‘The Sopranos’ Star Lorraine Bracco Hated Ending: ‘Bad and Wrong’
HBO’s ‘The Sopranos’ has one of the most divisive series finales of all time. Since it aired in 2007, it has sparked much debate and interpretation among fans over the years. Now star Lorraine Bracco, who plays Tony Soprano’s therapist Dr. Jennifer Melfi starred, her thoughts on the controversial ending.
“The Sopranos” ended with an abrupt cut-to-black scene that implied the sudden death of lead actor Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). In the final scene, Tony sits in a diner while waiting for his family. The door to the restaurant opens, but we never get a glimpse of who is entering as the show suddenly cuts to black and ends – sparking controversy over the lack of closure ever since. Throughout the show, Melfi and Tony developed a close bond; The psychiatrist was aware of his crimes as a gangster, but continued to meet with him as a therapist. Ultimately, Melfi is forced to cut ties with Tony after some of her professional colleagues discover the truth about him. The couple’s final scene together shows the psychiatrist closing the door on her former client.
Bracco has her own theory about what may have happened at the end, including that Tony could still be alive and meet Melfi.
“Honestly, I think they ran into each other at restaurants and things like that,” Bracco said on SiriusXM’s “The Spotlight With Jessica Shaw.” “I don’t know. I think part of me wants to believe that she distanced herself from him for a while, and they got back together, back in therapy. I could believe that.”
“I wasn’t very happy with the way David ended it either,” she said. “I thought it was bad and wrong. I was annoyed. I said to him, ‘How do you invest five years in someone’s life and just walk away?’ I said, ‘That’s not cool.’ And you know, that was it.”
Chase told Variety in 2015 that he never expected the ending to spark such a heated debate among fans.
“I thought the ending would be somewhat shocking, for sure,” he said. “But not to the extent it was, and not a subject of such discussion. I really had no idea about that. I’ve never considered black a shot. I thought what we see was black. The ceiling I was going for at that moment, the biggest feeling I was going for honestly, was not to stop believing. It was very simple and much more on the nose than people think. That’s what I wanted people to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it all comes to an end, that are worth so much, and we are so fortunate to have been able to experience them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony, or some other time. But despite that, it is really worth it. So don’t stop believing.”
Watch the interview with Bracco below:
