Bright Lights Baked Ziti

Chase says his biggest worry about Livia as a character is how to keep her in the show believably now that her own son considers her persona non grata. "I really worry about viewers checking out," he confesses. "I mean, Tony's a guy who'd kill someone for taking a thousand dollars out of a cash box. It doesn't mean Livia can't have a prominent position in the show. I'm just not sure you can ever realistically show Tony and Livia getting back together again in the same room."

While Chase worries about dramatic plausibility, others are more concerned with the spectre of ethnic stereotyping. Watchdog organizations have made noisy protests about The Sopranos being defamatory to Italian Americans, and Chase and HBO have endured "quite a few" angry diatribes from the likes of the National Italian-American Foundation and William Fugazy of the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations. "It's really tiresome," Chase sighs. "Unfortunately, I get angry and I rise to the bait, which I shouldn't. Why don't these people go pick out some mobsters and complain to them? Why not go protest in front of their house and say, 'You're bringing shame upon the rest of us? Repent!' I've never seen that happen."

Well, there's always season 3.

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