The Sopranos is a work of art, a show both classic and enduring, a perfect example of prestige television. Despite completing its run on HBO nearly fourteen years ago, the show still generates discussion and debate online today. The ultimate Sopranos debate, of course, involves the final seconds of the show’s final episode (spoilers ahead). In the last scene of the show, our protagonist Tony Soprano is at a diner with his wife Carmela and their son AJ. They’re waiting for daughter Meadow to join, but she’s having trouble parallel parking her car (and people say this show isn’t for girls!). Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” is playing on the jukebox. Tony’s on edge: his crew is decimated, he himself could be killed at any moment, and one of his own guys is probably going to testify against him. You could cut the tension with a knife. Carmela and AJ chat and eat; they just want a nice family dinner.
Meadow finally parks her car and crosses the street.
Offscreen, the doorbell jingles.
Journey begins to sing “Don’t stop--”
Tony looks up.
The scene cuts to black and holds for nearly ten seconds. Then the credits roll.
The Sopranos is over.
The finale notoriously shocked viewers; many even thought their cable had cut out until they saw the credits. Everybody had a different interpretation of the ending: that it symbolized Tony being killed, or that it didn’t mean Tony got killed, or—actually those were really the two big ones. But I find this debate constrained, unimaginative. There are far more possibilities that can explain the iconic blackout, if only we could all open our hearts and minds. Please join me, as I walk you through what I think happened in The Sopranos finale.
The power went out in the restaurant.
Tony was recently diagnosed with an iron deficiency as well as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) so his vision sometimes just blacks out like that, especially when he’s not drinking enough water
It was all a dream!
The show was over so they stopped. How hard is that to understand?
Somebody got some gunk on the camera lens.
Sarah Jessica Parker sabotaged the set because she felt the character of Paulie Walnuts ripped off Carrie Bradshaw.
The final moments were filmed at a frequency only dogs can see and hear.
HBO had a nationwide glitch when the finale premiered and they were too embarrassed to say it wasn’t the real ending so they went with it even though they had actually filmed 5 more minutes where Tony apologizes to his family and promises to do better and also he decides to go back to college.
Michael Imperioli walked in front of the camera looking for some sunglasses he had left behind on set (although some people suspected that was just an excuse).
There is a post-credits scene nobody ever watches where Mark Ruffalo wakes up in the Bada Bing! and says “where am I?” and someone in the shadows chuckles and says “you’re in the Bada Bing!” and then she comes out of the shadows and we see that she is Pie Oh My, back from the dead with a terrible scar and a newfound taste for vengeance (Pie Oh My: Time To Die, in theaters soon).
We miscalculated both the year and the very specific consequences of Y2K.
Somebody forgot to get enough film when they were shooting but by that point everybody was pretty tired and they were like, eh, it’s fine.
They filmed another 30 seconds with a definite plot resolution, but every single shot had somebody’s Pinkberry cup in it, and Gossip Girl already had the exclusive rights to their product placement so it was all completely unusable.
This wasn’t supposed to be the finale, HBO canceled the show because they didn’t think it was popular enough and they wanted to give that 9 pm time slot to reruns of their beloved Encyclopedia Brown series.
James Gandolfini quit at that exact moment so they were like, I guess we’ll just work with what we have?
Jamie Lynn Sigler really couldn’t parallel park and on her final take she drove onto the set, killing everyone instantly.
Adriana and Carmela play tennis
While I believe each of these theories is equally plausible, and that this list only begins to scratch the surface of possibilities, I will say that no one ever went broke underestimating people’s ability to parallel park. Or maybe they did, I’d really have no way of knowing.
Please share any other theories in the comments below. The truth is out there, if only we have the courage to look!