Television: The End of the Soprano Administration

Still, eight years later, big-network TV shows can't match the layering and subtlety of the original. The Sopranos' April 8 premiere is tightly focused and intimate; it's mainly about a family squabble between two couples on a weekend getaway. Yet in blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments, it evokes the show's entire history. Tony and Carmela visit Tony's sister Janice (Aïda Turturro) and Bobby at their country home--a trip that recalls Tony's turbulence with the Brooklyn Mob. (Tony forced its former leader to sell his house to Janice at a discount.) Later Carmela and Janice have a passive-aggressive conversation about their relationships. "I had this boyfriend once," says Janice. "One night he hit me. Boy, oh, boy, I blew my lid ... In the end, he went his separate way." (Actually, she killed him, as longtime viewers will recall from season 2.) Carmela thinks Janice is insinuating something and responds, "Tony has never once raised his hand to his children. Or to me." (Not entirely true either: he slammed her against a wall during a searing fight scene in season 4.) By now, The Sopranos has developed such a history and metaphorical vocabulary that the smallest remark or visual can comment on multiple story lines at once.

Above all, there are the ducks. Tony's first trip to therapy came after he had a panic attack when a family of ducks settled in his backyard pool. (The gentleness of the duck family brought up hurtful associations with his relationship with his vindictive mother.) In the return episode, Tony sits brooding by the lakeside after an ugly family blowup that resurrected his mommy issues, and fleetingly, a duck flies behind him. Later he sees Bobby and Janice's preschool daughter singing with her nanny. The song: Five Little Ducks. Seeing the sweet tableau--and, perhaps, the chance for his brother-in-law and underling to have the kind of innocent family relationship that Tony never had--eats away at him.

He eventually responds, typically, not with introspection but with a cunning and jealous act of revenge that proves he's still the boss--and that The Sopranos is as acute a family and Family drama as ever. Tony Soprano may be on his way out. But he's not a lame duck yet.