Did anyone note the website AJ was looking at when Meadow accused him of watching porn? Is this a red herring, or will the "Arabians" and AJ plotlines converge in some ironic and tragic way?

Just a thought.

Unless that pile of chips in Vegas represented a lot more than we realized, Tony doesn't have the resources to withstand Leotardo's hostility or indulge his own temper. This is illustrated, among other examples, by his inability to cushion things for his partners on the building reconstructions/teardowns. So that means that his weakness is filtering down. There's a limited tolerance for weakness in this larger family, no?

My guess is that we're soon going to see how bad Tony's hand really is, and his own family is going to have to make a change, in order to preserve itself. Perhaps assisted by Carmine's brokerage skills and knowledge gleaned from How to Clean Practically Anything.

Is he disfigured or something? They arrange a meeting with Phil, then when they arrive in person, the meeting's been mysteriously called off, and Phil himself doesn't come to the door--he's upstairs. Then they have a yelling match with Phil, but Phil is nothing but a disembodied voice coming out of a second-story window. What's up with that?

I have been thinking about that whole asbestos subplot, and its introduction this late in the game. My instincts tell me it's a pointer to something - is this how the feds will finally send Tony up? Or is it yet another of the show's red herrings?

Somehow, I'm pretty sure Tony gets busted, convicted, and sent to prison. I've felt that way since before they expanded the "mini-season" we're wrapping up now.

I'm surprised no one else has theorized that the garbage pile is symbolic of Tony's crumbling business interests. Esp. last week, while T was out in Vegas, the asbestos was piling up everywhere. Even the first shot of this weeks episode was of a fresh steaming pile of unfinished business.

I still don't see Tony being hauled off to prison or even killed. I'm not sure I see anyone from his family being killed - by their own hand or anyone else's. I think Chase is forcing us to look harder at Tony - we've compartmentalized his life, too. Can we have been complicit all these years and then get away with it by nodding sagely as he's gunned down or thrown into the back of a police car and driven off? Do the feds offer him an out? Does he become Kevin Finnerty?

I know the scene I'd love to see - the scene that kicks Carmela out of her complacency and denial. Something that follows up on her prayer when Christopher was shot and she acknowledged the life she had chosen. I want to see that self-awareness in her and in Meadow.

Tony has written Phil off. Loopy-eyed Butch might not make it past the next episode. Beyond that, I'm just going to enjoy the last lap around the track.

It may be absurd to think one can significantly change the personality structure of an anti-social, but I totally disagree with you, Heather, that David Chase finds talk therapy generally absurd, particularly given what he's said in interviews. Not perfect, but not absurd. I think he is much more critical of the trend to medicate any problem away.

The part which interested me the most in last night's episode was the comment Tony made to Melfi about his mother. Tony says that it was like his mom dropped him off from the bus, but Tony wants to get back on instead of letting her drive off.

This is a terrifically insightful comment. At times it seems that the Sopranos is about being caught in context, just like with the bus. Tony's context is the world of the Mafia. He goes to therapy and at times is able to use part of what he learns to help his own life. But the problem is that as long as he lives within the context of this life, the life he learned as a boy that he keeps returning to, he will never be able to fully heal. He can't escape the evil that he does, and when he sees this in himself, he can't fully accept the therapy either. It seems like a joke that all these years he's been going there but that no one has taken him to task for what he does.

Maybe the presence of the FBI is a way out. If Tony can escape his world, break his context, maybe he can save the best parts of himself. Of course, the problem with this is that one cannot escape one's nature. If Tony is a sociopath, he will never escape.

I probably should turn to my day job at some point, but this is just too interesting.

I again felt that the smouldering pile of asbestos was made to look like the wreckage of the twin towers on 9/11. At the risk of being branded a traitor by the likes of Rudy Giuliani, I would submit that one of the "messages" of 9/11, which perhaps David Chase is trying to get across to us now, is that the acts we commit around the world will eventually come back to us at home. We cannot rule the world with brutality and force and expect that somehow, our own families and our own backyards will remain insulated and safe. Didn't Salon even run an essay shortly after 9/11 with a title like, "The blood that runs through the Middle East now runs through New York City?"

Maybe that's what the al-Jazeera surfing by AJ and the mysterious visits by the FBI agents are about--they're not sub-plots, they're merely devices to help us connect Tony's story to larger themes.

Another brilliant episode in a season that has been turning the screws on its characters since the beginning of this season with Tony's shooting. However ignoble (in his mind), his Kevin Finnerty "coma dream" represented a way out, which he didn't take.

Now, as Heather wrote, he's going to have to face the endgame with eyes wide open because there's no way out. I think Phil is going to OK a hit on someone close to Tony to make T. feel the way Phil felt when Phil lost his brother to Tony's cousin -possibly Bacala? What better way to hurt Tony than to grieveously wound Janice's already tenuous feelings of security and expose Tony to danger from another angle? This will just escalate into full-blown violence between the families.

With that said, I think Tony's ultimate end revolves around Agent Harris' constant, almost needless visits to Satriale's. (You have to wonder who may be taking pictures of them through a window.) I believe the fellas at the Bing are starting to question Tony's loyalties and are viewing him as having flipped somehow; they just don't know what he's said or done yet, but did you catch the looks on some of those faces when Tony walked in from his Vegas trip? I think Harris is going to use these visits to drive a possibly fatal wedge of suspicion between Tony and his guys (who already despise him and are just itching for a reason).

Between Phil (whose crew looks pretty strong) and the feds (who are tightening a noose), I don't see how Tony walks away clean or even as a viable boss. In that line of work, you end up above ground doing time, below ground with time having run out, or living somewhere in Arizona under an assumed name eating "ketchup that is supposed to be spaghetti sauce," in Henry Hill's words.

One last note: I love the shots of the asbestos in these last few episodes - it's a potent visual that reminds you that Tony literally takes a dump on everything that matters - his mob Family, his personal family, even his beloved ducks, this time in the Jersey Wetlands.

The show's always been about Tony's uncontrollable appetites - from food to money to women to gambling - and he's in for a helluva day after reckoning.

Like the elderly shrink said to Carmella a few seasons back, "you can never say you weren't warned."