Sopranos Ends: The Sopranos wrapped up a fine season. Like everyone else, I got a little sick of the Vito-is-gay-and-will-be-whacked storyline, but it did serve as a good springboard for the upcoming battle with Phil "the Shah of Iran" Leotardo.

Also, it was a counter example of my favorite aspect of this season, watching the characters come to terms with their own personal limitations. Some did it in a small way: Silvio came to see that he was not cut out to be the boss; Paulie came to terms with his Mom's "betrayal"; Meadow disappeared to the West Coast, perhaps coming to terms with separating from her family.

Others had larger epiphanies: Carmela now accepts Tony's philandering and, in one of the most telling scenes in the series, the tacit complicity of her children in Tony's life, provided she can sufficiently distract herself with her real estate project; Christopher seems to have closed the book on his movie career -- finding himself no match for Ben Kingsley -- he may also be accepting that drugs are part of his life that needs to be controlled not avoided; and biggest of all, A.J. now sees that he is not player on the social scene, nor a street tough wiseguy like his Dad -- he may end up as a decent working class guy, taking compromised victories wherever he can.

Vito, on the other hand, could not be a good citizen in a gay friendly New England town, so he tried to return to the homophobic mob. Accept thyself or be whacked. That seems to be the moral of the story.

And all this soul-searching has its roots in Tony's near-death experience. Oddly though, Tony seemed to get nothing out of it except to appreciate every day of life. Banal. But then, I think Tony had already achieved self-acceptance. Perhaps he is advancing from acceptance to appreciation. I really hope not. He is, after all, a vicious, violent criminal who deserves to suffer.

Nicely done. I'm looking forward to the final eight episodes come January.