******WARNING: SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL*******

The old lion has lost his hold over the Serengeti and has gone into hiding. With a gun resting against his belly he stares at a door feeling the end of his reign. His luck seems to have run out and the days of reckoning seem to be at hand. There is no glamour in the life of a mobster but Tony somehow weaseled his way into our hearts and has us sympathizing and hoping he survives.

Did the creator of The Sopranos manipulate us into suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? He reveals Tony's sociopathy once and for all when Dr Melfi (finally) reads the report on the effects of therapy on sociopaths, and recognizes Tony for what he is. We love Tony despite knowing him to be a hard core criminal, an asshole who didn't think twice about suffocating his own nephew in his own blood. What is it that endears that fat fuck so much to our hearts that we have been reduced to blithering lovelorn idiots who cannot do without the Soprano alpha male?

Like all larger than life characters Tony Soprano has a charismatic personality. He projects the typical mobster qualities of leadership, loyalty and drawing in the weak under the guise of giving protection. And despite knowing his criminal nature we are drawn in by his charisma and like Dr Melfi continues to look for some redeeming qualities where there are none to be found.

Tony and his goons are sociopaths, people who don't think twice about killing those who stand in their way and yet like most mob bosses they are patriotic to their country though at best it’s a misplaced loyalty as they act like maggots eating up the bowels of the nation from within.

But time and again the writers of the series have cleverly made Tony’s concerns relatable such as when he talked about nuclear bombs coming into the country with the ports not being protected well enough or pointing out some innocuous Muslim guys who gave up their 'borrowed' American vices and became devout Muslims. The issues of protecting the ports and racial profiling had been subtly addressed in the episodes along with other issues such as the neurotic sibling rivalry between Tony and his sister Janice, his wife’s selfish need for monetary security and Tony’s disappointment of having a wimp of a son.

But while the issues may be identifiable but Tony’s reactions to the situations show him to be a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any given opportunity. He is tired of life, his family and his job. It’s as if the lion knows that the end is near but the old geezer still has some pride left in him and will not go down without a magnificent fight.

Hopefully the ending of the show will not take the simple moralistic angle of Tony dying a dog’s death or going into witness protection. Even in his destruction I root for him that he meets his maker with the old Western style ending – a shootout or at the hands of the one person he least expected to betray him – Carmella.