[lqet]

> On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity.

I respectfully disagree. One of the qualities of "The Sopranos" was exactly that things weren't always spelled out explicitely. Also, I did not really find the ending to be extremely ambigious. I mean, it is pretty clear what happened.

[FireBeyond]

I mean even that exact ending was spelled out a few episodes before, when the characters are (and I'm paraphrasing) discussing death, and how you never know, because for you, things are just happening around you, you're living, then ... nothing.

Michael Imperioli even pointed it out on a late show interview, that there were multiple hints in the previous episodes that spelled things out entirely clearly.