Pine Barrens (''The Sopranos'')

"Pine Barrens"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 11
Directed by	Steve Buscemi
Story by	Tim Van Patten Terence Winter
Teleplay by	Terence Winter
Cinematography by	Phil Abraham
Production code	311
Original air date	May 6, 2001
Running time	60 minutes
Guest appearance(s)
see below

"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.

"Pine Barrens" has been described as the show's most famous episode.^[1]

Starring

• James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
• Lorraine Bracco as Dr. Jennifer Melfi
• Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano
• Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti
• Dominic Chianese as Corrado Soprano, Jr.
• Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante
• Tony Sirico as Paulie Gualtieri
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano
• Robert Iler as Anthony Soprano, Jr.
• Drea de Matteo as Adriana La Cerva *
• Aida Turturro as Janice Soprano *
• Steven R. Schirripa as Bobby Baccalieri

* = credit only

Guest starring

• Tom Aldredge as Hugh De Angelis
• Vitali Baganov as Valery
• Jason Cerbone as Jackie Aprile, Jr.
• Oksana Lada as Irina Peltsin
• Annabella Sciorra as Gloria Trillo
• Suzanne Shepherd as Mary De Angelis
• Frank Ciornei as Slava Malevsky

Episode recap

Tony is on the outs with Gloria when, on his boat, he is drunk dialed by his former mistress, Irina. Gloria answers first and is furious when Tony tries to lie to her about the call. However, the pair later reconcile when Gloria gives him a djellaba she bought from Morocco, leading to them sleeping together.

After Silvio catches the flu, Tony asks Paulie and Christopher to make a collection from a Russian mobster named Valery. Tempers flare when Paulie, already angry because he doesn't want to do the job, mocks Valery and destroys his universal remote control. The confrontation escalates to violence, with Paulie choking Valery with a floor lamp. Valery ends up severely injured with a cracked wind pipe. Panicked, Paulie and Chris wrap Valery in a carpet and wheel him out to their car. While trying to figure out what to do with the body, Paulie suggests that they dump it in the Pine Barrens. Chris wants to stop for breakfast at Roy Rogers, but Paulie insists that business must come first.

In the woods, Paulie and Chris 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 assaults them with the shovel before fleeing. Paulie and Chris give chase, but are amazed when Valery survives a shot to the head and runs into the woods. They try to track his blood and footprints in the snow, but the trail suddenly disappears; it is implied that Valery is hiding in a tree. 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 are unable to find Paulie's car, and soon realize that they are lost. Paulie uses his cell phone to call Tony for help, but communication is limited by poor reception and static.

Tony learns from Valery's boss, Slava, that he is a deadly ex-special forces operative. However, the poor phone signal causes Paulie to misunderstand Tony's message. As the night draws nearer, the pair become more desperate to find their way to food and warmth. When Tony fails to show up on time for dinner with Gloria, another heated argument ensues. After they make up once again, Tony gets a despairing phone call from Paulie. Left with no other option, Tony tells Gloria that he has to leave for an emergency and can't eat, causing her to become angry and trash her dining room.

Meadow has a cold and spends time with Jackie 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. Suspicious, Meadow gets a friend from her dorm to give her a ride to Jackie's place. When the pair catch Jackie walking down the street with another girl, Meadow gets out of the car and tearfully confronts him. The two women then pull off in the car, leaving a frustrated Jackie behind. 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 Chris manage to find an abandoned van, where they spend the rest of the night. Paulie rips up the van's carpet for warmth and shares packets of frozen ketchup and relish with Chris. When Chris blames Paulie for the predicament and accuses him of trying to save himself at Chris' expense, the two have an angry confrontation. Paulie then attacks Chris and begins choking him, so Chris pulls a gun on Paulie. After a few moments of tension, Chris breaks down in laughter. Paulie tells Chris to promise not to leave him behind and assures him he would never try to kill him.

Tony asks Bobby, a skilled outdoorsman, to help him find Paulie and Chris. Arriving at the Pine Barrens and find that Paulie's car is missing. Tony and Bobby wait until dawn to look for Paulie and Chris, 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 Chris. They respond and soon meet up with one another. Paulie and Chris are grateful they have been found, but Tony is irritated with Paulie for getting him into such a predicament with Slava and for losing Silvio's money. Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, and Chris backs him up. Paulie decides to give up looking for Valery and head back to North Jersey.

During sessions with Dr. Melfi, Tony confesses he is seeing Gloria 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 his mother. 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".^[5]

In the same article:^[5]

Title reference

• The Pine Barrens is a protected wilderness area by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission in Southern New Jersey where Christopher and Paulie try to "dispose" of Valery's remains. The Pine Barrens make up approximately 25% of New Jersey's land area, one of the largest wilderness areas in the most densely populated state in the U.S.

Cultural references

• When Paulie and Christopher take Valery into the woods to shoot him, trailing a few feet behind with their guns at the ready, the image is a clear echo of the Coen brothers' 1990 film Miller's Crossing (in which episode director Steve Buscemi has a small role).

Production

• The idea of the episode's premise of Christopher and Paulie getting lost in the woods was reportedly dreamt one night by Tim Van Patten, who then told it to Terence Winter, and they presented it to David Chase.^[6]
• The forest scenes for the episode were filmed at Harriman State Park in New York after, at the last moment, the production team was denied a permit to film in New Jersey (at the South Mountain Reservation) by the Essex County commissioner who called The Sopranos a "disgrace to Italians". The same commissioner was later incarcerated for corruption.^[6][7] The actual New Jersey Pine Barrens have a significantly different landscape than the area where the show was filmed. The barrens are vastly more forested with pine trees (hence the name) and flat, while the woods depicted in the episode were with hills and covered less with any kind of trees.
• The snow fell on the forest location unexpectedly, just before the actual shoot. Both the cast and the crew agree it was very fortunate, as the snow wound up strengthening the episode's impact.^[6]
• The interior of the truck was shot on a sound stage. The actors' freezing "breath" was added in CGI.^[8]
• Director Steve Buscemi was the one who successfully threw the steak at James Gandolfini's head in the scene of Tony's argument with Gloria Trillo, after neither Annabella Sciorra nor the prop handlers were able to hit Gandolfini with it properly.^[6][9]
• "Pine Barrens" took 12 days to be shot, setting a record for the longest episode shoot in The Sopranos at the time.^[6]
• The HBO documentary James Gandolfini: Tribute to a Friend (2013) includes an anecdote by Steve Schirripa about the shooting of the scene where Tony picks Bobby up at Junior's house. When they were shooting Tony's reaction to Bobby's hunting outfit, Schirripa surprised Gandolfini by entering the kitchen wearing a strap-on dildo. Tony's response and laughter, pointing at Bobby and then doubling over the sink, is the actual take of Gandolfini seeing the strap-on (and Dominic Chianese trying not to break character).
• There is possibly a factual error early in the episode where Paulie is seen pumping his own gas. All gas stations in New Jersey are "full-serve", meaning that only gas station attendants are permitted to pump gas. However, in practice, if the motorist is impatient or the attendant is taking longer than expected due to being inattentive or a high volume of cars are at the gas station, New Jersey motorists do frequently pump their own gas.
• Another factual error: when Paulie tells Tony where they are he says "Exit 12". This would imply the Garden State Expressway which does not have an exit at mile 12, and is farther south than the more remote and rural areas of the Pine Barrens.

Music

• The song played during the opening scene where Gloria Trillo arrives at the docks is appropriately Them's "Gloria".
• The music video A.J. is watching on the living room television is "Coffee & TV" by Blur.
• The song played during the final montage/closing credits is the aria "Sposa son disprezzata" ("I am wife and I am scorned") from the opera Bajazet by Antonio Vivaldi, sung by Cecilia Bartoli. This is the same music that opens the next episode, "Amour Fou".

Accolades

• Widely regarded as one of the best episodes in The Sopranos series, mostly due to the offbeat and dark comedy between Paulie and Christopher.^[10][11]
• Former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg lists this episode as his favorite in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.^[12]
• In his acceptance speech for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, Alan Taylor thanks Steve Buscemi for his work on "Pine Barrens."

Awards

• Terence Winter and Tim Van Patten received an award from the Writers Guild of America for their work on this episode.

References

1. ↑ VanDerWerff, Todd (January 19, 2011). "The Sopranos: "Pine Barrens"". Onion Inc. Retrieved December 27, 2016. 
2. 1 2 EW.com: Chase 'n' the Russian
3. ↑
4. ↑
5. 1 2 "One Final Whack at That HBO Mob". The New York Times. June 10, 2007. p. 2 of 2. 
6. 1 2 3 4 5 Martin, Brett (2007-10-30). ""This Thing of Ours": Creating The Sopranos Universe". The Sopranos: The Complete Book. New York: Time. p. 178-. ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4. 
7. ↑ Martin, Brett (2007-10-30). "Welcome to New Jersey: A Sense of Place". The Sopranos: The Complete Book. New York: Time. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4. 
8. ↑ The Sopranos: The Complete Third Season DVD commentary
9. ↑ The Sopranos: The Complete Third Season DVD commentary
10. ↑ Time: The Best of the Sopranos
11. ↑ EW: The all-time 10 best "Sopranos" episodes
12. ↑ Dagbladet: - Har du en yndlingsepisode i Sopranos?

External links

• "Pine Barrens" at HBO
• "Pine Barrens" on IMDb
• "Pine Barrens" at TV.com