5 Things That Would Have Made the Sopranos Ending Better
By now, you've most likely seen, and been incredibly disappointed by, the last scene of The Sopranos: Tony, Carmella and AJ ordering up and eating onion rings, as Meadow struggles to parallel park her Lexus. Shady characters mill about the diner-some casting threatening looks at Tony and his family. And then, just as Meadow is about to enter the front door, Tony looks up, an indecipherable expression on his face, and the screen cuts to black.
Nothing happens next-but we at CRACKED have confirmed reports that Sopranos creator David Chase did shoot several alternate endings.
The Emotional Ending
As he did in the episode that aired, Tony goes to visit Uncle Junior at his state-run mental institution. The two men talk for several minutes, when Uncle Junior gets up to leave the room, starts to walk away.
"Uncle Jun," Tony calls out, longingly, starting at his older relative, "wanna have a catch?"
"I'd like that," says Uncle Jun. The two men then go outside the mental institution and play catch.
"Is this heaven?" Uncle Junior asks Tony.
"No, it's New Jersey."
Fade to black. THE END.
The Romantic Ending
AJ and Carmela sit at the diner. Meadow arrives shortly thereafter, and the three wait patiently for Tony to arrive.
As time passes, the three Sopranos get restless, calling his cell phone to no avail. Finally, a waiter comes over and hands Carmela a note. It's from Tony, explaining that he won't be making dinner tonight because he "has to go see about a girl." We then see Tony driving his SUV, heading West toward the sunset, hopefully on his way to visit Christopher's peyote-addled mistress.
Fade to black. THE END.
The Sad, Hopeful Ending
After the dinner of onion rings and fried food, the four Sopranos head back to their home.
In the middle of the night Tony wakes up suddenly, gets out of bed and puts on a jogging suit. He then begins to run, run, run-minutes turn to hours, which turn to days, then to weeks. "I just felt like running," he tells the flock of disciples he picks up along the way.
After years on the road-coming up with funny, witty slogans like "Shit Happens"-Tony finally returns to New Jersey, where he finds that Carmella has born him another son.
"Is he smart?" Tony asks pensively.
"Smartest in his class," Carmella replies, moving Tony to tears. Weeks later Carmella dies of a "mystery illness" (cough AIDS!! cough cough).
Fade to black. THE END.
The Frantic Ending
The family decides to get their onion rings to go, and heads back to the family home-when suddenly the FBI is banging down the door.
They storm in-Tony is arrested, and the house is ransacked. Several days later, Tony is released on bail, and upon returning home he immediately runs up to the bedroom, tearing through his dressers.
"Where's the coke?" he demands of Carmella?
"I-I had to flush it down the toilet. It's gone."
Tony stares and Carmella, stunned, and then shouts: "Why, Carmella, why? How could you do that?!?!? Why, Carmella? Why did you do that?!?! How could you do such a thing, Carmella? Why?!?! Why? Carmella, how could you do such a thing!?? WHY?!?!" Carmella and Tony collapse to the floor, arm in arm.
Fade to black. THE END.
The Prison Ending
Carlo testifies against Tony, and the feds nail him on a host of RICO charges. He is sentenced to life in prison-but once there, he meets a wise old black man who "knows how to get things." The old man gets him a poster of Rita Hayworth, and over the course of decades, Tony uses that poster to cover up the tunnel he is digging to ultimately escape from prison.
We see a shot of Tony reaching freedom, with the old man's voiceover: "I used to think it would take 600 years to tunnel under the wall with it. Old Tony did it in less than 20. Oh, Tony loved geology... I guess it appealed to his meticulous nature."
Fade to black. THE END.
