Part of the reason why James Gandolfini is so convincingly intimidating as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos is because he looks so invincible, like a walking mountain of colossal heft and simmering violence that nobody can touch.
That's until now, anyway – the all-singing, all-dancing final eight episodes of The Sopranos have been held back for a few months after James Gandolfini had some surgery because he hurty-wurty his little knee-knee and it made him all sad.
We're just kidding, James. Please don't beat us up.
To call the final eight episodes of The Sopranos 'highly anticipated' would be like calling Jayne from Big Brother 'slightly unpleasant' – people are frothing at the mouth, such is their excitement at getting to the bottom of The Sopranos. Ever since it was announced that The Sopranos was coming to an end – and especially after the deliberately damp ending to the last batch of episodes – the brains of Sopranos fans have been buzzing with questions like "How long will the uneasy truce between Tony Soprano and Johnny Sack hold out?" "Will the FBI ever close in on The Sopranos?" "Can we see Meadow larking around in her underwear again?" and "Have you heard the rumour that the talking fish is the real power behind the family?"
But the answers to those questions are going to have to wait, because the last episodes of The Sopranos have been pushed back thanks to James Gandolfini somehow knackering his knee. The resulting surgery has meant that it'll be a bit longer before we can see the end of The Sopranos, as HBO boss Chris Albrecht told reporters:
"Jimmy had a little knee surgery, unexpected knee surgery, which pushed us back a couple of weeks… Then we looked at the fact that we would be launching in the middle of the playoffs and the Super Bowl and all that stuff, and it seemed that for everybody's sake we would push back a few weeks."
That means that, instead of seeing the premiere of the last batch of Sopranos episodes in January, you'll have to wait until April or May instead. But if there was ever an opportunity for Sopranos creator David Chase to unfurl some ludicrous hyperbole about the finale of The Sopranos, then James Gandolfini's messed-up knee was going to be it. And Chase didn't disappoint:
“I know the story lines for the final eight, and I am absolutely positively certain that when the curtain comes down on ‘Sopranos,’ the vast, vast, vast majority of people will say it’s one of the great things of all time.”
One of the great things of all time? See? We knew there would be more Meadow/knickers action.
Read more:
Gandolfini surgery creates Sopranos delay – MSNBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]