Lorraine Bracco has played Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, for eight years on The Sopranos.

Craig Blankenhorn Craig Blankenhorn

Whacked, or not whacked?

For legions of die-hard fans of The Sopranos, that’s the only question that matters this weekend. The HBO television series that has become a cultural benchmark in the eight years since it opened with a bang on Jan. 10, 1999 will conclude tomorrow night at 9 with a show that will answer that question — likely with an even bigger bang.

At this point, the betting is that the series’ six-season, 86-episode run will end in a bloodbath and the demise of Tony (James Gandolfini) — but as any fan knows, The Sopranos always surprises.

The final surprise has been kept top secret since the show’s last episode was filmed just a few weeks ago. Only then did many of the cast members find out what The End would be, and none of them has been doing any talking since. That would spoil the fun.

Tonight, several members of the cast, including Gandolfini, Steven Schirripa (Bobby), Tony Sirico (Paulie), Steven Van Zandt (Silvio), and Michael Imperioli (Christopher), will appear in a special by-invitation-only event at Foxwoods marking the series’ conclusion. Tomorrow, they’ll all fly to Florida for another party celebrating the airing of the final episode.

Hanging out “with all the boys” at these events will be just one woman star of the series: Lorraine Bracco.

Ever since Episode One, when Tony walked into her office seeking treatment for his recurring panic attacks, Bracco has played his psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi, calmly steering him towards what she hoped were helpful insights into his family relationships while keeping clear of any overt references to his “family business” — the mob.

But in recent episodes, the doctor has had cause to reexamine the remedial value of her “talk therapy” approach to treating the patient she has begun to describe as a sociopath. This happened after her own psychiatrist (played by Peter Bogdanovich) suggested to her that for criminals like Tony, talk therapy might be nothing more than a cheap way of validating their continued bad behavior. (And, it must be said, Tony’s behavior has been getting worse, the body count climbing in nearly every episode this season.)

The point hit Dr. Melfi particularly hard when, at a dinner party of fellow psychiatrists, patient-client confidentiality was breached, and the consensus around the table was that she might only be making matters worse by continuing her sessions with the big, bad boss of New Jersey.

So, she cut him off — gave the show’s hero a list of references to other doctors and sent him packing.

Describing her character’s action in a phone interview earlier this week, Bracco said it’s one of the things she loved about playing Dr. Melfi: The woman is strong.

Was it easy for Melfi to show the office door one final time to Tony, a man she had been treating for more than eight years and whom she had advised through a marital separation, various parental crises, and more than one close brush with death?

“It was heartbreaking,” said Bracco. “But what I love about this character is that she had the strength to say that she’s not going to do that anymore. It’s what I love about what David (Chase) does: He always puts her in the moral issue. And she always takes the high road.”

Melfi showed similar strength of character in an episode several seasons back in which she passed on an opportunity to use Tony’s stature as boss to avenge a painful personal experience of her own.

In that scene, Bracco’s face let viewers see the tug of her realization that, because of her special relationship with Tony, she had the power to use him to pull the trigger on the brute who raped her and was going to get away with it. She didn’t do it.

So it’s a significant change that, in last week’s episode, Melfi’s stone face betrayed little but contempt for her long-time patient. Clearly, the doctor has had enough of Tony.

So has Gandolfini, who has said in interviews that although he’ll miss working with the cast and crew, he’ll feel relieved of a burden when the series ends. (He alone has been in every single episode.)

And so also has the show’s creator, David Chase, who wanted to end the show after the fifth season but was persuaded by HBO to do a sixth and final one.

As for Bracco, she said she isn’t sure what her next project will be — “It depends on whether I get another great script” — but she certainly values her experience on The Sopranos, both professionally and personally. Having suffered from depression herself (a subject which she explored in an autobiography, On The Couch, published last year), Bracco said she learned a lot by playing a psychiatrist on TV: “For one thing, I’ve become a better listener.”

But, she was asked, wouldn’t it be depressing for Dr. Melfi to realize that with all those years of talk therapy, she might only have been enabling Tony to be an even badder guy than he was to begin with?

“No, I don’t think so,” said Bracco. “I’ve always believed in therapy as a good tool to help him. I think she (Melfi) made his marriage better. She was helpful to him.”

The revelatory idea that therapy might actually worsen a sociopath’s criminal behavior was not new to Bracco when it came up in the script: “Four or five years ago, David (Chase) and I were at a psychiatric conference where he received an award for the show. The sociopath study was discussed there, and I think it’s fascinating that he remembered all that we learned at that conference and used it this way.”

Bracco spoke in glowing terms of her personal relationships with Chase and Gandolfini. “My bond has really been with David and Jimmy, because I don’t really have on-screen time with many of the other cast members.” Most of her scenes are one-on-one with Gandolfini in her office.

So, she said, she welcomes this final weekend of celebration and nostalgia with the rest of the cast as the show comes to its end, whatever it is.

Will all the loose ends in the series be wrapped up in the final show? The wild Russian last seen escaping in the snowy Pine Barrens of New Jersey? Lustful Furio, banished to Italy?

And what of the Soprano kids? Baleful A.J.: Hope for a turnaround, or not? And Meadow’s once-promising career — at a full stop?

It’s likely we will never know the answers, never see all the ends tied up in a neat package.

“That’s David’s brilliance as a writer, his big vision,” said Bracco. “The show doesn’t follow the path of regular TV scriptwriting. It’s true to life, and so you don’t know how it will all turn out.”

And so, fans will have to be content to find out what they can tomorrow night about the fate of the Sopranos.

Whacked? Or not whacked. That is the question.

kimbrie@projo.com