The final nine episodes of HBO's Sunday night hit The Sopranos feature the stuff of life. You know -- blood, guts, betrayal, angst, and cancer. It's not quite the stuff of my life, well, except for the cancer part. Actor Vince Curatola, who plays Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni, powerfully weaves cancer into the end of this popular television drama. Diagnosed with lung cancer, his character is given three months to live -- in a prison hospital bed.
Johnny Sack says very little in the last episodes. He does gasp to his wife in episode two, "I'm very, very sick," but he lacks the lung capacity to muster up much more. He disease is considered stage four.
The cancer depictions -- one shows Johnny Sack shuffling down a long corridor in his hospital robe, oxygen tank dragging behind -- are right on, say those who've taken an early peek at the shows. And reportedly, the cancer scenes pretty accurately reflect the concerns of the larger culture -- where cancer has become an epidemic that sadly, won't come to end in nine episodes.
