The beginning of the end

As I was remarking to my old man yesterday, I was in high school when The Sopranos began, and I've been out of college for a few years now. That's a long-ass time, especially if you're not that old. I can hardly think of anything else I do on a regular basis these days that I did eight years ago. (Except, you know...)

So it's gonna be tough letting go of The Sopranos once the last nine episodes are over with. I know it's become de rigeur, especially in hip-hop circles, to suggest that The Wire is a better series because it deals with real issues (where as The Sopranos deals with life one Mars, apparently), but - as much as I like The Wire - nothing compares to The Sopranos, as far as I'm concerned.

The thing about this last mini season is that we know it's not gonna end well for Tony. In that sense, I can't help but be reminded of the last season of Six Feet Under a couple of years ago, when it was said that everyone on the series would die before the season was over, and you wondered how the hell that would happen. In this case, the main mystery is whether Tony will get locked up on the Feds' RICO case against him or if he'll be whacked by Jonny Sack's crew over that whole Vito thing first.

Or, who knows? Maybe both of those threads are red herrings. What do you d-bags think? Also, is this entire season already up on bittorrent like the last few seasons of HBO series have been?