Call it mob justice. Millions of fans of America' s most popular mafia drama will finally get their way tonight when The Sopranos returns to the country's television screens after a two-year absence.
Many feared the hit show had disappeared to sleep with the fishes after the last episode ended in June 2004 with mob boss Tony Soprano fleeing into the woods to escape the FBI.
Now, as the long-awaited sixth and final season begins, the biggest question is whether New Jersey's favourite mafioso will himself be the last victim of a 'whacking' at the hands of others tired of his years of cheating, stealing and double-dealing.
Pundits say there could be no more fitting conclusion to one of the most phenomenally successful shows in television history.
'Not only does Tony have to die, he has to be delivered straight into the hands of the devil,' said Bob Thompson, director of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at New York's Syracuse University.
'He had the opportunity for denunciation. In the very first episode came the realisation that he could have reformed, but he didn't. I can't see the writers putting him in Florida 20 years from now living with an enlarged prostate and picking retirement cheques out of his mailbox.'