Movies - TV
The Sopranos Killed Adriana Offscreen And We're All Better For It
By MICHAEL BOYLE
One of the more interesting aspects of Adriana's (Drea de Matteo) informant storyline in "The Sopranos" is how poorly she handles it. In fiction writing classes, novice writers are often advised to never make their characters feel incompetent, yet every head-scratchingly terrible decision Adriana makes through Season 4 and 5 somehow only makes her more sympathetic, not less.
The scene where Adriana dies is disturbing and primal, yet notably, the show decides not to show her actual death. Showrunner David Chase explained: "It's the only time in the whole history of the show in which we killed someone and we didn't show their point of view. It seems to be worse without it; we were imagining what might've happened to her and how her body would've been destroyed. I don't think any of us wanted to see Drea in that condition."
In a way, keeping her death offscreen makes the experience even worse for the viewer, as nothing is more horrific than our imagination of how it played out while still giving her death a dignity that isn't afforded to so many of the other victims on the show.
No matter how many times you watch it, the episode still evokes the thought that “hey, maybe she'll actually leave this time.” But then the show cuts to Adriana in the passenger seat, and we're forced to accept all over again that this won't have a happy ending. On a show filled with tragic moments, "Long Term Parking" still stands above the rest.