It is perhaps the biggest mystery in television history. When The Sopranos ended with an abrupt blackout following a family dinner, seven years of speculation began. Had Tony finally been whacked?
Creator David Chase has always refused to give a clear answer, but for a few hours on Wednesday, it appeared as if he had changed his mind. In a lengthy piece for Vox, writer Martha P Nochimson reported that Chase had finally given her an answer to the burning question of whether Tony Soprano was dead. She wrote:
He shook his head “no”. And he said simply “No he isn’t.” That was all.
Mystery solved. Except shortly after the piece ran, Chase issued a statement to Vulture, claiming that Nochimson had misunderstood what he was saying:
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.”
So there you go. Despite a brief window of what appeared to be a definitive answer, we now know that we will never actually know if Tony Soprano died at the end of The Sopranos.
Cut to black.
