That late-night dinner scene, where Tony and A.J. come in together after AJ tortured the poor college guy, and they all sit down to some of Carm's cooking and needle Meadow about her date, was a sick echo of the scene that ended the first half of the season -- everybody in the Soprano family home for Christmas, toasting the good life. I don't think there's any doubt AJ enjoyed torturing the guy, and yes, Tony gets points with Carm for being right that going out to the Bing and dancing with strippers was good for their poor lost son -- you can see it in their eyes, the kind of goofball affectionate parental glance you might see in a family sitcom like "Grounded for Life." Yes, Tony got AJ "off the couch" all right -- like he's been trying to get "off the couch" with Dr. Melfi. Heather's right, that line about his "putrid" genes really was his most naked self-hatred yet, and that can only lead to much more violence and lashing out.

This episode was unrelenting; there will be no enlightenment and no relief. Last episode at least we got that glimmer of good Tony when he was tender to Vito's angry Goth spawn (especially as compared with Phil's asshole act with the kid). This week Tender Tony is gone, Christopher won't be forgiven and I am beginning to think he'll turn. But Chase is a better story-teller than I am so I'm going to just settle in for the big finale and (mostly) stop trying to guess how it ends. I no longer think it's possible Tony will just go down in unrelenting middle-aged angst and despair, as seemed possible in the first two episodes.

Thanks, ConnieL. Sonofabastard, I agree with you tonight. Just posted. Awful.

I did write that sentence clumsily -- I was talking about Bush's handling-the-war approval rating, which is in the mid-20s, while his overall approval rating is in the mid-30s. That's not good, but it's not the 20s.

tiberius, I appreciate your continuing to read and contribute. I really do. But even you don't want to compare Tenet's silence about the war to the random mistakes of most of us -- do you?

pvslayer, I have thought about the "Hillary" v. "Clinton" question a lot, and because she is using "Hillary" in all her self promotion, I think it's fine in most contexts. But yes, every once in a while it just feels condescending.

Tester was another one of Matthews's manly man-crushes, but I liked that moment, too.

However: He was awful in much of the post-debate spin, especially when it came to his beloved gender issues, praising Hillary's pearls and declaring Michele Obama hot. Unreal. But on the other hand, he was also the only one who got the complexity of answering the question about an al-Qaida attack (he handled it better than I did, in fact): That there is no country called al-Qaida, so striking back isn't a simple thing.

Talk about hearing what you want to hear; I heard him talking about what he'd want for his daughters and then I must have filled in the rest of his statement the way I wanted it to sound. I have to say, live-blogging is harder than it looks. I regret the error and will change it now.

Me too, jnfr. Although that terror attack question was a little shrill, like the Kitty Dukakis rape question in '88...and imho, the Democrats unfortunately handled it similarly.

Oh, come on RealName, tell us what you really think!

No, I know all that, and still find him oddly compelling. But I will try to get over it.

Thanks, comet24! I have had the same feeling (that I slept through 2007) but I'm choosing to enjoy it, for now. But you've got a great field in Seattle, too. I went to the Kingdome a few times -- what great memories, what an awful place for baseball!

Re: writers participating in letters. It makes total sense in personal blogs, and most of us do. It's something I encourage, but don't require at Salon. Some of us are more shy than others. I'm not kidding.

And yes: Beat LA!

What a dumb mistake. Thanks, I'll fix it.

Christopher1988, I completely disagree. There's a huge gulf between saying tougher gun control would have saved lives at Virginia Tech, and saying conservatives or conservatism are to blame. Just to start: One is about a policy; the other is about a set of people, and it's meant to demonize not foster debate.

You know, michael sullivan, thank you, because you reminded me I don't have this blogging thing -- or blogging tone, more to the point -- down very well. I spent my day working as Salon editor, on our Virginia Tech coverage as well as early Gonzales coverage and several other things we have going on. That's what I was trying to say in the introduction to this post. In my haste, I may have been tone-deaf with that first sentence, even as I called it a tragedy. I apologize it I offended anyone beyond mr. sullivan.

My JetBlue flight from Oakland to NY was delayed 8 hours on Sunday, and the only balm was watching most of the Dodgers-Padres game on ESPN. King's right: that's the way to do history, wrapped up in something a lot of other people who don't know they care about history will be watching for other reasons. It was seamless, they worked the play by play into the interviews, and you also got a glimpse of these everyday heroes enjoying remembering Jackie Robinson but also enjoying being part of the game. I loved the Oakland banter between those Oakland natives, the "intellectual" Joe Morgan and "athletic" Frank Robinson. I hope they figure out other things to do it around.