I was sort of a late-comer to The Sopranos; I didn’t really start watching until the second season. I couldn’t really see how yet another movie or series about the mob could possibly breathe new air into this long-since decapitated horse’s mouth. Oooo fancy suits, naked women and manicotti-stuffed men getting capped in the ass. How new.

I can still remember my first episode, when Janice killed Richie Aprile, unraveling the themes of family and Family. Then I understood the magic of The Sopranos - it worked at the sore joints of mobster cliches making them work and introduced the undercurrents of patriarchy, power, violence, privilege and mothers, in new and even daringly comical ways. You didn’t have to be Italian to relate to these characters. Only now we saw all these in a new light, with new, much more dramatic consequences. And it was funny. Christopher’s intervention in Season 4 (my favorite season, actually) or Paulie Walnuts saying, “He jumped out of the tree and then came at me with the chainsaw!”.

I both agree and disagree—with fervor—with aspects of what John Busco and Alex Simon wrote this week. But I can’t help loving the read. I’m sure you will, too. And that’s part of the initial draw of The Sopranos—like it or not, it does its thing (or did, depending on your take) with verve.

After years of watching this quintessential Jersey series, it is now, finally, coming to an end. For some of us, the finale is bitter sweet closure, while others can’t wait to piss on its grave. So, as a tribute, GoOutJersey’s Take The Cannoli Column will appear on Fridays, giving just enough time to have had a thousand debates over last Sunday’s episode as we gear up for the next and eventually last one.

But enough from me. Read John Busco’s charged rant, A Nail In The Coffin and Alex Simon’s more hopeful farewell, Just A Little More Sopranos, Please.

And then tell us —are you glad to see it go, or wishing it would last forever?

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I approached this last mini-season of The Sopranos with some trepidation, I must admit. The sixth season (of which this mini-season is technically an extension), disappointed me to no end (which John Busco would agree with). I even found myself changing the channel during the finale; I was that certain that I wouldn’t see anything worthy of holding onto during the seemingly endless wait between seasons that Sopranos fans have learned to endure. As the press buzz regarding the show’s end gained momentum, I remained steadfast in my ambivalence. I declared to friends and family alike that I would no longer be an “appointment viewer” of the show. Nevertheless, as 9pm on Sunday rolled around, I felt compelled to take a peek.

What I found was what had drawn me to the show as a college student in the first place. It was not perfect television, and yes, a soap opera about a mafia family is not the most contemporary forum for modern day angst, but it was still better and more intelligently written and directed than almost anything else out there. Over the years, the show has suffered greatly from the writer’s belief in their own hype, and from momentum lost by the outrageously long layovers between seasons. And while it will never regain the glory of seasons 1-3, The Sopranos, even in it’s dark days, had a unique and fascinating take on relationships, family, violence and power.

So it was, with all of this in mind, that I was pleasantly surprised by the first episode of this last go-round. The show, which centered around Tony and Carmela’s celebration of his 47th birthday at the summer house of in-laws Bobby and Janice, was a return to what connected it to the audience in the first place. The pain and sensitivity of family and relationships, in this case the blistering sibling rivalry and resentment between Tony and Janice, spilled over into a fistfight of all things, between Bobby and Tony, the man to whom Bobby swears his allegiance, and to whose wrath he fears above all else.

As the events at the lake house unfolded, we were filled with dread. The themes of the show: family pain, loyalty, and Tony’s coming to grips with his age and physical limitations, are ones that don’t need the backdrop of organized crime to resonate with people. That’s what extended the show’s reach far beyond hard core mob movie fans and pushed The Sopranos to its legendary status.

So while I’m not yet ready to fully jump back on the bandwagon, I was happy that I was able to watch an episode that reminded me why I began watching The Sopranos so many years ago. And now I’m actually excited for the final eight episodes.

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I am Italian American, and I love The Sopranos. And I’m not talking about the show, which pretty much lost a special place in my heart the day I realized they bring in these new, somewhat redeeming, and likeable characters (Richie Aprile, Jackie Jr., Tony Blundetto, Ralph Cifaretto) just to kill them off, leaving their original cast intact.

No, I love the idea of The Sopranos. While Italian-American groups rant and rave about the damage the Jersey mobsters do to our reputation, they ignore some of the more glaring mockeries of our people. For instance, the hit TV show, Everybody Loves Raymond, featured a dysfunctional family with a nagging Italian mother, a buffoonish brother, and a sex-crazed husband who left much to be desired on the domestic side of things. To make matters worse, the only principal character of actual Italian descent was Ray Romano. The rest of the cast—down to his supposedly 100% blonde Italian kids—were played by non-Italian actors. So, held up against The Sopranos—which, at the very least, makes an effort to cast Italian Americans in roles that may poke fun at Italians—Everybody Loves Raymond seems to have dodged plenty of figurative bullets in its TV run.

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