By FIONA RAE
Okay, so Tony is now head of the borgata since Junior was indicted, but Richie Aprile had been trying to usurp him and enlist the other capos.
Tony gave the order to pop Richie, but when Richie hit Janice during an argument, she did the job.
Carmela is getting pretty sick of Tony having a goomah and nearly ended up in a clinch with the wallpaperer. Tony broke it off with Irina but it cost him 75 large.
Christopher was shot by his two cugines and had a near-death experience: an Irish bar where it's St Patrick's Day all the time and his father gets whacked every day.
Dr Melfi changed her mind and agreed to see Tony again, but she's become obsessed, is seeing a shrink herself, and is drinking between sessions.
Tony's still having the occasional blackout.
Those are the extremely edited highlights of season two of The Sopranos, okay? And as we head into the final episode, or finale as the Americans call them, things are looking a little better for Tony.
Richie is conveniently out of the way, Janice is on a bus to Seattle and Junior's no longer a threat.
But did I forget to mention that Pussy's been ratting to the Feds? No rest for the wicked.
I'd been worried that the second season couldn't possibly be as good as the first. With his anxiety attacks, Prozac prescription, mother troubles and family stresses, James Gandolfini's melancholy mob man Tony Soprano had become symbolic of a deep-seated American discontent.
But I needn't have worried. The season has been just as good as the first. Certainly, for HBO in the US it's been a winner - this episode drew record numbers for the cable channel, and it has ordered a full 26 episodes for seasons three and four from producer David Chase.
Which is making me nervous again. Another 26 episodes of what has become a contemporary American classic. Can they do it?
With the second season, we're now well past the dirty words and do-we-need-another-mob-drama thing. Other networks that immediately started producing their own Mafia series really missed the point.
While The West Wing debates the issues - recently we had the school voucher system and reparation for African-Americans, both hot topics in the US - The Sopranos, through its characters, examines facets of American life that are barely touched by anything else, save The Simpsons.
The highlight of season two so far has been Commendatori, an episode in which Tony, Paulie and Christopher went to Naples to discuss the family's luxury-car "export business."
They were a group of Italian-Americans clinging to an arcane set of rules, struggling to connect in the country they thought of as home.
Christopher spent three days in his hotel room on heroin. Paulie's attempts to connect with the natives of Naples were an abject failure ("Are you from Nato?" one asked. "You destroyed our cable car.") And Tony struggled with doing business with the female boss of the clan.
The episode was beautifully filmed, the acting faultless.
In fact, The Sopranos has been like a movie every week -or perhaps television at its full potential.
*The Sopranos TV2, 9.30 pm
TV: The mob still rules, okay?
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