Think you know how this will end? Fuggetaboutit!

And now, the end is here. No matter how much we wish it weren't happening, the countdown to the finale of "The Sopranos" begins tonight.

Just try watching these next nine episodes without your mind racing for clues as to how it all's going to end. Because you know it's going to be brilliant. Has to be. One of those monumental endings that we'll be talking about forever, the way folks chatter on about "M.A.S.H" and "St. Elsewhere."

Only the talk will be louder and more passionate because "The Sopranos" was — is — genius. Creator David Chase took life's all-too-familiar predicament — a guy balancing family with work — steeped it in the mafia, threw in a sexy psychiatrist and made it all so relatable. That we care so much about Tony Soprano — vicious, racist, misogynistic Tony — is testament to the series' supremacy.

So where's "The Sopranos" headed?

Who knows? The first two episodes of the coming season lay out a bunch of scenarios. Some no doubt foreshadow the real ending; others are bright red herrings.

On TV

"The Sopranos": Returns tonight for the final nine episodes (9 p.m. Sundays on HBO).

See Tony schlepping down his driveway to retrieve his newspaper, gut still hanging out from under his bathrobe.

Possible ending 1: Nothing happens. By that I mean, of course things happen all around him, but in the end Tony's just the same. Six flawless seasons of storytelling and, well, it wraps up by just wrapping up. Tony chugs orange juice out of the carton. Tony watches the History Channel. Tony's back in Melfi's office.

Possible ending 2: Tony calls it quits. Moves Carmela to some place by the water but close enough to the woods so he can, on occasion, act like a guy and fire off a very big, very noisy gun.

He's been through plenty: Mom (the late Nancy Marchand) tried to have him killed; his Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) almost accidentally did. Wife Carmela (Edie Falco), fed up with his two-timing, threw him out of the house for a while. He's suffered panic attacks. And, oh yeah, as head of the DiMeo crime family, he's authorized a bunch of killings, carrying out some of them himself.

See Tony mulling his future, looking out at a (duckless) lake, contemplating his own mortality. Cut to the kids acting sort of grown up: fatherhood for A.J (Robert Iler), some kind of legal career for Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler). Tony's always been a brute of a man, but he's actually looking soft and cuddly. See Carmela show him some love.

Possible ending 3: Tony dies. (And if someone's going to do it, I'm banking it's Christopher or Janice; better yet, kill off one, both, of them). The series' final aria is Tony's death knell.

On tonight's episode, you'll hear a bell ring. It's at the end of a dock, next to a tethered boat, on a placid lake. Surely all that imagery foreshadows something. If not Tony, then someone else (Christopher! Christopher!) is going to die.

Possible ending 4: Tony's jail-bound. That gun he ditched in the snow years back resurfaces now, and all of it comes crashing down. See the feds, happy. But look at Tony: In spite of the stench of a jail cell, he doesn't seem rattled at all.

Which is really how we ought to try to approach these next two months, letting the onscreen drama sink into every pore because if for a nanosecond you've doubted "The Sopranos'" brilliance, it will become glaringly obvious how wrong you were after tonight.

It's Tony's 47th birthday: Karaoke, "Monopoly" and booze all set to Dave Brubeck's "Take Five."

Watch how this all plays out, and accept it as yet one more stunning gift — however it ends.

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com