After watching faithfully, sometimes breathlessly, the first three seasons of The Sopranos, we took last year off for a variety of reasons: inconvenient airing times, sick of Tony, sick of the ultimate moral hole at the bottom of all these lives, the previews weren't nearly as favorable as previous years. It's time to return:

TV's most acclaimed drama - and cable's top series - returns to HBO Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT) with 16 regular cast members, some in Tony's real family, many in his Mob family, and a few in both. Some viewers love the show for its dry humor, others for its rich family drama, even though they may recoil at its profanity or escalating body count. "Yet there are people who complain it's not enough, that they watch a Mob show because they want to see people get shot," says creator David Chase.

....Life and death remain very much a part of The Sopranos' fifth season. When we left both families (way back in December 2002) Uncle Junior escaped a jail sentence by jury tampering but was placed under house arrest; Christopher faced his demons, entering rehab to kick a heroin habit, and fiancee Adriana was coerced into snitching for the feds. Carmela tossed out philandering Tony after a bitter fight in Edie Falco's third Emmy-winning performance.

The repercussions of each play out in the new season's early episodes. "When everything kind of blows up at the end, it's a pressure-cooker situation that she's repressed for many years," Falco says. "I don't think she has a chance to figure out how this affects her."

Tony, of course, is the center of the Sopranos' orbit, the fulcrum of its stories, and increasingly he's a tragic figure. "I find him a sad character in some ways, because there are some things he's unable to see or unable to do anything about," says Steve Buscemi, an occasional Sopranos director who this season joins the cast as a cousin also named Tony. "But I think he's aware of his pain and frustration."

....the overall emphasis shifts to the Mob "family" of Tony's cronies: The season opens as a handful of ex-convicts, jailed in the 1980s' RICO trials, are finally sprung, an idea sparked by a newspaper article. "The class of 2004 - old rats on a new ship," Junior grumbles.


Many - including guests Robert Loggia, Frank Vincent and Frankie Valli - return to reclaim their slice of the action. But Buscemi's Tony Blundetto wants to go straight.

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