About a month ago, I slogged about watching all 72 hours of The Sopranos consecutively. As I wrote then:

Over the past decade I've watched dozens of Sopranos episodes on A&E and DVD and in HBO-rigged hotel rooms, accepting whatever episode was thrown at me and cumulatively encountering most of the major plot points, but never experiencing the story chronologically, thus never able to directly connect cause and effect between misdeeds and retribution for misdeeds, and most importantly, never knowing exactly when a character was lying—which, as we're dealing with organized crime, is a lot of the time. It's been—duh—amazing. I will not bother reiterating why The Sopranos is both one of the greatest television shows and one of the greatest Mafia-themed entertainments ever made, because everyone who cares already knows. But my chronological, unedited-for-TV viewing has been a 36-hours-and-counting dream.

Now it's up to a 62-hours-and-counting dream, with my trek through season five bringing me to what feels like the single greatest Sopranos episode I've ever seen: the next-to-last episode of the season, "Long Term Parking." The whole episode is unusually poignant, with Tony's post-separation return home to Carmela (who looks slender and gorgeous in that perfect post-heartbreak I-think-I-may-be-single-again way) but of course the main story line belongs to Adriana, who tells Christopher her secret and the matter sorted out before nightfall.

This horrifying abruptness (see subject line) of mob life is one of the scariest parts of The Sopranos. I just got hit by another instance of this in season six, when Vito's secret is discovered and he's on the lam within the hour. The overarching moral: Being in the mafia is the kinkiest lifestyle choice there is. (Also, sociopaths make good TV—you never know what those fuckers are gonna do.)

(Also also, am I the only person who watches The Sopranos with subtitles? It's really illuminating re: the Italian slang (madon', goomar, etc).)

P.S. Turns out I'm not alone in considering "Long Term Parking" the best Sopranos episode ever.