"Long Term Parking." For fans of The Sopranos, the banal airport sign remains a haunting callback more than a decade after the episode of the same name originally aired. In the fifth season’s 12th episode, viewers witnessed the tragic end to Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo) in a gripping sequence, logical yet shocking, that generated maximum suspense and heartbreak. Adriana had long stuck by her addict fiancé Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) out of some uncertain mixture of love, loyalty, and mob life materialism. Then came "Long Term Parking" on May 23, 2004, which not only gave Adriana the series’ most tragic ending but cast the show’s anti-hero, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), into a darker shadow that never dissipated. For the 10-year anniversary of the show’s finale, EW spoke to Sopranos creator David Chase, star Drea de Matteo, writer Terence Winter and director Tim Van Patten reveal how that long drive into the woods really went down...
The decision to kill off Adriana was made in 2003 while season 5 was being written. Her fate was considered inevitable due to the character’s increasing cooperation with the FBI...
Creator David Chase: What she had done, in the world that we were investigating, had marked her for death. We always knew at some point, she was probably going to pay for that. We just didn’t know when.
Star Drea de Matteo: In those days, everybody was talking about season 5 as maybe being the end of the series. I remember one time going and tentatively asking David what my fate might be. David didn’t like to be asked things. The show was so huge and such a big deal, it felt like you shouldn’t mess with anything or with him. I asked because I wanted to direct a movie. He said, "Let me think about it." I remember being afraid that he’d whack me just because he thought I didn’t want to be there anymore or something. But my storyline was such that I was never supposed to be there in the first place and then I ended up being a series regular on the most amazing, TV-changing show. So I didn’t want to come across as ungrateful but I just wanted to know because Adriana was talking to the feds.
Writer Terence Winter: At the beginning of season 5, we realized it would happen at the end of the season. We may have talked about various scenarios, whether or not it was Christopher who did it, or possibly Tony. I don’t know how we ultimately arrived at Silvio (Steven Van Zandt) doing it.
De Matteo: David came to me and said, "I’m going to shoot this two ways: I’m going to kill you and I’m going to let you live. And nobody’s going to know until it airs." I’m like, "Okay, I’m dying, for sure, but why shoot it two ways?" He said one reason was he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, and the other was to keep confidentiality on set. He would go that far to divert the crew from being able to leak anything.
Winter: You don’t realize how much you start to think of these characters as real people. It was really tough to write. It was really very difficult to do for a lot of reasons, most of which had to do with the emotion of not being able to work with Drea anymore.
The episode opens with Adriana as we’ve never seen her before: At a doctor’s office wearing a paper gown being diagnosed with stress-induced ulcerative colitis. Stripped of her usual glam, she looks miserable, embarrassed and vulnerable.
Winter: You generally see Adriana as such a powerful character and so forceful and glamorous and sexy and tough. You see a much more vulnerable side of her with her colitis, or whatever it was she had. You’re almost sympathetic to her from the beginning. The walls are closing in and she’s got it coming at her from all sides.
Chase: A person in her position would be very likely to have [colitis]. It wasn’t to make her more vulnerable. It’d be hard to make that woman more vulnerable than she was. She was nothing but vulnerability.
The FBI give Adriana a choice of prison or becoming a government witness. She convinces them to let her try to convince Christopher to join her in Witness Protection. She goes home and confesses her predicament to Christopher. He flies into a rage, nearly choking her to death...
Director Tim Van Patten: [Adriana and Christopher] were both so invested in those characters, and they adored each other. They took it right to the limit.
De Matteo: That scene was as real as it gets. That scene was everything for me. Michael [Imperioli] wouldn’t hurt me, so I pushed my neck against his hands so it would look like I was being choked. That was my goodbye - not the scene where I get taken out in the woods.
Chase: Both of them just did an incredible job, as did the director. You really think she’s going to go. Sometimes in her close-ups, it looks like she might already be dead, the way she’s just staring at him. What I think is so important about it is the fact that she just stops fighting and just accepts it. She’s just staring at him as he’s choking her to death. I think that’s really important.
Winter: I remember watching that on set and actually having tears in my eyes. You just felt how torn Christopher was. He knew she was backed into a corner and they’re probably both going to die. Ultimately, he couldn’t go through with it. He loved her despite giving her up.
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Christopher leaves and sees an impoverished family at a gas station...
Winter: He sees his future life flash before his eyes: "This is going to be us, we’re going to be that family living hand to mouth in a s***** car with a bunch of kids." It gives you his mindset as a guy who’s never going to leave New Jersey. There’s nothing like a mullet to shake you into reality.
Tony calls Adriana and says Christopher has attempted suicide and that he’s sending Silvio to bring her to the hospital. For a moment we wonder what Adriana is going to do. Then the scene cuts to Adriana driving out of town, suitcase in the passenger seat, she wised up and fled. And then suddenly, the scene abruptly changes: Adriana is now in a car’s passenger seat and Silvio is driving. We witnessed a cruel fake-out daydream...
Van Patten: All you wanted for her was to escape.
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