Sorry, “Sopranos” fans; reports of Tony Soprano’s continued existence are greatly exaggerated.
At least, that’s the word from “Sopranos” creator David Chase, who blasted a report from Vox posted on Wednesday, which claimed Chase had admitted that mobster Tony Soprano hadn’t died in the controversial series finale of the HBO drama.
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In Vox’s article, writer Martha P. Nochimson recalled a conversation with Chase, during which the topic of the finale came up.
“Is Tony Soprano dead?” Nochimson recalled asking Chase.
“He shook his head ‘no.’ And he simply said, ‘No, he isn’t,’” Nochimson wrote.
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However, Chase’s representative, Leslee Dart, shot down Nochimson’s account of things in a statement Wednesday, saying that Chase’s comment had been “misconstrued.”
“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,” Dart’s statement reads. “There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true.”
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Dart went on to note, “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.”
The final scene of “The Sopranos,” which drew mixed reactions from fans, depicted Soprano (played by James Gandolfini) with his family in a restaurant, as a suspicious character in a Members Only jacket loomed nearby. The picture abruptly went black before the credits came up, causing some fans to question whether Tony was rubbed out, with the sudden darkness representing the snuffing of his life.
Chase hasn’t done much to quell the speculation in the ensuing years, opting not to provide a concrete explanation for the series’ final scene.