10 Epic TV Moments Ruined By Awful Execution
8. Tony & Liv's Final Confrontation - The Sopranos
One of the most compelling aspects of The Sopranos' first two seasons was Tony Soprano's (James Gandolfini) relationship with his narcissistic, manipulative mother Livia (Nancy Marchand).
Creator David Chase originally planned to heighten the tension in season three by having Liv called to testify against her son for his crimes, yet actress Nancy Marchand sadly passed away before these scenes could be filmed.
Rather than simply have Liv die off-screen, Chase decided to use visual effects to create a final confrontation between Tony and Liv, largely pieced together from existing clips of Marchand pasted on top of a stand-in actress.
The results are, honestly, terrible, delivering not only the worst and most embarrassing scene in the entirety of The Sopranos, but also being visually hideous enough to feel relatively disrespectful to the late Marchand.
Between the effects, which were pretty unconvincing at the time, and the obviousness of Marchand's dialogue being recycled, it's a total disaster of a final showdown between mother and son.
It would've been far more sensible to simply have Liv die out of nowhere rather than try to contrive one last "meaningful" interaction, because the end result was a pure mess.