One of the advantages of having two cable companies in your town is that occasionally your company offers you a better deal.

This happened to me in Durham, except that it was my bank. They called, we talked, and after assessing my "needs," I got an account with more perks (and the same free checking).

Up here inside the Beltway, I get phone, Internet and cable from the same company ("real" phone, as opposed to "Internet" phone, if that matters to you). And a couple weeks ago they sent a little promo letter offering to cut our bill by about $20 a month if we would let them double our broadband connection speed, give us free long distance and add HBO.

Um, sure.

We hooked up last Monday. And I realized that, with some effort, I could catch all the "Sopranos" episodes that weren't yet available on DVD and be ready for the finale tonight.

I'd never watched a current episode of "The Sopranos" before. Over the last year or so I've caught up through the end of season "6.1" on Netflix, but since I'm too cheap to shell out for HBO, I just hadn't seen an episode "as it happened."

If you're waiting for the DVDs (or, worse, you TiVo-ed it or plan to watch it later in the week), then you might want to skip the rest of this column. Or not. I don't think I reveal any big secrets--unless the absence of big secrets is a secret unto itself.

Or, as Barbara said after it ended, "That's going to piss off a lot of people."

Maybe.

There are many ways to end a popular TV series. One is to make a "very special" episode, one that is often much longer than the regular running time of the show. Think "M*A*S*H" or, ye gods, "Seinfeld." These are always windy, overblown and, in the case of "Seinfeld," legendarily awful.

Then there's the "twist" ending. Both "St. Elsewhere" and "Newhart" ended with scenes that recast the tenor of each of the series. In short, the series were mere figments of someone's imagination. I think the "Newhart" ending still ranks as one of the best, just because it is so unexpected and yet so apt.

Or you could go out singing, like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." I suppose that's a little weird, but again, it fit the tenor of the show.

Personally, I like the shows that don't end. Or, to quote the last two words from the Journey song that closes "The Sopranos," "Don't stop." The final episode of "The Sopranos" was funny, occasionally poignant but never maudlin--unlike a couple of the episodes from earlier this season. It was a fitting end to a series that turned the television into a (temporary) grand opera hall.

I'm not solidly with the folks who call "The Sopranos" the greatest TV show ever. It might be, though the more I see of "The Wire" (Netflix again), the more I'm down with David Simon and the Ballmer crew. "Sopranos" creator David Chase worked on "The Rockford Files," which might well also fit into the pantheon of greats as well. Netflix has opened my eyes to some of the great television of the last decade: "Firefly", "Arrested Development" (both of which I now own), "Deadwood" and more. TV allows much greater character development than movies, and the novelist in me can see the benefits of the extra time. "The Sopranos" took advantage of that freedom more than almost any other show, which is why so many people put it at the top of the heap.

Even if "The Sopranos" isn't the greatest show ever, its success has driven much of the great TV in the last decade. Chase first took the show to Fox, which passed. HBO bought it, and has seen its place in the TV world explode as a result. Most years, HBO laps the competition in Emmy nominations, and with good reason. It not only allows people on its shows to cuss and get naked...it allows them to be people. "The Wire" has shown explicit gay and lesbian sex scenes--without the slightest hint of exploitation or a "whaddya think of this?" attitude. It's perhaps the most real fictional show in the history of television, and all it's doing is showing real people doing what real people do. Even the most stylized and (honestly) bizarre shows, like "Deadwood," seem to be more "real" than anything on the networks.

"The Sopranos" isn't real. It's not about the mob. It's a grand opera about you, me and the rest of America. The deals we make with each other. The compromises we make with ourselves. Who we are after life has had a good hold on us for a while. In the end, it's great not for the story lines, but for the mirror it has put up on our society. I suppose you could watch the show for the obligatory shot of the strippers at the Bing (spoiler note: there were no naked strippers in the final episode) or for the random acts of violence. But I doubt it. There wasn't enough blood or fake tits to keep that sort of fan around for long.

So, hey, thanks RCN. I coulda been watching this episode in a couple months when the DVDs came out, but thanks to the wonder of competitive cable companies I got to see it tonight. I had a good beer and a good time. And there's a lot to be said for that.

Jon Worley thinks capitalism is working just fine in Takoma Park, Maryland.