The internet loves to dissect things, from how a major star ended up getting a DWI to how exactly Kim Cattrall came to record her scat singing video . But one thing that people still can’t confirm is how “ The Sopranos ” ended up turning to slo-mo and a wipe cut in a Season 5 episode. It’s not for lack of trying.
For years, Reddit users have obsessed over the Episode 10 (“Cold Cuts”) moment in which Carmela blurts out to an ex-lover that she’s returning to her estranged husband, Tony, fueled partly because of massive pandemic watches. The episode’s director, Mike Figgis, briefly mentioned the wipe transition in his commentary on the series’ DVD set (“That’s a really interesting transition, and it wasn’t the way I’d expected the scene to look at the end”). And the question came up again during the interview process for Alan Seppinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz’s definitive making-of book, “The Sopranos Sessions.
” But the question still tickled people’s fancies, so Seitz went back to the creators involved to dig up the truth. Except it was impossible. At least, that’s the end result of Seitz’s recent lengthy Vulture article trying to uncover the truth.
Seitz went straight to the top and asked creator David Chase about the moment. Chase recalled signing off on the wipe transition but can’t recall the reason it was used. Figgis was next, and even after refreshing his memory with his shooting script and the storyboards he sketched for the epis.