You cant’ only look at one show, you have to look at the past two seasons to see what it was all leading up to, and in that regard it was satisfying and also incredibly cynical.

As always, the Italians are dying out – the tour bus guide tells us – and swarms of Chinese are taking over the world.

Tony can’t do anything about that. All he can do is worry about his family.

We were led to believe that Tony’s getting shot last season was the event that gave him a “new lease on life,” but it wasn’t – it really was being holed up in a safe house with a machine gun propped over his gut that got him thinking. So last night’s episode, while rather slow and short on the pyrotechnics, was about protecting his family and wrapping up loose ends. Because he had a 90% chance of being indicted, and probably going to prison.

He He got some money for Bobby’s kids out of Junior, and gave him a shred of dignity to live on by reminding him of the glory days. He shared some real feelings about his mother in front of Carmella (with some random shrink and Melfi substitute – OK, a little too convenient). He rubbed out Phil (with the help of Agent Harris – that was the one scene that took me for a loop: where did that desk-pounding celebration come from?)

And the show let us know that things would be OK in Tony’s absence: He made sure AJ would give up his dream of saving the world, and channeled his energy into working on shlocky movies. Meadow would earn triple figures defending low-lifes, and she won’t get pregnant any time soon. She is free to bang up cars while parallel parking all she wants. And Carmela can continue selling over-priced vacation condos to rich people. In the end, we see that protecting your family means aspiring to be nothing less than a normal, Bush-era, self indulgent American family. As viewers we’re implicated in rooting for this to happen, for them to be participating in a society that is even more warmongering and materialistic than when the series began. Boy, I don't feel so good.

Oh, and the guy in the diner went to take a leak.

Selecting Rudy as their candidate would be the biggest gift that the GOP could give to the Democrats. I'm just hoping he doesn't self-destruct before then. I'm even thinking of contributing to his campaign. His antics are well known in NYC, but the rest of the country doesn't know about his cross dressing and other colorful behavior. If he's the candidate the opposition will have a field day. And the conservative base will not vote - they'll stay home.

I moved from Montreal to the sprawling suburbs of Washington DC in 1980, and I joke with a friend who came from Russia that same year that we share immigration stories. His is a replica of Bezmozgis or Shteyngart, a Russian Jew plunked down in the vacuous North American suburbs. But I felt just as alien, coming from Montreal into Reaganite America.

I remember the Montreal of my youth as smaller. Everyone knew everybody else, and they all lived in the same neighborhood, which in my case meant Jewish Cote St-Luc. I didn't even know a French speaker, nor do I remember visiting Quebec City or Toronto. It was insular, yes, but there was a closeness to the our community that we could never replicate in America. Friends and relatives would think nothing of showing up at my parents' door at 10 at night for a glass of wine and some gossip. My mother, a native New Yorker, loved the worldliness and culture of Montreal. She and my father were active in Montreal's still excellent Yiddish theater.

I took the bus to school alone starting in second grade on. We went to the Olympics in that hot, hot summer of 1976. And of course, we consumed much smoked meat.

Of course, I am leaving out the grim realities of Montreal in the Seventies. For me, French was something you learned in nursery school. It was watching "Different Strokes" and hearing Arnold say, "Qu'est -ce que tu dis, Willis?" I was not so aware back then of the rising Quebecois nationalism that splintered Montreal's unique polyglot society.

But is the Montreal of my childhood still even the Montreal of today? Living under George Bush, in an ever more yuppified New York, I think fondly back to my childhood in Montreal, even consider moving back with my own family. But I fear that my memories of Montreal -- stirred up once again by this article -- are simply that, memories.