THE SOPRANOS
''The Second Coming'' May 20 (HBO)
Darkness closed in around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) during the final season. In fact, the end turned out to be pitch-black and arrived so suddenly that for weeks afterward we stumbled to make sense of what we had seen. (Or hadn't.) But the climactic wail about the bonds and agonies between fathers and sons — one of this great series' greatest themes — was sounded two weeks before the abrupt conclusion: When AJ (Robert Iler) tried to commit suicide, Tony understood, maybe for the first time, his place in his own literally damned universe. — Lisa Schwarzbaum