Now Salon has room for more gay dwarf stories. How about a permanent Matt Sanchez column?

At least The Fix took the piss out of gossip.

Take a cue from Keith Olbermann, Ms. Walsh. When the news is so relentlessly bleak, it helps to take a breath and lighten up.

Joan Walsh doesn't care about blithe people.

"...excited about his imminent freedom, the soldier drove back to his house, where he found an Army official waiting on his driveway with orders for him to return for a third tour."

If only Army officials would pursue Osama bin Laden this vigorously.

Add me to your list of admirers, Mr Greenwald. On the basis of this piece you've now become my homepage.

Interesting that with last night's episode seared into our minds, the day after there are already wildly divergent opinions about Tony's state of mind -- a tribute to the complexity of the writing and the Gandolfini's acting.

I fall somewhere in between DOCTORRICK and Glen Keenan. I agree with Glen that Tony's collapse on the floor of the casino seemed more like a hideously gleeful ROTFLMFAO moment than any cathartic paroxysm of grief. I felt sure that Tony was deluding himself into rationalizing that finally a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders and his luck had miraculously changed. Gandolfini's performance is so deeply layered that many things can be read into his expressions, but this sense of Tony trying to convince himself that by killing Christopher he was ridding himself of a burden was the overriding message I got last night.

So in this sense I think your interpretation is right on target, Glen Keenan.

However, I think the same self-delusional reasoning pervaded the entire episode, up to an including the final sunset moment. Tony staring at the sun, and he perceives a hallucinatory flash -- almost like a cosmic wink. Tony saw this as a sign from the universe (remember he already compared the roulette wheel to the solar system) and the wink of the setting sun was like a mystic conspiratorial nudge to him. Like, "yeah, I have godlike powers and even the Sun can see that, acknowledging and justifying my behavior with a wink."

So there was no question in my mind that Tony yelled, "I get it." No way in hell did he say, "I did it." Tony can't even admit to himself what a monster he is, so why would he have any confessional epiphany now?

One of the striking things about The Sopranos from the beginning has been the presence of Dr. Melfi and the persistent reminder that this man is seriously unbalanced. What we're seeing in these final episodes is Tony Soprano's ultimate unhinging, as he slips deeper into sociopathic madness.

Chills me to the bone. Do not give Tony an ounce of credit for any grief or remorse. He's incapable.

Heather, I clicked on Salon this morning hoping you'd already have your thoughts to share, and your column never ever disappoints. I'm not trying argue with your analysis of roulette table scene, but only explaining how I see the episode as much, much darker and scarier. That wasn't a sobbing grief-stricken man on the floor. That was a raging maniac unravelling.

Another brilliant little touch, when Tony and his stripper friend went wandering through the casino in their peyote daze, mesmerized by the lights -- there's a quick close-up shot of a detail of one of the slot machines. A lurid red grinning face of the Devil. As someone who's had a little experience with hallucinogenics, that's the sort of thing that might cause a normal person to veer off immediately into Bad Trip Land. But when Tony sees that face of Satan smiling he almost seems comforted and reassured. That's some seriously creepy shit dude!

These past few episodes have all kinds of directorial flourishes like this, elevating the style of the series to cinematic levels of assured technique. I'm loving the slow-motion sequences before impending disaster, and just before Tony puked his guts out last night, the camera rushed toward him in a frenzied zoom as if a swat team had just busted in. There's palpable tension in every shot, something rarely seen these days that hearkens back to Hitchcock.

I'm also loving these letters. It's like watching the last few episodes with some of the smartest and most perceptive people in the country. What a pleasure.

I can't wait for Heather's reevaluation of the casino scenes. Props to her for getting this topic warmed up so quickly, first thing Monday morning. Salon is richer for the presence of writer's like Heather and Stephanie. (Camille? meh, not so much.)

good call, ResNovae. Can't believe you beat me to that Devil reference by 6 friggen minutes. I was typing while you were hitting the "publish" button. Touché!

"Leaving all questions of racial politics aside...doesn't anyone else think that it's weird Angelina Jolie is playing Mariane Pearl? Am I crazy? Or at the very least, isn't anyone else curious if Halle Berry's agent knows about this?"

Yes, you're crazy. Angelina Jolie may be white but her looks transcend race. She barely looks human. Ben Kingsley won an Oscar playing Gandhi. It's called "acting."