Yet the series has never failed to amount to superior TV, even during the quiet episodes -- those in-between hours that are inevitable in a medium that delivers storytelling with no end point. And "The Sopranos" returns for its fifth season on Sunday night at 9 in typically great shape, its darkly comic New Jersey world layered in the usual mayhem -- raw violence, gothic pathos, sly pop allusions,
and, as Paulie would put it, "Machiabellian" scheming. While the revelatory rush of the first season has long passed, the show's family history has gotten only deeper and richer over the years. Now, when we see the separated Tony (James Gandolfini) sleeping on a recliner in his mother's home, the resonance is deafening. When the now-married Janice decides she has the Epstein-Barr virus, the droll joke is crystal clear. And when we meet Livia's sister, her resemblance to Livia is as haunting as it is funny. Despite the show's 15-month absence, the accumulated tensions from season four are fully dynamic when the action opens with the traditional newspaper-in-the-driveway scene. Tony isn't there to retrieve it this time, but he visits the beige nouveau-riche manse often enough to continue his "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"-ian struggle with Carmela (Edie Falco, who consistently raises the bar on TV acting). He also jumps right back into the muddle that is Carmine Lupertazzi's New York family, where Johnny Sack continues to juggle allegiances and play with fire. And Tony is still primed to act out on the only sane woman left in his life, as he makes Dr. Melfi an offer she may want to refuse.
