Image credit: The Sopranos: Craig Blankenhorn
Image credit: The Sarah Silverman Program: Steve Agee; Entourage: Claudette Barius
TV Article
Winter TV Preview
Get details on 10 new and returning midseason shows, including ''The Sopranos,'' a Sarah Silverman comedy, and more
The Sopranos
HBO, April 8, 9 p.m.
Since The Sopranos began in 1999, creator-writer David Chase has at different times declared that his gangster saga would go no longer than three, four, then five seasons, and each time, it was stated with the definitiveness of a Mob-ordered hit. So when he maintains that the latter half of the HBO show's sixth and final season (which resumes after a 10-month intermission) will be it, one can forgive the cast — and fans — for suspecting he may again show mercy and keep Tony in therapy forever, like a sociopathic Woody Allen. But this time it really is over, and the conclusion is even enough to drive Dr. Melfi to the couch. ''I'm not excited at all for the end,'' states Lorraine Bracco firmly. ''I think we're all going to need some kind of therapy.''
Chase has said that he's known for four years how he'd wrap up the series, but the notorious spoilerphobe will barely say how this nine-episode run begins, let alone finishes. What he will reveal is that the story picks up a year after the June 2005 finale. Tony (James Gandolfini) thought he calmed his feud with acting New York chief Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent), who suffered a heart attack. Now Tony will see his nemesis emerge from semiretirement. ''Their long-simmering animosity really starts to fester,'' says Chase. He also teases that lazy seed AJ (Robert Iler) ''goes through what you might call serious growth pains. He has to grapple with or face up to his heritage, and changes somewhat.'' As for Michael Imperioli's Christopher? He gets his ''Saw meets The Godfather'' horror movie off the ground, although unlike last season's roundhouse to guest star Lauren Bacall, he doesn't have to clock any more grandes dames to do it. ''Who else [could we do]?'' jokes Imperioli. ''Maggie Smith, Judi Dench. I'm open to punching out the legends of cinema.''
However the series ends, it's unlikely to be tidy. Chase is uninterested in the traditional demand for TV closure; he's still perplexed that people keep asking him what happened to the Russian who escaped from Christopher and Paulie in the Pine Barrens way back in season 3. ''It's not in our interest to do a morality tale, which, of course, the gangster film has always lent itself to,'' he says. ''It is in our interest to show that there are certain ways that we all spend our lives, and that as adults, we decide our fate, we make our own bed, and we lie in it. That to me is not the same, hopefully, as saying crime doesn't pay, or bad people are punished. Free will exists.'' Oh, sure, that's easy for him to say: It's his free will that's ending the show. —Josh Wolk
Add your comment
The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.