To paraphrase the timeless words of Edward G. Robinson’s Rico in Little Caesar, “Is this the end of Tony?” Well, that wouldn’t be for me to say, and in any case, I don’t know, what with plot points guarded as fiercely as the crown jewels. What does appear to be certain, however, is that the upcoming nine episodes, technically the second half of the show’s sixth season, will finally spell the end of The Sopranos, 10 years after HBO bought the script for the pilot. This is a fact of life, the 800-pound gorilla that nobody on the show, the interiors of which are shot at Silvercup Studios, a former bread bakery in Long Island City, wants to acknowledge. Though it feels like just another day on the set as cast and crew work on a domestic scene in Janice Soprano’s kitchen, the actors might as well be wearing sandwich boards reading, THE END IS NIGH.

For most of them, it’s been an unprecedented, nearly decade-long marriage to the show, which has meant a ready-made, close-knit surrogate family of artistic collaborators, not to mention a steady paycheck. And most of them aren’t quite ready to hit the pavement. Says Tony Sirico, who plays Soprano capo Paulie Walnuts, “For the last three months now we’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing. We bring up the show ending, and then we stop right away, because we want to make believe that it’s not happening. I want to block it out of my head. I’m heartbroken.” According to Edie Falco, who plays Tony Soprano’s wife, Carmela, “There are actors here who will never get an opportunity like this again. Having gotten scripts while we’ve been working on this, there’s just nothing out there that’s interesting. It scares the hell out of me.” Little Steven Van Zandt, longtime guitarist of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and maestro of his own radio show, Little Stevens Underground Garage, had never acted before he landed the part of Tony’s consigliere, Silvio Dante. Sighing, he says, “There’s a fair chance I’ll never act again.”

The one exception to the pervasive melancholy is James Gandolfini himself, the actor who turned Tony Soprano into the Homer Simpson of live-action television, transformed the Jersey Mob boss into one of the great screen characters by investing him with an unprecedented physicality—his bulk, his 12 o’clock shadow, his labored breathing, even, which makes him sound just short of tubercular. No one will ever forget Tony’s graceless shuffle down his driveway every morning to pick up the Newark Star-Ledger, or the slovenly way he bellies up to the kitchen counter to guzzle O.J. out of the container. At the same time, alongside Tony’s signature menace, the actor gives him a winning sweetness, and is able to effortlessly slide from one to the other and back again, so that these traits don’t seem like contradictions, but rather the fluid flow of personality. Gandolfini has started his own production company and has a deal to develop material for HBO. He’s had enough of Tony. “It’s been a great opportunity, but I don’t have much trepidation about it ending. I think it’s more than time. Part of the fun of acting is the research, finding out about other people. As much as I’ve explored this guy, I don’t know what else to really do with him. I’ve been in one place for 10 years. That’s enough. It’s time for me to do other things.”

Gandolfini might be the only person in America who feels that way. His performance helped transform HBO from a fights-and-features TV footnote into the Rolls-Royce of pay cable, a critical and commercial behemoth whose impact has recast American television—almost, or at least occasionally—into a medium for adults. In our culture of hype, the currency of praise has been so de-valued that no one credits it, even when deserved. The truth is, The Sopranos, whether in one-hour shots, 13-hour seasonal chunks, or the 86-hour long-form marathon—however you want to take it—is one of the masterpieces of American popular culture, on a par with the first two Godfathers, Mean Streets, and GoodFellas—the classics of Mob cinema—or even European epics such as Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Bernardo Bertolucci’s Novecento, or, as the late New York Times critic Vincent Canby first claimed, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s monumental 15½-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz, all of which The Sopranos dwarfs in terms of length, if not scope. New York’s Museum of Modern Art honored The Sopranos in February 2001, when the senior film curator, Laurence Kardish, showed the first two seasons, along with a couple of films that influenced the show—including a Laurel and Hardy picture, Saps at Sea. This was the first time an American dramatic series for television had been shown at the museum. Kardish calls the show “an extraordinary blend of great psychological insight and social cartography, zany as well as poignant and resonant.” No less an authority than Norman Mailer recently gave The Sopranos high praise indeed when he favorably compared the depth of its characterizations to that achieved in novels.