Third season premiere on Sunday

The All-American 'Sopranos' are back

"By the end of the season I just turn into a ... pretty bad kid. I just turn worse as the episodes go on," Robert Iler said of his character, Anthony junior, left

In this story: Going to school Family business Surprise success RELATED SITES

(CNN) -- Forget the Cleavers. Forget the Petries. Forget the Keatons. Heck, you can even forget the Simpsons. The TV family of the moment is the Sopranos, the family that preys together.

The HBO series about an angry, profane, morose and lethal collection of underworld types is back for a third season, opening with a two-hour broadcast on Sunday. At its center, again, is angst-ridden crime boss Tony Soprano, caught in an intersecting double life as suburban patriarch and Mafia don.

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Riding the creative talents of creator David Chase, lead actor James Gandolfini and a gifted and colorful cast, the show has grabbed the public's imagination by the collar. The series has already picked up 34 Emmy nominations and frequent accolades as "the best show on television."

The big question in this new season: What could possibly happen next?

Nobody's telling, not even hinting at how the show handles the off-season death of actress Nancy Marchand, who played Tony's Machiavellian mother Livia Soprano. The cast, which gathered at New York's Radio City Music Hall for a premiere gala on February 21, was cautiously tight-lipped.

"See that guy?" Dominic Chianese, who plays Uncle Junior, told Entertainment Weekly as he looked over at Chase. "I work for him. And I ... cannot talk."

"I'm just nodding, I'm not agreeing," said Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano, Tony's wife) in response to "Showbiz Today Reports" Correspondent Bill Tush's theories.

Going to school

What can be said is that Marchand does appear in the premiere, albeit through outtakes and computer gimmickry.

Other plotlines can be inferred through the characters. This year, Tony and Carmela's daughter, Meadow, heads off to Columbia University in Manhattan. The character starts growing up a little more quickly than she expects, said Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Meadow.

Edie Falco, who plays Tony's wife, Carmela Soprano, didn't provide any plot clues at the show's gala preview in New York

"She's away from home (and) she's even more independent than before," she told Tush.

And Robert Iler, who plays Tony's son Anthony junior, told Tush his character will also head down the bad-seed path. "By the end of the season I just turn into a ... pretty bad kid. I just turn worse as the episodes go on.

"I'm allowed to say that," he added quickly.

Meanwhile, Tony Soprano will still be meeting for his regular appointment with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), his psychiatrist, and likely continuing to take antidepressants to cope with all the pressure of running his illegal enterprises. He may even continue hallucinating. Hey, nobody ever said being a crime boss was easy.

Family business

Especially when you're surrounded by that other family -- the one filled with characters with names like Uncle Junior, Paulie Walnuts, and Silvio Dante, the one whom the feds, determined to bring the group to justice, are pursuing.

If nothing else, "The Sopranos" has always been unpredictable, starting with the conceit of a mafioso visiting a psychiatrist. In the first season, Tony grew attached to a flock of ducks that landed in his swimming pool. When they flew away, Tony had a panic attack -- before having a breakthrough in therapy about their symbolism.

Last season held just as many twists: Hollywood came calling, whispering of movie possibilities; Tony's sister blew away her hitman husband Richie Aprile, permanently settling a domestic dispute; and a talking fish came to Tony in a fever dream, ratting out a friend who had betrayed the beleaguered crime boss.

Not to mention the fact that his mother took a contract out on him. If you're Tony Soprano, you always have to watch your, uh, tush.

Surprise success

Despite its success, "The Sopranos" almost didn't happen. At $2 million an episode, it was one of the most expensive series in television history, and for a cable network like HBO to invest in it bordered on madness. But the show quickly attracted buzz from both critics and audiences, and it has proved stiff competition for shows on the broadcast networks.

Now that it's a hit, creator Chase has been quoted as saying the show would end after four seasons. But he shrugged off that talk at the premiere party.

"All I meant to say was ... if there wasn't anything to do when we (finished) then we wouldn't have to do it," he told Tush. "If there is still stuff, I'm not closed off to doing another season at all."

But first there's season No. 3. The trials of Tony and family continue to unfold Sunday, starting at 9 p.m.

Note: HBO is a unit of AOL Time Warner, which also owns CNN.

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