Was "Westworld’s" Man in Black a host throughout Season 2? What was the island on "Lost?"
And which "Game of Thrones" character got a shorter end
of the writing stick than Daenerys Targaryen? Keep watching to find out.
For six seasons, "Sopranos" had audiences glued to their TV screens with its ongoing
depiction of the life and times of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. For the uninitiated,
it's often hailed as the greatest show of all time. However, the final episode
of "The Sopranos," "Made in America," had audiences screaming at their television.
In the series' final scene, Tony waits for his family to gather for dinner in a diner. As each
family member trickles in, the camera takes Tony's perspective and begins to linger on suspicious
looking men entering the diner as well. As the scene unfolds, the background music swells to a
crescendo resulting in a palpable sense of dread. Then the screen cuts to black before credits roll.
At the time, viewers believed their cable had cut out during the show's pivotal moment.
In the fifteen years since its closing moments, fans debated if the cut to black meant Tony was
alive or dead. The debate seemed endless until a 2021 interview between series creator David Chase
and The Hollywood Reporter. In the interview, Chase explained he always intended for the
show to end with Tony's death. He also said that he felt the finale didn't need to show
the death. While "The Sopranos" will always be remembered for ambiguous storytelling,
at least the debate over Tony's death is finally sleeping with the fishes.
"What I been through, it changed the way you think."
HBO's "Westworld" and its story of AI theme park hosts revolting against their human overlords has
riveted audiences — and, sometimes, been hard to understand. Show creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa
Joy built their story like a well crafted maze, featuring different timelines and twists galore.
More often than not, the show addresses most questions by a given season's end. However,
one thread has been hanging since the Season 2 finale post credits stinger.
The scene depicts series' heavy William, also known as the Man in Black, being administered a
"fidelity test" by his daughter before cutting to black. The scene was misunderstood for two
reasons. The first is because William killed his daughter earlier in Season 2.
The second is because "fidelity tests" are a method for testing the accuracy of robotic
copies of humans, but the audience never witnessed the arrival of William's synthetic doppelganger.
The stinger threw the entirety of William's Season 2 arc into question and left fans to wonder if
William had actually been a host throughout the whole season. To make things more confusing,
William returns as the human antagonist in Season 3 until he's killed by his robot copy
in the Season 3 finale. So now audiences know who's who, but there's still no explanation
for the scene following the close of Season 2. In 2018, Joy told The Hollywood Reporter the Season 2
stinger takes place far in the future of the show. Here's hoping we finally get answers in Season 4.
"Everything we’ve done has led to this."
In the 2000s, "Lost" followed the marooned Oceanic Flight 815 crash survivors' attempts to survive
on a mysterious island. It was an enormous hit. However, when the finale aired in May of 2010,
most viewers left asking themselves one question: was the island purgatory?
In its final scenes, the show cuts between alternate timelines. In one timeline,
series protagonist Jack succumbs to his wounds from a battle to save the world.
In the other timeline, the main characters gather in a church
to leave for the afterlife together. Finally, after all of this build up, the show ended on
a lingering image of the original crash site — only it was completely deserted.
For years, fans suspected the final scenes meant the show had been a
metaphor for purgatory. For many, the shot of the empty crash site following
Jack's departure for the afterlife with the other survivors signaled the show
was about trapped souls. Fans also took this to mean no one survived the initial crash.
According to Vulture, showrunner Damon Lindelof confirmed the island wasn't purgatory and that
the show's events had all actually occurred as depicted. Lindelof was concerned the impact of
the ending would be ruined if it was followed by a commercial, so he added the last scene to
give the audience a moment with their emotions. In the end, the main cast leaving for the next
life together highlighted the show's true focus: The ways people come together when they're lost.
For seven seasons, audiences tuned into "Game of Thrones" for its unique brand of high fantasy and
dangerous politics. The show gave viewers plenty of interesting characters to root for and against,
but Lord Varys, the ruthless spymaster with a heart of gold proved especially intriguing. Going
into the final season, most assumed Varys had a major role to play in the end game.
So when Varys got caught in an obvious plot to undermine Daenerys Targaryen's
ascension to the throne and was executed for his betrayal, folks were stunned.
His plan? Send letters containing information that would negate Daenerys' claim to the throne,
in broad daylight, from a castle surrounded by guards.
While Varys' stupid plan isn't hard to understand and his death served the greater plot,
the way it happened seemed rushed to most fans. According to "Tinderbox" by James Andrew Miller,
the "Game of Thrones" book series author George R.R. Martin was hoping the show would last
ten seasons instead of eight. During interviews with Martin and his agent,
Paul Haas, it was revealed that the showrunners David Benioff [BEH-nee-off] and D.B.
Weiss [WICE] thought differently. Haas said that they were done with the show and wanted to move
on. So while fans may never know exactly why the last season went the way it did, it's likely
moments like Varys' death were symptomatic of Benioff and Weiss' desire to wrap it up.
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