Sopranos Finale: T., minused in three hours

Three hours to go until one of the most anticipated series finales in television history.

Woke up this morning, realized one of my favorite shows of all time was coming to an end.

Not catchy, I know, but it sums up the situation as the Sopranos is set to sign off tonight after eight seasons, 86 episodes, 1,358,632 cuss words and about 4,289 killings.

Being a cable show, and a provocative, profane and un-PC one at that, will prevent the eight-year-old 'family' drama from pulling in mega closing numbers along the lines of All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Cheers or even that silly piece of claptrap Friends, but as for pop culture impact and sheer influence on how television was transformed, not many shows compare to David Chase's mob masterpiece.

One barometer of how popular a show is and how big a finale this one promises to be is the amount of media attention being given the event. Magazine articles, TV entertainment show stories, and endless amounts of Internet postings and radio chatter has elevated this thing to one of the biggest TV events since the Seinfeld gang said its farewells in 1998.

The only question remaining isn't how Tony will meet his ultimate demise, either by the Feds, Phil, one of his own men, or a fed-up family member, but will Chase give everyone the closure the American public seems to crave from this show?

Or will he just leave us with some open-ended, David Lynch-esque dream sequence, where Tony resides in a sunny, peaceful world, dropping buttons, drinking scotch, and fishing at the lake while Carm becomes a real estate mogul, Meadow a high-powered attorney, and AJ a well-paid substance abuse therapist?

And as the ducks lazily swim by Tony's boat in the lake, the crippled, gnarled hand of Livia reaches up through the placid surface and drags Tony to the depths below, where he can rest with the rest of the fishes.

At least that's one theory.

Tick tick tick........