10 TV Endings Actors Didn't Know Were Going To Happen
2. Cut To Black - The Sopranos
Few TV shows have ended more contentiously or unexpectedly than The Sopranos, whose final scene saw Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) meeting his family at a diner, but as his daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) entered the eatery, the screen suddenly cut to black. The End.
It's an ending that shocked the world, with many initially believing their TV signal had cut out, but indeed, abruptly slamming the door on Tony and company was precisely the ending creator David Chase intended.
But the ending proved little less baffling even to those who appeared in the scene, chiefly James Gandolfini himself.
Though Gandolfini of course knew he was shooting the final scene at the time, the precise manner in which the show would sign off wasn't part of the shooting script.
Chase's abrupt cut to black in the middle of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and the 10 seconds of black silence that followed before the end credits rolled weren't anything the cast knew about beforehand.
Hell, Journey didn't even sign off on their hit song being used in the episode until just three days before it aired.
When Gandolfini sat down to watch the finale for himself, he was evidently as surprised and confused by its ending as everybody else. In an interview with Vanity Fair prior to his death, he said:
"When I first saw the ending, I said, 'What the f**k?' I mean, after all I went through, all this death, and then it's over like that?... After I had a day to sleep, I just sat there and said, 'That's perfect.'"