die? Let's talk about 'The Sopranos' and that brilliant series ending

The latest binge has left me with a huge crush on David Chase's mafia family tale.

Maybe it’s because I hit my 40s recently and the morality tug of fathertime is more confrontational, or the adulting grind is starting to ramp up into a higher gear, but my latest binge of The Sopranos left me loving the show more than I ever have before. The latest watch was probably my fourth or fifth time through the series, and that means a start to finish visit. I can’t count the number of times I’ve dropped into Pine Barrens, and ended up finishing the rest of the episodes.

More than anything, my feelings on the ending of the series have become more concrete. It takes time, like a good steak to find the right heat balance on a grill to produce a meal, or commentary, worth savoring. That’s going to be the genesis of this particular article, a way to explore all the thoughts on the show and bring into account what the creator David Chase has said (and also NOT said) about the finale’s final seconds.

Here’s the thing: Tony Soprano didn’t die in the end, and I’ll spend the next few paragraphs telling you why I think that. The brilliance of Chase’s show is that he has never given a definitive answer, much to the chagrin of The Hollywood Reporter and that room of young film students who pegged him with the eternal question: What happened before, or when, it all cut to black?

Believe me, when the finale aired back in June of 2007, people thought their power was cut to the television, when Chase merely cut the power from that show to our hearts. It was over, and those ten seconds of complete blackness before the credits was the slow knife wound that a Hall of Fame show produces in its last few seconds.

First, they already tried to kill Tony off earlier in Season 6, when his Uncle Junior (the great, great Dominic Chianese) shot him during his dementia tailspin. That soaked up a few episodes and brought on one television’s most haunting dream sequences (look for the clue in that final scene), but are they really going to have him survive a very deadly bout with sepsis and then kill him offscreen. As my dad’s friend Kendall would say, that’s weak.

Let’s talk about the guy in the Members Only jacket. Yes, Eugene “I want to go to Florida but forget I took an oath” Pontecorvo wore the same jacket when he walked into that diner and committed his final murder before hanging from a rope. But he also didn’t walk into the diner, have a few sips of coffee while sitting down, and go into the bathroom before coming out with murderous intentions either. He came in, spotted his prey, and did the job.

As Michael Imperioli, who was amazing as the self-tortured Christopher Moltisanti, mentioned on the Talking Sopranos podcast finale, it’s illogical to walk into a place with a very easy to notice jacket on, hang out, and then go for the kill. Think of Robert De Niro in The Irishman before he whacked Sebastian Maniscalco’s big-talking Joey Gallo: he walked in, went to the back immediately by the table, and quickly unloaded two pistols into the man.

It doesn’t make sense or hold up in court for that guy to be a clear cut assassin. He was just a guy stopping in for coffee. Do we really think Eugene had family that would wait years and then grow the balls to take a shot at Tony? Nah. That’s also weak.

Don’t forget New York had sat down with Tony and his guys, and literally gave the okay nod to kill Phil Leotardo (the great, late Frank Vincent), the old school deadly fox who had started the whole mess. Bobby Baccalieri (Steven Schirripa, so good) had already been clipped and Steven Van Zandt’s Silvio was essentially wasting away in a coma, so the two sides shook hands on a truce/cease fire. So, the order didn’t come from New York.

Chase creates this answer-less pit of sorrow by wisely cranking up the tension in the final scene. Like him or not, James Gandolfini’s incredible creation created a monster that viewers kept rooting for all the way to the very end. Come on, you know there weren’t as many souls wishing he’d eat it. Chase and his writing team had plucked our lips right out of the ocean like a seasoned fisherman, getting us to love him just like Lorraine Bracco’s Dr. Jennifer Melfi did against her will. While some of us most likely slammed the door on him in the end like she did, wanting him to die wasn’t in the cards.

The fact that he looks up every time someone walks in, be it Robert Iler’s A.J. or eventually his daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler gets better with each watch), is a testament to a boss knowing it’s never truly over. Hell or the can are their options, as Tony told Melfi, but I don’t think the former won. It’s not riveting enough as the possibility he made it out alive.

Why did it cut to black? I believe it was because Chase wanted to get back at HBO for making him have proper credits. He wanted to have ZERO credits, and just have it cut to black. While some have linked that to us sitting in the point of view of Tony as he supposedly dies, I don’t buy it. The show merely ended, like a curtain coming down over a group of performers.

Kingdom creator Byron Balasco once told me that he saw each season, whether there was a next one coming or not, as an individual slice of the characters’ lives. Nothing was definitive, beyond what was shown. It’s not the ultimate goodbye or farewell that usually comes with the movies, and that’s because Chase never felt like he had to give a definitive end to Tony’s arc. What if his life just goes on? It’s not as sexy, but just as compelling.

It’s the same thing as Christopher Nolan not outright telling us if Leonardo DiCaprio’s mind jumper made it out of his purgatory and back home to his kids at th end of Inception. He will let you create your own answer before simply issuing complete access to his brain. That’s not how a genius works, unfortunately for the people who like neat bows tied around their characters near the end of a run.

I’d LOVE to surely know whether he lived or died, but I am enamored by the possibilities and ideas that came from the cut-to-black ending. It’s truly fascinating.

My takeaway is Tony got indicted, and probably spent a nice chunk (but not all) of the rest of his life in jail. While viewers just want to tie it to death or nothing, jail is the most likely landing spot for these addictive criminals. He tasted death, made it out, and now will take that life cred to jail for 5-10 years. While they said Sil won’t regain consciousness again, they also said Tony would be partially brain-damaged when he came out of his coma.

Silvio would make a great boss, at least for a modest stretch of time. He’s arguably the smartest guy in that room, even knowing when to do things before Soprano. His panic attacks got the best of him when his friend was shot, but a more complete detachment (at least for a while) would be in order if Tony went to jail. If not, let poor Patsy take a step up. Tony had his brother killed and he made it out of the Sil assassination attempt alive and well, so it works.

Tony Sirico’s Paulie Walnuts may bark and whine about wanting more responsibility, but he also recognizes that the mafia world after the year 2000 is no country for an old man. Rest in peace, Mr. Sirico. I have now added his signature cackle to my roster of impersonations. Whenever I try a new suit on, I’m taking Paulie’s cue and shooting my cuffs.

More than anything, I think the fascination with Tony Soprano’s death or non-death has more to do with the sad fact that we lost Gandolfini six years after the finale aired at the age of 51. Unlike the myth behind the death of a Jack Pearson or a Walter White, the ghost behind Tony is a man who doesn’t exist anymore. A friend told me there were plans for more movies after the series wrapped up, so that also tells me Soprano lived.

The question carries credence due to the fact that Hollywood, his friends and family, and pretty much everybody wishes a heart attack hadn’t claimed “Jim,” as most of the Sopranos cast and Chase calls him. You can sense a dread whenever Chase has to discuss it because there is the direct link to the finality that the face behind the ghost is gone forever. His life still hangs in the balance in fiction, but real life carries a much harsher finality.

Chase probably took it the hardest. He worked with Gandolfini again on a movie set in New Jersey shortly after the show wrapped, and would have created a Scorsese-De Niro type working bond with him for the rest of their lives. That was lost, so I think the desire to know if he lived or die is welded to that reality, and it’s not something that Chase finds easy to answer.

For the record, Chase didn’t tell T.H.R. that Tony indeed died in the finale. Don’t believe what Google will feed you. That was in 2021, when he was speaking with film students and a moderator about the business and making movies/shows, and that question just popped up. Chase gave two scenarios for Tony’s possible demise, one that would connect to the hypnotic intro where he leaves New York to come home to Jersey. In the creator’s mind, he’d go into New York one last time before being killed.

The other idea was it happening at a diner, like the real-life Holstens that was used in the finale. But Chase clarified with Imperioli and Schirripa on that popular podcast that he never definitively gave an answer. He never has given a clean cut answer, and he most likely never will publicly. Why reveal the trick if people are addicted to merely staring down the hat?

All things considered, Tony lived long enough to eat those onion rings and find peace with his family before heading to prison for a silly gun toss during that sprint away from Johnny Sacrimoni’s mansion. That’s more fitting than Tony biting it in a very crowded diner.

I loved this show now more than I ever have, because Chase gave us a glimpse at the existential crisis and everyday dread through the eyes of an immoral but likable gangster. The Sopranos will live on, like Mad Men, as an eternally beloved series because it knew how to end and leave the hook in. Gandolfini’s passing just made the “what if” scenario eternal.

Thanks for reading this deep dive into the show that broke a mold that allowed television shows to glorify the villain if the writing was good enough.

And rest in peace, James Gandolfini. Your loss was immeasurably tragic.