The first and last time I watched Chris Matthews' show "Hardline" was on the evening of the day of the Columbine massacre. Matthews began his show by blaming Columbine on Hillary Clinton, because of some paper he claimed she had written on grad school.

These days, it's not enough for a media whore to lie. Now they have to be the first to spread a lie, and their lies have to be more outrageous than everybody else's lies.

The winner of the republican presidential nomination, and the Presidency, will be the man who can go to Bob Jones University and pronounce, with a straight face, and without tossing his cookies, that there are "two sides" to the "question" of whether the earth is round or flat. I'm serious. Prominent republicans are pushing hard to make this an issue. And there's really no debate in their minds.

There is no bottom for the republicans, folks. They passed reproductive rights, civil rights, human rights, evolution, and the laws of physics a long time ago.

I've no doubt that America's Ex-Mayor has the stomach for the descent. Hell, if he'd been on the 100th floor of Tower One on 9/11, he'd have jumped at the first whiff of smoke. What's a lapsed Catholic with two failed marriages and no prostate got left to lose? His dignity? Gimme a break!

Rudy can't jump off of the WTC because it's not there anymore. So he's doing the most self-destructive thing he can: run for president. He's a sick fuck. It's just his bad luck that he lives in a time when he's not sick enough to get elected President of the United States.

I've seen every single episode and to me, the scariest, creepiest scene in the series was last night when A.J. was talking to his new shrink, who sat and stared at A.J. in uninvolved silence.

Melfi has always reacted to Tony's most profound pronouncements in exactly the same way, and for some reason, that has always scared the living shit out of me. Not to read too much into it, but it comes very close to stating that the cruelest form of violence is silence in the face of suffering.

My other theory about "The Sopranos" is that every episode is pretty much self-contained, so that it's impossible to make meaningful predictions about future plot developments based on past episodes. Just a theory, mind you.

Chrissy shot T.J. out of frustration--he was frustrated that he couldn't shoot Paulie. He was also frustrated with his AA "program," and T.J. has always been the living imbodiment of AA to Christopher. When Chris killed T.J., he killed his AA program.

I wasn't too surprised about the shooting, actually. When T.J. opened his apartment door to Christopher, I thought, "Oh, no. Not again!" Or, as they say in AA, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result each time."

Or something like that.

Now that Christopher and T.J. are dead, what's to become of "Cleaver?"

Janice and Tony are standing by Tony's pool. Janice mentions that Uncle Junior is broke, and will have to live in a state facility, unless "somebody" steps up to foot the bill.

T and J engage in their usual bickering, then Tony says, " . . . and as for your husband, 'Exile on Mainstreet' . . . "

Janice seems to understand the reference, but I can't figure it out. I know that "Exile On Mainstreet" is the title of a Rolling Stones album, but how does that apply to Bobby?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The last episode will begin with Silvio's wake, viewing, whatever they call that.

The next 30 minutes will be classic suspense: Tony chases down Phil, has a short philosophical chat with him, then blows him away.

The rest of the episode will NOT be a furiously-paced tying up of loose ends. Tony, Carm, A.J. and Meadow will just come together and affirm that they are all dependent upon each other. By the end, we will know that their lives are going to go on just as they always have. The Sopranos are immortal. That's what David Chase has been trying to tell us since Episode One.

I predicted that the Soprano family would be together in the last scene of the last episode. No force on earth could separate those four people. That's point #1.

Point #2 is that the Family Soprano, by going to a truckstop diner, instead of an Italian restaurant, were out of their element. Chase does this to demonstrate that (Point #3) a good director can make drama and suspense out of anything: Italians eating onion rings, Meadow having trouble parallel parking, strange men staring at Tony, whatever.

Chase's final (#4) point is that he could keep spinning this yarn forever, and it would always been brilliant, but it's HIS yarn, HIS franchise, and when he says it's over, it's over.