Abbot Genser/HBOBelieve it or not (but don't stop believing), it's been 10 years since the final episode of The Sopranos.
That means we've spent 10 whole years wondering what the hell happened after the acclaimed HBO series cut to black on Tony (James Gandolfini) and his family sitting in the diner. Was he killed? Was his entire family killed? Or did they just all sit there listening to Journey and eating dinner?
It was both infuriating and totally genius, especially considering the fact that people still regularly talk about that ending after a decade. The finale is currently number 29 out of 40 on our list of the best and worst finales of all time, based on viewer votes, with a nearly even split of 51% loving it and 48% hating it.
In 2016, creator David Chase revealed that thinking about the ending still makes him want to cry, but he's still not going to tell us if Tony's alive or dead.
"I said to Gandolfini, the bell rings and you look up," Chase told the Director's Guild of America magazine, DGA Quarterly. "That last shot of Tony ends on 'don't stop,' it's mid-song. I'm not going to go into [if that's Tony's POV]. I thought the possibility would go through a lot of people's minds or maybe everybody's mind that he was killed. He might have gotten shot three years ago in that situation. But he didn't. Whether this is the end here, or not, it's going to come at some point for the rest of us. Hopefully we're not going to get shot by some rival gang mob or anything like that. I'm not saying that [happened]. But obviously he stood more of a chance of getting shot by a rival gang mob than you or I do because he put himself in that situation. All I know is the end is coming for all of us."
While few other TV shows have ended with such a big question with such high stakes, The Sopranos is not alone in terms of ambiguous endings, or in terms of questions without answers.
Some shows have gotten the opportunity to answer those questions, and some are purposely keeping us in the dark, but let's look back on a few shows that left us with a lot to wonder about in their series finales.
The ultimate in ambiguous TV endings: What happened after that cut to black? Was Tony murdered at that table with his family? Did Meadow ever get better at parallel parking?!
David Chase has infamously remained mum on the subject, though in an interview for Vox in 2014, he reportedly said "No, no he isn't" in response to the question of whether Tony was dead.
However, his rep then followed that up with a statement saying that the journalist misconstrued Chase's words. "To simply quote David as saying," Tony Soprano is not dead," is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true."
So...who knows?
The Questions: Oh god, so many. If you were watching Lost for the answers and not for the journey, you were most likely disappointed by that emotional finale that answered almost none of the many little questions that popped up over six seasons. (For the record: They were not dead the whole time.)
The Answers: Screen Rant has an excellent breakdown of the lingering questions and answers from the series, and allow this extra scene to "tie up a few loose ends."
The Questions: Where did the departed people go? Was Nora (Carrie Coon) telling the truth when she described her trip to find her family?
The Answer: Nora answered the question of what happened to the departed (they stayed where they were—to them, everyone else disappeared), but we only have her word on that. Damon Lindelof told Uproxx that he "100%" knows whether she's telling the truth or not, but it was designed to be ambiguous.
The Question: Did Angel (David Boreanaz) and the gang win the hellish battle that begin as the series ended? We know it doesn't matter, and that the whole point was that the fight never ends, but we just like to know these things.
The Answer: Luckily for us, there's a whole series of comic books that take place after the finale, which finds Angel and his whole team alive, but Los Angeles has turned into a demon-filled hellscape.
The Question: Who was the president?! At Garry/Larry's funeral, Ben (Adam Scott) and Leslie (Amy Poehler) were approached by a very Secret Service-y looking man who says it's time to go, but it's not clear which one he's speaking to.
The Answer: Mike Schur told us that we're not supposed to know. "We declared a lot of things explicitly about what happens to all the characters," he said. "And I wanted there to be one point of real ambiguity. I declared it in the writers' room as the 'David Chase end of The Sopranos moment.'"
The Questions: Did the real Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) get out of the Black Lodge? Did Audrey survive the bank bombing? Did Shelly (Madchen Amick) marry Bobby (Dana Ashbrook)?
The Answers: Knowing how David Lynch operates, we were only ever going to get answers with a whole new series, which we're thankfully getting. So far, no word on Audrey (though Sherilynn Fenn is set to appear) or Shelly and Bobby's relationship, but we have heard from Cooper...sort of. Turns out his fate is much more complicated than any kind of yes or no. Currently, he's out of the lodge, but he's not actually back yet, and for a second there were three of him?
The Question: Who did Sookie (Anna Paquin) marry? So much time was spent on this girl's love life over seven seasons that we just felt a little cheated when all we knew was that she ended up pregnant by some barely seen man with a beard in the final episode.
The Answer: It's "irrelevant." Showrunner Brian Buckner refused to say who Sookie's mystery man was, other than to reveal that he was played by one of the show's stuntmen, named Timothy Eulich. Guess it will have to be enough to know Sookie ended up happy in the end.
The Question: Did Victoria's (Madeline Stowe) heart actually save Emily/Amanda's life? It sure seemed like a nightmare, but we also would not be shocked if it were true.
The Answer: "That's a question that we'll never know the actual answer to," showrunner Sunil Nayar told EW. But then Emily Van Camp tweeted, "Emily did not receive Victoria's heart!! The idea was that it was a recurring nightmare that would haunt her forever." Who do we believe??
The Question: Did Sarah (Yvonne Strahovksi) get her memory of the last five years back with help from Chuck's (Zachary Levi) epic kiss?
The Answer: Most likely yes. We got indirect confirmation from co-creator Chris Fedak that Sarah got her memory back, and Chuck and Sarah are "still together with kids." Whether they're raising those kids in the house with the red door and white picket fence is still a question, though.
The Sopranos aired on HBO.