The Final Analysis

"The Sopranos" returns Sunday night for its final nine episodes, so it's time to brush up on our armchair psychology. Creator David Chase has given us the richest, most complicated set of characters TV has ever known. And we love to put them on the couch and analyze them.

MATTHEW GILBERT

PATIENT: TONY SOPRANO DIAGNOSIS: TEMPERRHAGIA

PROFILE

Tony's youth was cracked, and not because he saw his capo father remove a debtor's finger with a cleaver. His castrating mother's dismemberments were so much more potent. Thanks to Livia, he has a hunger to conquer similarly unstable women, with goomahs such as the fiery Valentina and Gloria Trillo, who was so terribly hung up.

From his mother's needling, and her threat to stick a fork in his eye, Tony has developed sensitivities that are a curse in his work. He has panic attacks, and his boyish love of animals once led him to lose his head and murder Ralphie. And yet, his intuition is so fine, he discovered Pussy's betrayal in one of his dreams. Sounds fishy, but it was accurate.

CURRENT STATE

Tony's emotional and physical injuries have been inflicted by his own family. A gunshot wound from Uncle Junior now leaves him weakened and hyper-aware of his mortality. Sometimes he overcompensates for his deteriorating macho by, say, beating his driver. Other times, his growing vulnerability makes him more compassionate, which is why he tried to protect gay Vito.

UNDER OBSERVATION

Can people really change? Will the conscience that gnaws at him fully surface? Will he find peace within, then be destroyed by the New York mob, or the FBI?

PATIENT: CARMELA SOPRANO DIAGNOSIS: ACUTE DENIALITIS

PROFILE

Carmela is a dutiful Roman Catholic, with a taste for beige home furnishings. But she has had to make room in her soul for her husband's bloody business. Over the years, Carmela's awareness of Tony's work has grown in fits and starts. Her pivotal moment was when a therapist called her an "accomplice" and urged her to take the kids and run. But Carmela keeps choosing to stay; she likes her Porsche. Plus, Tony has built strong financial obstacles to divorce.

Carmela can be as sharp as her epic fingernails, and when she shows up with a ricotta pie and a small request, people listen. Even Tony bowed to her demand for $600,000 to buy property.

What Carmela cannot tolerate is Tony's adultery, and that is what led her to leave him. But she returned: Her hope, and her denial, spring eternal.

CURRENT STATE

Perversely, as Carmela becomes more conscious of Tony's troubled morality, she is more devoted to him. She sees the good man within, and she's turned on by the bad man. Tony's brush with death has made them closer than ever. But she is still subconsciously troubled by the disappearance of Adriana, and its dark lesson: that love does not trump a mobster's wrath.

UNDER OBSERVATION

Can a person live happily wearing blinders?

PATIENT: CHRISTOPHER MOLTISANTI DIAGNOSIS: MALAPROPULAR DULLTACKTROPHY

PROFILE

Young Christopher's father was shot to death, and so Tony took Carmela's cousin under his wing. But Christopher has never found a healthy outlet for his grief, and he struggles with drug abuse and its medicating effects. He is also prone to both violent outbursts, including one in an acting class, and impulsive mistakes. But Christopher is loyal to the best of his ability, not least of all as Tony's clean-up man after the murders of Richie, Ralphie, and Tony B.

Christopher is a dreamer, and he has delusions of Hollywood grandeur. His script, "You Bark, I Bite," came to nothing. But he later forced his former AA sponsor to script his story "Pork Store Killer," which was renamed "Cleaver" and has gone into production.

CURRENT STATE

Christopher wed his pregnant girlfriend, Kelli, but he strays like the dog he nodded out with at the Feast of St. Elzear . He has mixed feelings about Tony, having sacrificed Adriana to protect him. And as his movie career takes off, his respect is faltering. But his fear of and wish for power keep him from acting against the boss.

UNDER OBSERVATION

Is the "Godfather"-bred dignity of mob life forever dead? Will this thug with poor judgment ascend to the top of the heap?

PATIENT: JANICE SOPRANO DIAGNOSIS: TOXOYVEYIZMER, WITH COMPLICATIONS FROM LOSTSOULOLEPSY

PROFILE

Janice is a manipulative, narcissistic, delusional, sadistic, psychotic, prosthetic-leg kleptomaniacal, passive-aggressive indi-vidual. She is her murderous mother's daughter, which is why she fled New Jersey for 20-some years of new age pretend.

In Seattle, she went on disability for carpal tunnel syndrome from a steamed milk machine, which is a great symbol for how damaged she is from bad maternal nurturance. Her temper is hot. Like Livia, she went after Tony with a fork, and then there was her attack of a mother at a peewee soccer game. She wants to be like the other suburban mob wives, but she's just too darn crazy.

CURRENT STATE

Janice consistently gets involved with Tony's workers, and is now married to Bobby Baccalieri , whom she wooed by sending scary but anonymous IMs to his children and then consoling them. She likes to create triangles with Tony by pushing her men to demand more from the boss. She now lives in Johnny Sack's old McMansion, and she and Bobby have a baby daughter, Domenica, who, alas, doesn't stand a chance.

UNDER OBSERVATION

Will Janice pick up her mother's unfinished task and destroy her brother, whom she still hates? Will the series end with Janice moving into the Sopranos' home?

PATIENT: A.J. SOPRANO DIAGNOSIS: CRANIOEMPTIOMA

PROFILE Since learning his father was not in waste management, A.J. has been a wastrel. He misbehaves and, worse, he gets caught. He has been in trouble for crashing his mother's car, drinking Communion wine, getting expelled from high school, and losing his job at Blockbuster video for stealing life-size cardboard ads.

Sullen, belligerent, he has been a constant source of worry to his parents, particularly as he parties with a fast crowd in New York. Carmela took Tony back partly so that he could take charge of A.J. Tony is disappointed in his only son, but increasingly sympathetic since he learned A.J. also has panic attacks

CURRENT STATE A.J. has been a nihilist unable to care about anything or anyone. But recently he has begun an affair with Blanca, who is 10 years older and has a 3-year-old son. He met her at the construction site where he works, and so far he has taken the job and the relationship seriously. Also, A.J.'s botched attempt to punish Uncle Junior for shooting Tony was stupid -- but noble, in a warped mobster kind of way. It revealed a hint of a backbone.

UNDER OBSERVATION As A.J. finds himself, will he find that he wants to go into his father's business? Or will he fall at the hands of one of Tony's enemies?