TORONTO - There have been a litany of blood-soaked killings, a harrowing rape scene, adultery galore and even a hateful, elderly mother trying to arrange a hit on her own mob boss son.
Since it first exploded onto television screens eight years and 77 episodes ago, HBO's Mafia drama "The Sopranos" has provided some of the most memorably shocking moments ever to grace the small screen, from a knock-down, drag 'em out marital brawl between Tony and Carmela to the heartbreaking whacking of the guileless Adriana after she made the fatal mistake of talking to the feds.
Vanity Fair magazine calls "The Sopranos" the best show in television history, and its nine-episode final season is upon us, premiering Sunday night on the Movie Network at 9 p.m. ET and Movie Central at 8 p.m. PT.
The first episode might sound tame - Tony and Carmela Soprano head to the countryside to celebrate Tony's 47th birthday at Bobby and Janice's cottage on a pristine and peaceful lake in upstate New York near the Canadian border.
But some simmering family resentments soon turn a boozy Monopoly game into a hair-raising ride that's every bit the tense nail-biter viewers have come to expect from creator David Chase, who's based much of the familial tensions that are such a crucial part of "The Sopranos" on his own dysfunctional Italian upbringing.
"No one will be disappointed - it's going to be a great season," Michael Imperioli, who plays young mobster and heroin addict Christopher Moltisanti, said recently on the line from New York.
Imperioli was among the "Sopranos" cast members who were at New York's Radio City Music Hall last week for a screening of the first episode to kick off the final season. More than 30 actors from the show, including those who have already been whacked, were in attendance at the opulent farewell - many of them in tears.
"I am sad that it's ending; it's bittersweet," Imperioli says. "I have a very full sense of completeness because I got to do pretty much everything I could possibly do with this character and I had a great experience over the years with everybody I worked with. It's sad it's going to end but really, it couldn't have been better."
The final season is bountiful for Christopher, Imperioli says. After years of fruitless attempts, he finally gets his mob-themed slasher movie made. Instead of Ben Kingsley in the lead role - Christopher's attempt to snag the Oscar-winner was easily the funniest episode of last season - he gets Daniel Baldwin, one of the lesser-known members of Hollywood's Baldwin clan.
"It's great, very exciting - Christopher is starting off in a good place," says Imperioli. "A little bit of time has passed, and Christopher buys a big house with his new wife and he's got a little girl. He's making a go at being a normal suburban dad and husband."
Imperioli can't give much else away, but any "Sopranos" fan who's watched Christopher struggle to stay off the smack and out of trouble with Tony knows that life as a lawn-mowing soccer dad isn't likely in the cards for very long.
"It's not an easy life," Imperioli concedes, pointing to the wrenching demise of Christopher's onetime love, Adriana, played by Drea de Matteo.
At a panel discussion entitled "The Whacked Sopranos" held recently at New York's Museum of Television and Radio, both audience and cast members said Adriana's death upset them more than the dozens of others throughout the run of the series. Adriana was driven to a forest and shot by a flinty-eyed Silvio, played by Steve Van Zandt, as she desperately pleaded for her life.
Steve Buscemi, whose character was personally whacked by Tony Soprano for his own sins, told the panel that he wept when he saw Adriana go down.
"I really felt for her; it was devastating," Buscemi said.
It was difficult for Imperioli too, the actor confesses.
"That was really hard, not just because of what happened to her character but because I really missed her as an actress," he said. "We had a great time. We trusted each other a lot; I miss her a lot."
Death has certainly been a major co-star on "The Sopranos," and the final season, clearly, will be no exception. As Edie Falco, who's won three Emmys for her consistently brilliant run as Carmela, notes on the HBO website: "It's a mob show, you know, so people gotta get killed."
But the actors, as usual, are kept in the dark, only getting the scripts a couple of weeks in advance and rarely being told by the secretive Chase who's headed for the chopping block. Any pleas for mercy by the actors whose characters are slated to get whacked are reportedly met with utter indifference.
"We're all waiting for the next scripts to see how things are going to end up in the last few shows," Imperioli says. "We just don't know."
