Laura Lippman is the author of "What the Dead Know."
Previously on "The Sopranos" ... In Season 1, Episode 8 of "The Sopranos," Joseph R. Gannascoli appears in the role of "bakery customer," who is forced to leave empty-handed so Christopher can shoot a rude clerk in the foot. In Season 2, the same actor shows up as Vito Spatafore, the closeted captain whose lifestyle choices will eventually (Season 6) cost him his life. I mention this fact not to establish my bona fides as a "Sopranos" fan, but because it points up an undeniable truth about David Chase: He is willing to break the physical rules of his own universe, and therefore no one can predict what might happen in the final episode of "The Sopranos." All I can do is offer up a prayer that Chase stays true to the startling freshness of the early seasons, when the Mafia was presented as another besieged institution, and the top job was a tarnished prize at best.
With all the whackage in the penultimate episode, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the fight between the New York and New Jersey families is on a par, businesswise, with whether Dunder Mifflin closes the Scranton or Stamford branch on "The Office." For the finale, I don't want Titus Andronicus. I need something sad and small, a living hell, a Sisyphean fate for this sociopath who has wormed his way into our horrified imaginations. And I'm trusting Chase to leave us with many dangling threads and unanswered questions, because I believe that his narrative cul-de-sacs -- the Russian in the Pine Barrens, Carmela's spec house, take your pick -- were one of the series' great strengths. Call it Chase's Second Law of Thermodynamics: Everything falls apart -- but not everything gets resolved.
And please, no dream sequences.
Frank Rich is a columnist for the New York Times and the author of "The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina."
Nancy Marchand comes back, and not a moment too soon.
Tom Tomorrow is the creator of This Modern World.
Tony turns state's evidence and goes into the Witness Protection Program, which relocates him to Utah and finds him a job working sales in a Home Depot. Final shot on Tony, his expression a mixture of resignation and disgust: "Can I help you find something, sir?"
Actually I have no idea, and don't really care, as long as David Chase gives us some sort of satisfying dramatic resolution, rather than falling back on his "real life doesn't always have neat conclusions" shtick (as in the Russian hit man episode). The most annoying way to end this show would be to just let it fizzle out, but Chase's choices are often perverse enough that this is a real possibility.
Tucker Carlson is the host of "Tucker" on MSNBC.
My guess: A.J. kills Tony. I've thought that for the past several episodes, ever since they played "The End" by the Doors in a Bada Bing scene.
Next page: "He should be humiliated, unmanned, made to simper and beg first"
