Episode no. Season 3Episode 11 Production code 311 | ||
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Story by Tim Van PattenTerence Winter | ||
"Pine Barrens" is the thirty-seventh episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the eleventh of the show's third season. Its teleplay was written by Terence Winter from a story idea by Winter and Tim Van Patten. It was the first of four episodes for the series directed by Steve Buscemi and originally aired on May 6, 2001.
Contents
"Pine Barrens" has been described as the show's most famous episode.
Starring
* = credit only
Guest starring
Episode recap
Tony is on the outs with Gloria Trillo when, on The Stugots, he receives a call from his former mistress, Irina, who has a long history of drunk dialing. However, Gloria answers first and Tony continues Irina's lie about the call being from A.J.'s school but then decides to come clean. Gloria asks Tony to explain his deceit and he lets slip that he didn't want to "piss her off", and just wanted to be honest. Gloria is furious with Tony and throws his Christmas present into the marina and leaves. However, the pair manage to reconcile later when Gloria presents Tony with a gift, a djellaba she bought from Morocco, and they sleep together.
After Silvio catches the flu, Tony asks Paulie and Christopher to make his collections, one in particular from a member of the Russian mob, Valery, in Fair Lawn. Tempers flare when Paulie, unprovoked and already angry because he doesn't want to make Silvio's pick-up, mocks the Russian and deliberately destroys his universal remote control by dropping it, feigning it as an accident. Valery insults Paulie, prompting him to attack the seated Russian. Christopher had tried to stop Paulie from acting out, but he jumps in on Paulie's side. The three men fight, and eventually Paulie chokes Valery with a floor lamp, severely injuring him and apparently cracking his wind pipe. The situation causes the Mafiosi to panic and they wrap Valery in a carpet before wheeling him out to their car. While trying to figure out what to do with the body, Paulie suggests that they take it to the Pine Barrens, as it will be deserted and is in close proximity to Atlantic City. Christopher, who has not yet eaten, wants to stop for breakfast at Roy Rogers but Paulie insists that business must come first, and will soon be completed.
In the woods, Christopher and Paulie open the trunk to find that Valery is still alive and has chewed through the duct tape. They lift him out of the car, present him with a shovel and force him to dig his own grave. When the pair are distracted, Valery smacks them with the shovel, delivering a blow to Christopher's head and a jab to Paulie's groin before fleeing. Christopher and Paulie draw their guns and give chase, but are amazed when Paulie shoots Valery, clearly hitting part of his head, and the Russian immediately gets up and runs into the woods. They try to track his blood and footprints in the snow but are eventually left with no clues as Valery's trail suddenly disappears (it is implied from an overhead camera angle that Valery is hiding in a tree, but Paulie and Christopher fail to look up). Still on the hunt, the pair hear something and run, firing some shots. Paulie slips down a slope and loses his shoe. They discover that they killed a deer. They try to return to Paulie's car but cannot find it, and soon realize that they are lost in the woods. Paulie uses his cell phone to call Tony for help, but communication is limited by poor reception, interference and crosstalk.
Tony learns from Valery's boss and best friend, Slava, that, although he has developed substance abuse problems since, Valery was previously in the Russian Ministry of the Interior's special forces and once killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed. However, the poor phone signal between Tony and Paulie results in a mix-up: Paulie passes the message on that Valery killed 16 Czechoslovakians and he's an interior decorator, to which Christopher replies, "His house looked like shit." As the night draws nearer, the lost, shivering pair become more desperate to find their way to food and warmth.
Sometime later, Tony fails to show up on time at a dinner that Gloria had prepared, causing another heated argument. After making up once again and just before eating, Tony gets a call from Paulie telling him to come and get them as they may be dying of hypothermia, starvation, or even injury to Paulie's shoeless foot. Left with no option, he tells Gloria that he has to leave for an emergency and can't eat, causing her to become extremely angry. She throws a cooked London broil at Tony, who suppresses his annoyance by laughing off the situation and leaves to help his associates, as Gloria trashes the laden table setting.
Meadow has a cold and is spending time with Jackie Aprile, Jr. at her college dorm. Jackie leaves early after she declines to have sex with him. Later, he calls and gives a poor excuse not to come to Meadow's place and fails to call when promised, so Meadow becomes suspicious and gets a friend from her dorm to give her a ride to Jackie's place. The pair catch him walking down the street with another girl. Meadow gets out of the car and tearfully confronts Jackie. The two women then pull off in the car leaving a frustrated Jackie. Meadow is taken to the hospital wing shortly afterward and rehydrated. She is surrounded by her friends in the dorm, who try to convince her that Jackie, although attractive, was not suited for her. Meadow tells her friends they can't understand her feelings.
Paulie and Christopher manage to find an abandoned van, where they spend the rest of the night. For warmth, Paulie rips up the van's carpet and he and Christopher share packets of frozen ketchup and relish from an old Nathan's bag. Later, Christopher is seen clumsily trying to light a fire using sticks. When Christopher, standing outside the van urinating, blames Paulie for the predicament and accuses him of trying to save himself at Christopher's expense, the two have an angry confrontation. Christopher claims Paulie was planning to choke him to death when he slept. Paulie then attacks Christopher and begins choking him, so Christopher pulls a gun on Paulie, saying he thinks Paulie was conjuring up a plan to murder him. He had overheard Paulie blaming the whole fiasco on Christopher when speaking to Tony over the phone. Christopher then angrily says he'll leave Paulie out in the woods. After a few moments of tension, Christopher breaks down in laughter. Paulie tells Christopher to promise not to leave him, and also says he would never kill Christopher.
Tony asks Bobby "Bacala", a skilled outdoorsman, to help him find Paulie and Christopher. He shows up dressed far too appropriately, wearing over-the-top outdoor/hunting gear and resents Tony's ensuing ridicule. Driving to the Pine Barrens, the two share their first friendly moment when Tony apologizes for making fun of Bobby, and expresses gratitude for his taking care of Uncle Junior. Bobby tries to make a joke but it is embarrassingly juvenile and stale, to the point where Tony can't even begin to feign amusement. Arriving at the woods, they park in the same spot where Paulie and Christopher parked — Paulie's car is gone. Tony and Bobby holler for a response, but realize that they will have to wait until dawn.
In the daylight, Tony and Bobby are out searching for Paulie and Christopher, who have left the van and continue to struggle some distance away. Paulie's makeshift shoe falls off and he shoots it in a fit of crazed frustration. Tony and Bobby hear the shots and head toward their source, calling for Paulie and Christopher. They respond and soon meet up with one another. Paulie and Christopher are grateful they have been found and climb into Tony's Chevrolet Suburban, where there are food and drinks, but Tony is clearly irritated with Paulie for getting him into such a predicament with Slava and for losing the original target of their mission: Silvio's $5,000, which was in Paulie's car.
The four men wonder whether Valery took Paulie's car. When Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, Christopher backs him up. Tony tells Paulie to take responsibility for any trouble created by Valery's disappearance or potential re-emergence, and to make an executive decision about whether or not to further pursue Valery, as Paulie holds the position of caporegime. Paulie decides to give up and head back home to North Jersey.
During sessions with Dr. Melfi, Tony confesses he is seeing Gloria Trillo and tells her of his problems with her. Melfi tries to connect the dots and tells him that his new comare is not the only one who was "impossible to please", "difficult", and "depressive". She then asks, "Does this remind you of any other woman in your life?", referring to Livia Soprano. After a thoughtful pause, Tony shakes his head slightly and shrugs.
Valery's fate
One of the most speculated-upon topics by fans and reviewers alike has to do with the fate of the Russian gangster Valery. Shortly after his escape from Paulie and Christopher in the Pine Barrens, Paulie manages to hit Valery with a bullet at the very last moment of their pursuit, seemingly in the head. However they are unable to locate him afterward in the forest, and the camera shifts away from Paulie and Christopher, showing a viewpoint looking down from above the two gangsters, suggesting that Valery was watching them from high up in a tree. In addition, Paulie's car is missing when they return. The character was never seen again. Series creator David Chase has stated that he never intended to return the character of Valery, claiming that the story is richer and more realistic with some mystery to the plot. HBO listed Valery as "Deceased?" in promotional materials.
On the fate of the Russian, Terence Winter said:
David Chase said:
Later, Chase would say in an interview at the Actors Guild:
In an interview Sam Roberts, he stated:
Michael Imperioli and Tony Sirico discussed the episode in a June 10, 2007 New York Times article titled "One Final Whack at That HBO Mob".
In the same article: