I don’t even know what to say right now. I really don’t. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I just didn’t appreciate what David Chase was trying to accomplish. Or maybe my expectations were simply too high. I don’t know.

People have been saying for years that “The Sopranos” peaked too early. I’m not sure if I agree with that or not, but I will say that this final season peaked too early. Last week’s episode was brilliant, maybe one of the finest hours of television you’ll ever see. Seemed the stage was set for a fantastic finale for a series so many of us have been following for so many years.

Instead, we got this. Look, I wasn’t expecting a 65-minute bloodbath tonight. That’s not even what I was hoping for. But I sure wanted some resolution, and I wanted some conflict. Instead, we get AJ telling his parents he wants to go into the Army so he can fulfill his dream of being a private helicopter pilot for Donald Trump, Meadow trying to parallel park her car for 20 minutes, Carm starting the plans for her next spec house, Janice trying to swindle Junior by telling him he was her daughter, Paulie bitching about a stray cat, and Tony shuffling through a tabletop jukebox.

What, the, hell?

Anyone who’s read this blog knows that I’ve been a patient fan of the show. People griped about the slow episodes and I said that Chase was building to something big. People called for more bloodshed and I said it was coming. Well, I guess those things did happen, but they happened last week, when Tony made a move on Phil and the NY family capped Bobby and Sil. What do we get this week? Onion rings and horrible Billy Baldwin screenplays. Well, Phil was whacked too, but I hope you’ll forgive me for mentioning that key bit of information in passing since that’s just about how Chase treated it tonight: one second Phil’s saying goodbye to his grandkids, the next he’s shot in the head, and the next he has a car roll over his head (which reminded me of a “Six Feet Under” episode, by the way). And just like that, the primary conflict of this entire season is gone. Done. It was like Christopher’s death all over again: I felt robbed.

The thing is, I understand – or I think I understand, anyway – Chase’s intention with the final scene. The suspense builds as Tony walks into a crowded restaurant and starts skimming the jukebox, scanning past such cryptically placed tunes as “This Magic Moment” and “I’ve Gotta Be Me” before settling for Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” Every time the bell over the door rings, Tony glances up to see who’s walking in. Who is he waiting for? Finally, Carm enters and takes a seat. They scan their menus. The bell jingles again and AJ walks in behind an ominous looking dude who sits at the counter and glances over at Tony’s table a few times. Surely, this guy has bad intentions. Meanwhile Meadow proves that she may be the only person on the entire planet who actually needs that new Lexus that parallel parks for you by failing in her first three attempts to guide her car into the biggest parking space you’ll ever find in front of a crowded restaurant. AJ gripes about his new job before reminding Tony that he once told him, “Try and remember the times that were good.” The suspicious man at the counter glances over at Tony again and then stands up. Tony looks up…and watches the guy head toward the bathroom. The waiter brings a plate of onion rings and all three Sopranos at the table pop one into their mouths as Steve Perry belts out, “Hold on to that feel-ay-eee-aying!” Meadow finally gets her head out of her ass and parks her car before dashing across the street – is she going to get hit by a bus? The bell over the door rings and Tony looks up expectantly.

And that’s it. Cut to black.

…Wait, that’s it? Okay, fine, this is how we’re to assume Tony will live out the rest of his days – constantly wondering if someone is out to get him, looking up every time a bell over a door jingles, worried that someone like Carlo (who apparently flipped this week after his son was picked up for selling ecstasy) is going to rat him out to the Feds, all while balancing his rather mundane family life. I get that. I appreciate it. But couldn’t we have been given more to sink our teeth into? Couldn’t something of significance – I mean, besides AJ’s car blowing up because of his catalytic converter, of course – happen tonight?

Instead, one of the few memories I’ll take from tonight’s episode is the way agent Harris put his neck on the line to help Tony out by giving him info on Phil’s whereabouts. The best part, of course, is when he finds out about Phil’s killing and excitedly says, “Damn, we’re going to win this thing!” Sweet.

But sadly, that’s one of the very few highlights. We didn’t even get any real resolution with Paulie’s storyline, which I suppose could mean that he never betrayed Tony. Then again, maybe that means he did betray him and, like Tony, we’re never going to know about it. Or maybe it doesn’t mean squat. What do I know? Oh, and Sil is still alive, but does he survive? Again, who the hell knows?

I wasn’t looking for Chase to put a pretty little bow on the series tonight. I wasn’t looking for The Shocker of the Century. I wasn’t even really looking for closure, as the women like to say. But I wanted something more than this. I wanted an ending befitting of one of the most entertaining shows in TV history. Instead, we got stray cats, The Donald and Steve Perry. Oh well; remember the times that were good, right?

There’s a part of me that doesn’t even want to blog about this episode. I don’t want to ruin it. I don’t want to overanalyze it. I don’t want to pick it apart. It was a brilliant 50-plus minutes of television, setting things up for what looks to be one helluva memorable finale next week, and that’s really all that needs to be said. The episode speaks for itself.

But what kind of blog would this be if we didn’t actually blog? So let’s start by saying: Here we go. Seems the bloody, shoot-em-up ending that so many viewers wanted has come to be. That early scene with Phil and his two cronies was one of the best scenes of the season, maybe the series. “The Sopranos are nothing more than a glorified crew,” Phil says, quoting Carmine. “We decapitate and do business with whatever’s left.” Seems Phil doesn’t think all that much of his NJ counterparts, or at least, that’s what I gathered when he called them a “Pigmy tribe.” He wants the top three guys gone: Sil, Bobby and, of course, Tony.

A couple of interesting notes here, the first coming from one of the guys from the NY group. Bobby is Tony’s #3. We’ve kinda known it for a while but, as the NY guy pointed out, Bobby used to be Junior’s driver. Then he marries Janice and a couple years later he’s T’s #3? That always seemed strange to me. Turns out they promote everybody, as Phil says, and Bobby’s a very large piece of evidence. But would Bobby be in that position if Chris had still been around? Probably not. Or, at least, you can bet Phil would’ve made Chris a priority over Bobby because he understood that Chris would’ve hurt T more. But Tony gives Chris a friendly push toward his dirt nap a few episodes ago and poor Bobby pays for it. In a hobby store buying an $8,000 train, no less.

Second, who’s missing from that hit list? Paulie. Actually, someone even asked if Paulie should go too, and Phil’s guy clarified that their only targeting management. Man, Paulie’s so pathetic he can’t even get someone to whack him. And now, T’s stuck with Paulie again, in hiding just like their trip to Florida a month or two ago. I said “poor Bobby” earlier, but I feel sorrier for Tony, having to hole up in that house with Paulie for who knows how long. (By the way, whose house is that? Junior’s? His mom’s? I feel like I should know…but I don’t.)

Now, I can’t gloss over perhaps the funniest moment of the entire episode, the reason T and Paulie are in hiding (with a couple other guys) and the reason Sil also got hit (more on that later): they killed the wrong guy. Tony catches wind of Phil’s plot against him (thanks agent Harris) and goes on the offensive, ordering a hit on Phil at his goumah’s house before he can hit them. Only they shoot the wrong guy – some Ukranian who looked a lot like Phil – and when Sil and Paulie see the paper the next day and realize that they fucked up, the look they exchange is absolutely priceless. Too bad that may be one of the last times we see Sil, after he and Patsy got ambushed in the Bing parking lot. He’s still alive (barely), but I want to know why he didn’t have his gun on him instead of stashing it in a bag in the backseat. If he’d been able to open fire immediately, he probably could’ve at least taken out one of the guys before going down himself. That would’ve been a much more appropriate end for Sil; he’s too great of a character to watch him (probably) die while scrambling for a gun and not even getting a shot off.

Clearly, Tony is having a bad week, especially in the middle of the AJ crisis. After running into a girl from school (I’m assuming) while in the hospital, AJ’s home and watching war coverage, probably not the thing to be doing while you’re trying to overcome depression. Tony wants to talk to Melfi about, among other things, the AJ situation, but she’s not having any of it, not after reading that article that says, also among other things, that therapy becomes just one more criminal operation for criminals. Melfi thinks Tony’s been manipulating her for seven years, and she ends their association this week. Ooh, bad timing. Man, I felt bad for Tony, watching him come to the realization that she was ending his therapy at maybe the precise moment that he needed it the most. Thing is, we all know Tony’s a genuine guy. His sessions with Melfi have been authentic, and Melfi probably knows it too, but she’s not taking any chances. With one episode left, I wonder if that was her curtain call.

So this is it. We were left tonight with an image of Tony, laying in a sheetless bed, fully clothed with his jacket on, falling asleep while staring at the door to his room, an assault rifle resting on his chest. It’s coming, and Tony’s ready for it. Carm’s with Meadow, Janice and Bobby’s kids in another house – who knows if AJ is going to show up after Tony tossed him out of bed and dumped all the clothes in his closet on his head? Chris, Bobby and Sil are gone. Tony’s locked down in a dumpy old house…with Paulie. And nobody knows where Phil is.

You couldn’t pay me to miss next week’s finale. (Well, unless you’re talking serious money.)

I was hoping for a barnburner tonight, the kind of episode where the blog would pretty much write itself, but instead a good 35-40 minutes were devoted to AJ, my least favorite character on the show (save for Livia, but she’s been gone a while now). Normally, he’s just a whiny, spoiled kid, but now that he’s doing some of that fancy book learnin’, he’s a whiny, spoiled, depressed kid. Tony’s reaction to AJ’s spiel about the virus spray on the meat underlined his own inner conflict about his son’s future. On one hand, he has always said he doesn’t want AJ to turn out like him, but when the kid tries to branch out, he threatens to put his head through the wall.

“Twenty years, he won’t crack a book. All of a sudden he’s the world’s foremost authority.”

Did anyone really think that AJ’s suicide attempt would be successful? Since we lost Chris last week, the odds were against another main character dying so quickly, and honestly, AJ hasn’t been able to follow through on anything. Once the cement block hit the pool floor, he freaked out, and it looked for a moment that he might somehow die accidentally at his own suicide attempt. Tony’s just-in-time arrival made for a very powerful scene. It’s obvious that he loves his kid, but at the same time AJ’s troubles are a giant pain in his ass, both at home and on the job.

How will the suicide attempt affect Tony’s work? It can only be seen as another sign of weakness (in what has become a pretty long line). Pauley’s take was priceless:

“Ask me, it’s all these toxins they’re exposed to. It fucks with their brains. Between the mercury in the fish alone it’s a wonder more kids aren’t jumping off bridges.”

“Between the mercury in the fish alone“? Fucking Pauley is fantastic.

Tony talks to Melfi about the suicide attempt and she suggests that it might have been a cry for help – that subconsciously he knew that the rope was too long to keep him submerged. Tony’s reply was classic:

“Or he could just be a fucking idiot. Historically, that’s been the case.”

Regardless, Tony understands that his cursed genes have a large part to do with AJ’s troubles, so he’s empathetic to a certain point, but that doesn’t stop him from getting into it with Carmella once AJ is committed. Is it just me or does it seem like their marriage is once again holding on by a thread? I had to laugh when Tony gave her a watch (out of guilt?) after he took care of Chris’ “business affairs” in Las Vegas. Business, Carm? You sure are a trusting soul. (Or more likely, you’d simply prefer not to think about it.)

Later, in therapy, Tony starts talking about how mothers are buses and all we want to do as children is get back on the bus, but it can never happen. After Melfi says that the theory is insightful, Tony quips, “Jesus, don’t act so surprised.” It’s clear that Tony wants Carmella to accept some of the blame for how his son turned out, and this might be his way of disowning the kid. When Melfi asks if he’s ashamed of AJ, Tony replies, “Yeah, I am. Coward’s way out, right?”

Aside from this week’s depressing depression, the brewing conflict between Tony and Phil finally kicked into high gear. Once Phil rejected Tony’s asbestos-related offer, it led to T pulling a couple of jobs that were designated for Phil’s men and then to that idiot Coco accosting Meadow while she was having dessert in Little Italy. It was funny to watch Tony try to calm his daughter and wife down when you just knew that underneath the surface his blood was boiling and that Coco was about to get one serious beatdown. I wasn’t expecting Tony to go all “American History X” in the restaurant, but it was even more surprising that Coco survived the attack.

It’s clear now that Carmine’s failed peace accord will lead to further escalation, though I think his line to T – “you’re at the precipice of an enormous crossroad” – had more than one meaning. It was strange to hear Phil spouting his obscenities from the safety of his ivory tower. It’s doubtful that he’d be so bold if he were standing face to face with Tony, but even so, you could see from the look in T’s eyes that there is no going back.

With just two episodes left, there are still a number of unanswered questions: Will Tony once again hear from the two suspected terrorists? Will AJ’s stint in the hospital do anything for his outlook on life? Will Tony continue on his existential journey and finally find happiness? Will his marriage survive? And most importantly, will he survive the coming war with Phil?

Game on.

Well…I guess Chris wound up flipping after all.

Okay, I know – bad taste. But come on, how else would I lead this blog entry off? There have been plenty of shocking moments in TV history, but I was utterly speechless for a good five minutes tonight after Tony suffocated Chris following their car accident. The buildup surrounding Chris’ character in general and his relationship with Tony in particular had been going on for years, and it accelerated the past few episodes, so to see it all end like that was…to be honest…a little disappointing. Sure, it’s one of the biggest moments in the show’s history, but with everything that had been going on – the tension between T and Chris, the possibility that Chris was going to talk to the feds, Carmella suspecting Chris of killing Adrianna, and the ongoing feud between Chris and Paulie – this was just about the most anticlimactic way to wrap up his arc. I thought somehow, some way, that Chris was going to be right in the middle of whatever went down in the final moments of the series, but that’s obviously not the case now. Bummer.

At first, I couldn’t tell why Tony killed Chris…or helped him die, if you prefer to look at it that way. Did he think he was doing Chris a favor since he was high and would therefore lose his license? Well, I suppose it’d be better to be alive and without wheels than six feet under, so probably not. Did he think Chris was a goner anyway? He sure was messed up, coughing up blood and barely able to keep his eyes open, so that may very well have had something to do with it. But the overriding factor, we later learned, was that Tony just wanted Chris dead. And this way he didn’t even have to do the dirty work. Hell, he didn’t even need to plan anything or set it all up; just hold the guy’s nose for a few seconds and let him choke on his own blood. Problem solved.

I was more than a little surprised by how open Tony was with Melfi in his first visit, especially when he admitted to murdering friends before. Then, of course, Tony woke up from his dream and, for a split second, I wondered if the whole damn thing was a dream – was Chris really dead? Turned out Tony only dreamed the session with Melfi, a dream that ended with this realization: “Every morning I wake up thinking, is today the day that one of my ‘best friends’ is going to dime me to the FBI? And a weak fucking sniveling, lying drug addict? That’s the worst kind of bet. The biggest blunder of my career is gone, and I don’t have to be confronted by that fact no more.”

Wow, tell us how you really feel, Tony.

He wasn’t as forthright with Melfi in his actual visit later in the episode, but he did repeat the “weak drug addict” line while saying he had to basically fake being upset about Chris’ death when, in reality, he felt relieved. I guess I can understand Tony’s stance to a point, but the one thing that doesn’t quite jive with me is how, just a couple of episodes ago, Tony broke down in Melfi’s office because he thought Chris hated him. He told her how Chris was more like a son and how he felt like he let him down. And now that he’s dead, Tony’s not upset at all?

Apparently not, or at least, if he was it wasn’t anything that a solo trip to Vegas couldn’t cure. Dude…that ex-girlfriend of Chris’ that Tony hooked up with was gorgeous. She winds up hooking T up with some peyote (he’d apparently always wanted to try it) and after puking initially, T and his new friend head down to the casino – high as two kites – where Tony wins an ungodly amount of money on the roulette wheel in the matter of seconds. “He’s dead,” Tony says, staring at the pile of chips in front of him with a goofy grin on his face before falling to the floor in a fit of laughter. Later, as Tony and the girl watch the sun rise over a mountain in the desert, Tony stands up and shouts, “I did it!” (UPDATE: Upon review, it would seem Tony said “I get it!” More discussion below….)

So what did he do? Maybe he was just jacked up about finally trying peyote for the first time? Nah. Apparently he thinks that Chris was the cause of his recent stretch of bad luck, so maybe he was announcing to the world that he changed his luck? If that’s the case, we’re probably about to see Tony, armed with a new sense of unflappable confidence, go on a rampage back home and start cleaning house, beginning with Phil. Then again, Tony thinking his problems died along with Chris could be bad news, if he assumes he’s bulletproof now.

I’m running long so I’ll quickly touch on two other notes, the first being the death of Paulie’s mom (or his aunt, whatever). I asked last week if anybody had a funnier pissed-off face than Paulie, and this week he convinced me that the answer is an emphatic ‘no.’ When he was sitting at his mom’s wake angry because nobody showed up, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I wonder if Tony Sirico has to practice that look in front of a mirror everyday. With Chris gone, I think Paulie becomes an even bigger player in these final episodes. The other story this week was AJ’s ongoing battle with depression. He’s gotten close with the guys from school and is now enrolled in some classes, but when his buddies beat up on a Somalian kid (and dropped the N-word), AJ broke down in therapy again. I’m sure this will be fleshed out more in the final three episodes, so I’ll leave it be for now.

One final note: we saw the return of Juliana Skiff tonight. Looking fine, as always. But she may have delivered the best line of the episode, after Carm asked how she knew Chris: “I used to buy my meat at Satriale’s.” The looks on Tony’s and Carm’s faces were classic.

AJ’s not taking the breakup well. Okay, so that’s an understatement. It was interesting watching Tony try to talk to AJ about what he was going through, especially when his advice is to get a blowjob and go to a party at a strip club. I mean, how funny is it that Tony forced his 20-year-old kid to go to a strip club? “I’m not debating this with you.” Okay, fine, if you insist, Pop. Tony did throw some decent advice in there, though, something along the lines of the old “there are other fish in the sea” pep talk. AJ wasn’t biting, not until his new therapist put him on anti-depressants, anyway. Once that happened, well, life is apparently all good again. AJ’s going to parties, boozing it up with a bunch of frat buddies, and helping said frat buddies pour sulfuric acid on a welcher’s foot.

That’s the ironic thing in all of this: so AJ had his heart broken. Fine. It happens. Granted, if your kid starts talking about killing himself, you’ve got to get him some help. But while Tony’s heart was definitely in the right place, pushing him to hang out with some of his guys’ kids was clearly the wrong choice. He’s talked before about how he doesn’t want AJ to follow in his footsteps and get involved in the kinds of things he’s doing, but that’s exactly what seems to be happening. AJ got a kick out of the way that kid reacted when he learned that he was Tony Soprano Jr., and he was wired when he got home after the sulfuric acid incident. There’s clearly something there that he’s drawn to, and while Tony may think that depression is in his blood (“My rotten fucking genes have infected my kid’s soul,” he tells Melfi), it’s clear that emotional problems aren’t the only thing AJ’s inherited from dear old Dad.

And right about now it’s time to admit that I was wrong about Chris: he hasn’t already flipped. In my defense, that was just one of my theories, but it became clear tonight that he’s still siding with the good guys…whoops, make that the bad guys, I guess. Anyway, it also became clear tonight that it’s a very real possibility that Chris will flip at some point. Hell, he was kicking around that very idea tonight with his AA buddy J.T., right after he nearly spilled the beans about Adrianna and Ralph Cifaretto. J.T. knew he was in trouble when Chris started talking about that stuff, and he tried like hell to get him to shut up and leave. Chris finally agreed to go home, but not before shooting J.T. in the head. Damn, didn’t see that one coming. I kept expecting something to happen, but for some reason I wasn’t expecting that. Chris grabbed the doorknob with his hand in his sleeve when he left, but it won’t take too much digging for the feds to figure out who may have been involved with this, considering everyone knows J.T. wrote the screenplay for Chris’ movie. Is this going to be the heat that’ll turn Chris against Tony? At this point, it’s clear it wouldn’t take much pushing to get Chris to turn, considering how much bad blood there is these days between him and Tony.

Sorry to jump backwards (that’s what happens when you write without thinking), but is this tension between Chris and Paulie finally going to come to a head? Those two have been at each other’s throats for years, and I thought for sure there was going to be some fireworks tonight. We came close, but aside from Chris tossing Paulie’s nephew out of a window for robbing his father-in-law and Paulie then turfing the shit out of Chris’ front yard (which was hilarious, by the way – does anybody have a funnier pissed-off face than Paulie Walnuts?), it all blew over. Chris decides to have a drink with Paulie in a show of good faith, and that’s when the trouble began. Paulie started busting his balls again, made some pretty low cracks about his daughter, and Chris, who already felt disconnected from the group because he doesn’t hang out and drink with them anymore, didn’t appreciate everyone laughing at him so he bailed. But, damn – I was expecting more there. In fact, I kept waiting for Chris to smash his rock glass into Paulie’s face. Instead he killed his AA buddy.

Finally, how uncomfortable do you think Tony was giving agent Harris that information? Sure, it had nothing to do with him and he was doing it mainly because he hoped cooperating with them on the terrorism stuff would pay off down the road should he ever be convicted of any crime…but still. It’s the feds, T! They’re the bad guys. Okay, the good guys, whatever.