Pine Barrens (The Sopranos)


"Pine Barrens" is an episode of the HBO series The Sopranos; it is the 11th of the show's third season and the 37th overall. The 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.

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

is with Meadow in her room but she has a cold and explains she cannot have sex. Jackie looks at his watch, says he is tired, and leaves. The next night he makes a feeble excuse for not seeing her. A friend drives Meadow to Jackie's place. He comes out with another girl. Meadow gets out of the car and tells him they are finished. She and her friend then drive away, the other girl walks off, and Jackie is left alone.
Gloria comes back from Morocco and goes to meet Tony on his boat. She picks a quarrel and storms out, leaving him baffled. They reconcile, and have lunchtime sex in a hotel. She invites him for dinner in her house that night but, delayed by family obligations, he arrives very late. She is bitterly hurt and angry, but they reconcile again and have sex, and she cooks dinner again. Then, just before eating, he receives a phone call and has to leave on urgent business. She says, "I hate you!", throws his dinner—a steak—at him, and trashes her dining room after he goes.
Tony tells Dr. Melfi that he is seeing Gloria. In the first session he speaks of how happy they are together; in the second he complains of her changing moods. Melfi says Gloria is depressive, unstable, and impossible to please. "Does that remind you of any other woman?"
Tony instructs Paulie to make a collection from Valery, a Russian, on behalf of Silvio, who is ill. He goes there with Christopher. Though it is early, Valery is drunk. Paulie needlessly provokes him and there is a fight. Though drunk, Valery fights skilfully but the other two get on top of him and Paulie throttles him with a floor lamp. Shocked at what they have done, they wrap him in a carpet and wheel him out to their car. Paulie suggests that they dump him somewhere in the Pine Barrens. He calls Tony but this call and others later are hampered by poor reception and static. Slava, who launders Tony's money, tells him that he and Valery, a trained commando, are closer than brothers.
In the snow-covered woods, Paulie and Chris park and open the trunk: Valery is still alive. They walk him some distance, give him a shovel, and make him dig his own grave. Choosing his moment, Valery hits them both hard with the shovel and flees. They chase him, shooting. Paulie thinks he has shot him in the head but he keeps running, and goes out of sight. They find his track, but it suddenly ends: Valery has vanished.
After a time, Paulie and Chris realize they are lost. Paulie slips down a slope and loses a shoe. Long after nightfall, faint with cold and hunger, they find an abandoned van where they take refuge. Light-headed, they blame each other for what has happened; Chris says Paulie intends to choke him while he is asleep. They fight, Chris pulls a gun on Paulie, then breaks down in crazy laughter. They agree to stay together.
In the middle of the night Paulie calls Tony, manages to tell him where they parked the car, and pleads for help. Tony drives out with Bobby, a skilled outdoorsman. They reach the parking-spot: Paulie's car has vanished. They wait until dawn to look for Paulie and Chris, who have left the van and are walking in a random direction. 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; the pairs soon meet up with one another.
Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, and Chris backs him up. The money they collected was in the car. Tony stresses to Paulie that if Valery ever turns up again, it will be his responsibility. They head back to north Jersey in silence; only Bobby has peace of mind.

Valery's fate

Shortly after Valery escapes into the Pine Barrens, Paulie shoots him, apparently in the head, but he still vanishes. The camera shifts away from Paulie and Christopher to an aerial viewpoint, suggesting that Valery was watching them from a tree. In addition, Paulie's car is missing when they return. Valery was never seen again. Series creator David Chase has said that he never intended to have Valery return and 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 Valery, Terence Winter said:
David Chase said:
In 2008 Chase said in an interview at the Actors Guild:
In an interview with Sam Roberts, Chase said:
Discussing the episode in a June 10, 2007 New York Times article titled "One Final Whack at That HBO Mob", Imperioli depicted the lack of closure regarding Valery as an example of the series' overall subversiveness:
In the same article, Sirico said that Chase wrote a sixth-season scene where Christopher and Paulie chanced upon Valery outside a bar and promptly shot him to death but it was removed from the script, possibly by Chase:

Title reference