Let me make something clear, before I go on. Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano) in the season finale gave one of the most intensive, electrifying and emotional performances ever captured on television. My wife, who was never a big fan of the show to begin with, said Falco was so good, somebody unfamiliar with the show and the cast, would have trouble figuring out she was only acting.

That being said, the season finale as a whole was a 75 minute dud, and sincerely lacking in what fans have come to expect. That actually describes the entire season. The show just didn't seem to know where it wanted to go at times, and as a result seem muddled.

The Sopranos took the popular culture world by storm. It presented us with the story of a top mob guy, doing his business while at the same time trying to balance it with his family life. Unlike 'The Godfather' and 'Goodfellas' where the kids and the wives were just background filler for the most part (I know, Diane Keaton and Lorraine Bracco had major roles but they were the exceptions), Tony's wife Carmela and kids Meadow and Anthony Jr, aka AJ as well as Mom, all played a larger part. Tony had to balance all of that out, and through the first three seasons, his 'day job' was central to the story, while his family life (including his love affairs) played a secondary role. I am not downplaying his real family life. It was always important, but what it did was create a more complex and intriguing character (as opposed to Paulie and Silvio who are basically mob cardboard cutouts).

This season featured the return of Tony's sister Janice, who had gone into hiding after shooting Richie Aprile in Season 2. Unfortunately, the character of Janice, while important in Season 2, offered nothing this time around. Her role seems to have been reduced to nothing more than the woman who attempts to bed all of Tony's guys. AJ was virtually ignored throughout the season, but when they did write in something for him to do, the best they could come up with was him leading a seance with Bobby Bacala's kids? And what about Meadow? Last time we saw here, she was an ecstacy consuming wreck at Columbia after catching Jackie Jr. with another girl. Now all of a sudden she's a snooty Columbia student who lectures Mom on her latent homophobia. Does anybody really care about any of this? Better to just leave them out of it. And what was with these stupid dreams Tony was having? No explanation was given. They just appeared and with no significance from what I gathered.