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Okay so my predictions were wrong.

Or were they?

See that’s the thing with open-ended “endings”. You’re left to draw your own conclusions. This morning, everyone who invested 8 years into this show will get to debate the different fates of all the characters who made it out alive. But personally, I’m more of a results-oriented kinda guy. I like to be spoon-fed, and if I’m gonna be given the keys to writing duty of a hit show, I want the financial perks that come with it. Otherwise, I want a friggin ending. And I didn’t get one. What a drag.

With only one episode left of The Soprano’s, I figured it was time to look back on the predictions I made back in April.

1. I think the FBI has gotten to Paulie – I suppose this scenario seems just as likely to me now as it did two months ago. I believe there to be one of three possibilities for Paulie that will come to light on Sunday. Either he has turned on Tony and is working for the FBI, he has turned on Tony and is working for New York, or he’s one of few characters who will have remained loyal to Tony throughout the series. Based on what we saw last week, I’m now leaning towards possibility #2 – he’s working for New York. Why else would all of Tony’s main guys be targeted by Phil Leotardo except for Paulie unless he were helping them? My hope is that this scenario is too obvious and Paulie ends up loyal to the end. He was always my favorite character on the show.

2. Bobby Bacala is about to be arrested for killing that guy at the Laundromat – this story line (introduced in the season opener) went completely unresolved. Now that he’s dead, he cannot be punished for blatantly leaving evidence behind. Either this detail was included in the opener just to get us thinking one way while the story headed off in another direction, or Bobby’s carelessness is going to come back and haunt Tony on Sunday for giving the go-ahead for the murder itself. If I had to wager a guess, I would say that this scene won’t be mentioned, won’t be flashed back, and won’t be important to the story come Sunday.

3. Not so obvious is the fallout from that arrest. You think Janice will take it lightly that her husband is in prison and no longer earning? Who do you think she will take it out on? My guess is either Carmela, with whom she fought with by the lake in the season premier, or Tony, with whom she has had a dysfunctional relationship with since they were kids. Could Janice actually kill her brother? I think so. – Okay, so the exact details of this scenario are no longer possible with Bobby being dead and all, but there’s still a real chance that Janice could blame Tony for Bobby’s death. I’ve thought all season that if Tony were to be killed, it would be by Janice. I’m sticking by this theory.

4. Finally, there’s what happens to Uncle Junior. In April, I wagered that he would have people killed in retaliation for getting his arse kicked by that crazy guy. I don’t really see this as a possibility now since he’s still incarcerated and there’s only 1 hour of show left, but I do think it’s possible that he’ll be one of the last men standing following Sunday’s hour-long blood-bath. Anyway, here are my final predictions for Sunday’s series finale:

- Janice kills Tony.
- Paulie, with the blessing of his new friend in New York, becomes Don of the New Jersey family.
- Carmela kills Janice, but AJ gets caught in the crossfire (let’s all hope for this).
- Meadow gets shot walking down the stairs of an opera house.
- Of course that’s a joke, that would be much too corny. Maybe Meadow and Carmela can pull a Thelma and Louise or something and drive off a cliff.

Regardless of what happens, I can’t wait for Sunday. Enjoy.

Now that we are three episodes into the final season of The Soprano’s, I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts on what I think is happening. Of course I have no insider information, no access to the inner-workings of this particular show, but I do like making outlandish predictions. That way if they turn out right, I can brag afterwards that I saw it coming. And if I get them wrong, you can bet there’s no way I’ll mention this ever again. So here goes:

1. I think the FBI has gotten to Paulie. If you noticed, he was going out of his way to reminisce about their past. Tony made it seem like reminiscing is something that Paulie does all the time, like a character flaw almost. I had never noticed it before, but Paulie got Tony to talk out loud about some of the crimes they’ve committed in the past, so my feeling here is that Paulie was wired the whole time. Hmmmm. I hope not. I like Paulie.

2. This one is kind of obvious, but I think Bobby Bacala is about to be arrested for killing that guy at the laundromat.

3. Not so obvious is the fallout from that arrest. You think Janice will take it lightly that her husband is in prison and no longer earning? Who do you think she will take it out on? My guess is either Carmela, with whom she fought with by the lake in the season premier, or Tony, with whom she has had a dysfunctional relationship with since they were kids. Could Janice actually kill her brother? I think so.

Things I’m still working on figuring out: Christopher and his movie. Tony seems genuinely disinterested with it, so I’m not sure how this will play out. I never really liked Christopher anyway, so if he leaves NJ for Hollywood, I’d have no problem with that. My guess is it’s about to blow up in his face though. Christopher’s always been kind of an idiot. Also, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Uncle Junior. He just got his arse kicked by that crazy guy we just met, so I guess there’s two possible scenarios. Either he retaliates and starts having people killed, or he cowers in his room for a couple episodes and dies. If I had to wager a guess, I’d go with the first option. Stay tuned.

Last night, HBO decided that they finally wanted to put some quality Sunday night programming on the air again. They must have figured that they had given their customers the old screwgie long enough and it was time to put something on that was actually good. In case you missed it, last night was the season premieres of both "The Sopranos" and "Entourage" back to back. Well it wasn’t so much a season premiere with "Entourage" since they’re calling this the 2nd half of Season 3, but it was a new episode after a long layoff nonetheless.

My reviews: SPOILER ALERT

"The Sopranos" started off with a seemingly meaningless weapons arrest of Tony at his home in New Jersey. The local D.A. quickly dropped the charge, and my first thought was that it seemed pretty pointless to arrest him in the first place for something so trivial and small. But then we learned that the charge was dropped locally so that the federal government could pursue it further. Interesting. I was reminded of how Al Capone was finally incarcerated 80 years ago; not for something major like murder, but for tax evasion. Could it be that Tony’s eventual demise this season is for something trivial as well? I guess we’ll see. The episode also focused on a quick weekend vacation for Tony and Carmela at Bobby and Janice’s lake house, Bobby inexplicably beating the crap out of Tony in an escalated Monopoly fight (who hasn’t been there before?), and Bobby killing someone for the first time, leaving behind a boatload of evidence in the process. My final grade – B+. Not great, but not bad. Then again, the first episode is always the slowest, so this bodes well for the rest of the season/series.

Immediately following "The Sopranos" was a new episode of "Entourage". The Producers are calling this episode 13 of season 3 even though episode 12 aired all the way back in August of 2006 (again, the HBO screwgie). If you remember, episode 12 ended with Vince firing Ari, and we’ve been left hanging ever since. On Sunday night, we jumped forward a little bit. Details as to how Vince found a new agent (who turned out to be that girl from "Son-In-Law" by the way) were skipped over and instead focused on Vince’s relationship with his new agent, as well as his new relationship with Ari as a friend and not a business partner. I give the girl from Son-In-Law at most five episodes before she’s brushed aside and never heard from again. It’s unfortunate really, since she still looks as good as she did back then. The episode also focused on Vince’s birthday party (kind of), but that was more of a back-drop to allow Ari and his new agent to come face-to-face in a non-frontation (I’m making up words now), all but assuring the audience that there’s no way Ari is gone for good. It’s tough to grade an episode like this since nothing really happened. But since nothing happened, I’ll give it a generic C and wait impatiently for next week.

I've tried a couple times to get interested in the new show on HBO Big Love, but I find myself tuning out....and I think I know why: Too much man-butt. Why does Bill Paxton keep doing that to us? Is it in his contract?

Item 1 - must be paid $100,000 per episode.
Item 2 - must be able to show off man-butt.

Well I object. At the very least, there should be a warning at the beginning of the show that lets us know to expect it. They can put it right after the rating, like "the following program is Rated R. It contains violence, strong language, and Bill Paxton's man-butt." Think of how useful that would be to the common viewer like myself that doesn't care to see it.