Twenty-five years after its premier, I finally came to The Sopranos and binged all 6 seasons in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll rewatch it at some point. It is a rich and complex piece of art with profound observations and commentary on the American society and culture. Maybe I'll write more about its themes and throughlines, but right now I only want to examine the ending.
Tons of people have dissected and analyzed and interpreted the ending, in which the screen is cut to black just when Meadow comes through the door of the diner and Tony looks up. Is he killed by an assassin in that moment and the blackout is the abrupt end of his point of view? Is this just an arbitrary artistic device for the audience and signifies nothing? Does Tony live happily ever after with his family? (No.) A very cursory look online gives me an impression that the majority opinion is that Tony is killed there, but a sizable minority believes otherwise (such as TV critic David Bianculli). There are other interpretations, such as the one based on Schrodinger's Cat by the highly detailed site Sopranos Autopsy. Your guess is as good as mine, but below is mine. I cannot guarantee that mine is a unique view, but I am not going to do a thorough literature search to make sure that no one has said the same thing before.
I thought about it from David Chase's point of view. The series were initially not planned for 86 episodes long (with Season 6 split into 2 parts) but were renewed again and again by HBO due to its critical acclaim and popularity, until Chase decided to end it. So we can be certain that Chase definitely had thought about how to end the series for at least a year. This was not a rushed ending due to a last-minute cancelation like Deadwood. Imagine, for a moment, that you were Chase and knew that this was your magnum opus. How would you approach the ending?
All threads in the entire Season 6 foreshadow basically 3 possible outcomes:
1) Tony is assassinated by the Brooklyn rival gang. This would be a natural conclusion of the story arc of the season and parallel the demise of Phil Leotardo, Silvio, and Bobby. This outcome is also the most heavily implied in the diner scene and perhaps the most "logical" in terms of story-telling and logically inevitable in the universe of The Sopranos. This road has been illustrated again and again through the dozens of deaths throughout the series. No suspense there.
2) Tony is indicted by the FBI and probably convicted and jailed for the rest of his life. As the lawyer Mink tells Tony, Carlo has flipped and there is an 80-90% chance of an arrest. This outcome has been hanging over Tony for the entirety of the series. The plot devices that had got Tony out of trouble was becoming a bit too contrived. What's left of Tony's life will be more or less the same as the fate of Johnny Sacrimoni or cousin Tony B.
3) Nothing happens to Tony. He continues to rule his mafia family and evade the feds for a few more years, and then enter retirement with his offshore money. He will most likely repeat Uncle Junior's final years. The best case scenario is a fairly peaceful end, which, in the indifferent universe of David Chase, would be in a place like Green Grove or the posh prison psych ward at best. His dominance may last another 5 or 10 years, tops. Then what? We see the "then what" in Uncle Junior's blank, unrecognizing eyes. Or perhaps his golden years would be more like Mother Livia's, full of bitterness, hatred, and despair for his children.
All 3 likely scenarios of Tony's future have been described in other characters throughout the series. If Chase was to give us the whole thing, he would be just repeating himself yet again. There is already quite a bit of repetition in the series -- Tony B., Vito, and Christopher (among others) all had multiple opportunities to escape their gangster fates, but they chose to stay in their track to a violent death. Feuds and assassinations happen again and again. Best case scenario? Little Carmine who detaches himself from the family business and goes into the porn business. Worse case scenario? Being beaten to death with baseball bats. One of the criticisms of the series is indeed a sense of repetition, a sense of "been there, done that." The characters are stuck in the same destructive choices over and over, killing others and being killed, or ending up in jail. But that's intentional and a part of the series' theme: People rarely escape their destiny, even young ones like Meadow, Anthony Jr, and the Jasons.
Which of the 3 outcomes occurs to Tony Soprano is not that important; they are merely variations on the theme of hell. What's important is that he is not able to quit and become a healthier and more ethical person. The path to salvation, presented as a possibility when he walked into Dr. Melfi's office in the first episode, becomes increasingly narrow in season after season, until it is permanently shut off, like Dr. Melfi's door in the penultimate episode. The moral death of Tony Soprano is basically written in block letters for the entire Season 6 and sealed long before the screen goes black.
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One question remains: Does the ending have to be undefined? Why not choose one of the 3 scenarios anyway? If nothing else, the undefined ending is more artistic and provocative. The reactions since its airing on June 10, 2007, prove that Chase made the right choice. Why shoot one definitive ending when you can have all 3 live on in people's imagination?
Beyond the artistic value, I can see a case against explicitly presenting any of the 3 outcomes explicitly. Do we really want to see Tony being killed, jailed, or dying from the cruelty of old age? The certainty adds nothing. Showing him killed may seem like the hand of God (Chase) doling out punishment on Tony Soprano. Putting him in jail may turn The Sopranos into another episode of Law and Order. Watching him grow old and decrepit is just too boring. More important, Chase and the writers have demonstrated throughout the series a tendency to avoid the appearance of straightforward judgment or revenge, as nothing is worse than leaving the audience with a false sense of TV justice to sooth their anxious heart. Instead, they much prefer to use ironic twists that achieve the same effect. For example, the escalating conflicts between Tony Soprano and Richie Aprile lead us to believe Richie will be whacked before the end of Season 2 by TV conventions. It eventually does happen, but not in the way we expect. This is a trick that the series use over and over and eventually got a little old. Such plots rarely conclude at the end point of their "natural" progression, but they don't veer off too far either (it's not like Richie, Ralphie, or Christopher had a chance to survive in the Sopranos world).
If none of the 3 potential endings feel satisfactory, the natural conclusion is not to use any. In some ways this impossibility stems from the series being a little too long, exhausting all possibilities on other characters than Tony. Of course, a couple of non sequitur outcomes theoretically exist, such as Tony retiring (escaping) immediately to the Bahamas or turning witness for the feds, but they do not fit into the logic of this world.
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In a media interview in 2021, David Chase admitted that he had intended for Tony to be killed, albeit in a different setting. However, it is hard to imagine how he would have designed the post-death scenes to wrap up the series. A funeral showing shattered family members and young gangsters jostling for the Don's throne? The New Jersey crew being taken over by the Brooklyn management? Title cards outlining each major character's fate in the next decade? ("Carmela moved in with Meadow who is a junior lawyer in some small firm in rural NJ. Anthony Jr. was killed in Iraq.") Ducks flying off in the sky? I have to suspect that all of these scenarios had gone through Chase's mind and been discarded.
That Tony was to die sooner or later without a taste of relief from his anxiety and depression is never in doubt. He may or may not die at Holten's diner, but his days are numbered, just like all of us. The difference from Tony is that we, like the man in the Indian folk tale who is licking honey while dangling from a tree and surrounded by beasts, can still have moments of joy and love, if we so choose, before the screen cuts to black.
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