As for all the 'whacking', that was never all that important. It was no secret that Ralph was going to last. The only question was when and under what circumstances. Anybody who thought Jackie Jr. would survive Season 3 was a fool, and fans also knew Pussy was going to bite the dust. The only surprise killing was that of Richie Aprile by Janice. There were some stand out moments. The "intervention" episode as Stephen Silver pointed out, was very good as was "Mergers and Acquisitions." The scene between Furio and his lively uncle was just classic. However, there was a distinct lack of memorable moments from this season.

With regard to the season finale, it wasn't the lack of anybody getting rubbed out that bothered me. For the first time, the people at HBO used a gimmick that is normally reserved for network television. While no major characters were killed off, they wanted to make us think it was going to happen. We saw two of Tony's guys shooting into a black SUV (Gee - Chris just happens to drive one) and what could have been another SUV crashing. Of course, it turned out to be two nobodies. The hook was that something big was going down. It did, but it had nothing to do with what they were alluding to, and and as a result, The Sopranos had done what it had never done before and that was to insult the intelligence of its fans by using such a cheap ploy.

Word is, Season 5 will be the series last. There are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up, and it will be interesting to see how David Chase ends it all. Let's hope he sharpens things up and bit, and let's also hope that they don't resort to cheap gimmicks in order to draw us in.

For another view of The Soprano's season please see here.