Back with a vengeance

They made us wait 21 damn months – 21! – but the wait was worth it.

Tonight, “The Sopranos” returns to HBO’s prime-time lineup, and every last one of those lovable and equally hateable mobsters – plus a few others – are back with an earth-shattering, life-changing vengeance.

Everything you missed about TV’s greatest drama is there, from the always-shocking – but this time downright stunning – gunfire to the buckets of blood to the continually fraying relationships.

All of which make us want more of Tony Soprano and his dysfunctional families – both of them.

It’s kind of like “The Sopranos” are our old mob buddies who got sent up the river for nearly two years and are now back on the streets. And, of course, that means they’re also back to their wicked ways.

The difference this time around? In the sixth and final season, these guys are loaded with as much tension as too-tight piano wire.

“I think kind of disquieted, sort of rattled, not feeling like things are going well” is the way David Chase described the coming season to reporters in January.

He might have been underplaying that a bit.

You want action? How’s this:

There’s a major shooting early in the run of the new episodes. OK, on its face that isn’t news, but it will be when you find out how it happens and who the victim is. Let’s just say that, in this crooked world, no one is safe. The moment is so shocking, in fact, that it could blow folks out of their seats.

Not enough action for you?

Janice Soprano and her husband, Bobby Baccalieri, will have a baby girl. The flaky and fiery Janice (Aida Turturro) is probably the least-qualified mother in TV history.

Elsewhere, the Soprano kids are growing up – and, as all kids do, growing less appreciative of their family. One major incident, however, nearly makes A.J. take up his father’s business, or at least a part of it, which should cause some major headaches down the road.

Now that Carmela has let Tony back in the house, she worries more about the family – both of them. She seems particularly curious about the missing Adrianna, whom we last saw eating leaves in upstate New York and, presumably, taking a bullet.

Tony and Carmela are the glue that hold this dark American story together, as Chase acknowledges in an early scene when they’re having dinner together and Carmela says that, all things considered, they’re lucky.

Tony, who’s eating more sushi than pasta these days, takes something off his plate and says: “Forty dollars for a piece of fish they just flew in first class. We’re more than lucky.”

It won’t surprise anyone that such an assertion will not go unexplored, and here it leads to a more introspective stretch in the new season’s second episode.

Some “Sopranos” fans find these stretches less interesting, like hockey fans who get tired of all that hockey between the fights. But after all this time with these characters, Chase knows them so well he can explore them with an almost lyrical rhythm.

In one scene, Carmela is talking to Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) and admits she knew almost from the beginning what line of work Tony was in.

“On the second date,” she says, “he brought my father a $200 power drill.”

“Not your typical story of young love,” deadpans Melfi, whose fans will be glad to know that her legs are again on prominent display.

Outside of the Soprano homestead, Johnny (Sack) Sacramoni is trying to get out of jail, having been tackled in a snowbank in the last season. Phil Leotardo takes over while Johnny’s wearing an orange jumpsuit, but he doesn’t play the game quite the way Sack did, causing even more agitation for Tony – as if he didn’t have enough problems on his very full plate.

Among them are the feds, who are also still trying to nail Tony and his associates.

All of that has made “The Sopranos” the most-watched series ever to air on cable. It averaged 9.8 million Sunday night viewers for its fifth season, and 11 million for its fourth.

And it’s one of television’s most critically acclaimed series, winning multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards, including the best-drama Emmy in 2004.

“The Sopranos” has always skillfully weaved in great guest stars, and this season is no exception. You will see Julianna Margulies playing a real estate agent and Hal Holbrook as a scientist who used to work for Bell Labs. Ben Kingsley plays himself, and Elizabeth Bracco, Lorraine Bracco’s sister, also will play a mob wife.

But that’s all later.

Before the first few hours are done, viewers will spend time in familiar and unfamiliar places – hospitals, the Satriale Pork Store and everyone’s favorite strip club, the Bada Bing. And they’ll take a trip out of town, with Tony, sort of.

No matter where the action is happening, though, they’ll know that the gun is cocked, a finger is on the trigger and, at any moment, any one of the family could be playing cards with Adrianna in heaven.