User Reviews

This episode running the course of emotions from laughter of Paulie and Christopher in the woods, to the awkward tiptoeing nuances Tony Soprano has to do with Gloria. And more to the matter that Meadow is a mirror reflection in witnessing Jackie Jr. Also this episode is directed by Steve Buscemi? I'm a bit flabbergasted by that as well. The episode really equals out to communication and the lack there of. The phone calls that break up and can't be heard and the lying to cover it. And the episode ends just as that. A mystery of the Russian in the woods.

Widely considered one of the better if not the best episode of the series, 'Pine Barrens' took the show's trademark dark humour to a new level and demonstrated the tragicomic talents of Imperioli and Sirico, under the helm of Steve Buscemi.

In this, his debut episode as director, Paulie and Chris have a body to dispose of in the eponymous woods of South Jersey after a collection from Valery, consigliere/sovetnik to Russian mob boss Slava (both of whom were introduced in the previous episode), went awry. Sil was down with the flu, so it fell to our not-so-dynamic duo. But things are about to take yet another turn for the worse when they open the boot a la GoodFellas to find their comrade very much alive. Catching them off guard while he digs his grave, he makes a run for it. A bullet to the head doesn't seem to finish the job, as Val inexplicably gets back on his feet and staggers off into the wilderness.

Tony needs them to track him down because he's just about to meet with Slava, and worries he might be "about to walk straight into a buzzsaw". But that's not his only concern. The seemingly perfect Gloria has her darker side revealed to Tony here, as it was to us in the previous episode. She's not as strong as she seemed to him, and he soon discovers the reason for her psychiatric needs. His new comare is, as Melfi once again must once again make abundantly clear to him, "impossible to please", "difficult" and "depressive". "Does this remind you of any other woman in your life?" she asks him. It'll take another episode, but yeah, he'll remember.

Meanwhile at Columbia, the veil is lifted from Meadow's eyes regarding Jackie when she realises her own expendability to him. Like her father, she needs to experience what is familiar regardless of how painful it may be. Only she wants Jackie to please her in the way her father couldn't, rather than please him as Tony hopes to please Gloria. Oedipus conceived Electra in the Sopranos mythology.

They're not the only ones walking in circles though, as we return to our pair in unfamiliarly rural territory looking for their car after quickly giving up on the hunt for Valery, who it turns out, may have become the hunter. A former 'Russian Green beret', he killed sixteen Chechen rebels singlehandedly for the Interior Ministry, Tony informs them over a faltering phone connection after returning from his meeting with Slava intact. Camera angles suggest the pajama-wearing commando watches them from atop the trees and snapping twigs only serve to heighten the tension at night when they hide in a van, awaiting a rescue effort by Tony and Bobby Bacala.

In the end, we know not whether Valery escaped in Paulie's car or died in the snow. With hindsight, Slava and Tony's business relationship appears to have continued unaffected, which would indicate Valery didn't hang around. The creator himself has 'revealed' since the episode's airing that Valery was saved by boy scouts who rang Slava's number, which he had on his person, and was sent back to Russia. It seems unlikely that such a close friend would not ask questions about a gaping head wound. And Chase is known for his acerbic sense of humour.

Like many online commentators, this reviewer has a theory of their own. Since we never hear from the mad Russian again and know Paulie's car to have been stolen, it's safe to assume he made a clean getaway. There is romance in being a rat too, as we witnessed in the first season, in the aspect of abandoning one's life and starting afresh. Valery may have left America and returned home, or be residing in a different city. We know he wasn't enjoying his new life in New Jersey. The shot of Paulie gazing wistfully out the window at the trees passing as they return to North Jersey is lent meaning later on when it is once again invoked in the season five episode 'Long Term Parking'. Adriana La Cerva imagines escaping the life briefly before waking to find herself watching the trees go by as she and Sil leave their urban setting for a less familiar woodland, where she is shot.

At first viewing, a unifying theme for the episode may seem elusive. The A story certainly affords the viewer more freedom than any other ambiguous episode in reaching their own conclusion, and with hindsight near-total freedom in that no arc is ever made of the potential 'Valery' storyline. The B/C stories of Tony's and Meadow's do not appear to share the usual thematic link with the relatively self-contained A-story. On an esoteric level, however, it is about the circuitous nature of these characters' lives. Meadow looks for her father Tony in Jackie and Tony for his mother Livia in Gloria, whilst Paulie and Chris literally tread familiar ground in their search for the car. By show's end, they no further than they were when they began: Sil's money remains uncollected and no one has any deeper insight of themself.

Robert Frost's poem 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', quoted earlier in the season without any apparent relevance beyond some broad allusion to death in the wake of Livia's passing, has it's cryptic payoff here: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep..." Paulie and Chris cannot afford to linger in the woods, as their pre-diagnosed-by-the-show alexithymia does not allow them. Their promise is kept without question and both intend to die in their off-the-truck loafers. Their horse whose bells shake is the phone with poor signal -the device that reminds them where they are from and where they should be. Woods are places where people get shot in their world, not where you get lost.

Yes, the episode itself is great. Just see most of the other reviews for why that is.

But, I want to go into the "what happened to Valery" thing. And I know a lot has been said about it, including by Mr. Chase himself. We are supposed to appreciate the mystery as not everything has to be 100% clear.

Thing is, though, that we are once again introduced to a character of the week (well, two really) who seems to be long known to Tony. Tony even appears to be somewhat scared of Slava. He is very concerned when he is pressing Paulie over the phone as to what happened to Valery. That means, after we happen to have reached the runtime of the episode, that this still matters! If Valery was alive, as the episode mostly seems to imply, Tony would be in trouble. Even if he totally disappeared, you're telling me Slava would not get back to Tony or Silvio to find out if they knew anything? If nothing else it would be a great opportunity for something that Tony is concerned about, that you could get back to later. You know, like you would expect for a show that's supposed not to be just stand alone episodes. But no, Slava and Valery are just fodder of the week to service the main characters. At least this time that is used for SOME development of the mains, unlike other episodes (especially later ones).

My main point being: I understand it doesn't matter to the creators. It may not even matter to the audience. But it is supposed to matter to the characters in the show! They should care, and remember it when the next episode rolls around, instead of just resetting next day for a new exciting adventure like a goldfish.

Chris not knowing the Cuban missile crisis really happened is my favorite part of the episode, absolute gold 😂😂. Pine Barrens is funnier than the entire series of Friends put together (its amazing how many mopes took the time to comment in defense of Friends). I think that part of the greatness of the episode is the weird sense of the supernatural. Valery gets shot in the head, keeps running, and may ascend to the trees. Terrence Winter has noted the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens and "the spookiness of being in the woods." The episode teases something that we want and don't want to see--Christopher and Paulie finally getting what they deserve. And then it leaves us without closure. Brilliant. Gloria was looking for trouble answering his phone. He should have left her then. That could have been his wife, or one of his kids. That was proof she didn't know her role. The funniest thing to me is how annoyed Tony gets at the Mayonnaise. If you love dark humor Pine Barrens is amazing. Paulie & Christopher lost in the woods, freezing, starved, sucking on relish and ketchup packs, Paulie keeping the tic tacs for himself. Gloria bouncing a T-bone steak off Tony's dome lol Also I've always loved movies/stories that take an unexpected twist and suddenly characters are stuck in survival mode. Iconic episode, arguably the best and one of my favorites. One of the best episodes Paulie and Christopher are a comedy team. It always made me very mad that they never concluded the Russian's story. In fact, there were many plot threads and loose ends in the show that were never tied up.

Chris and Paulie are on a mission to get money from a Russian, Valery. It doesn't go well and they have to dispose of his body. Only turns out the body is still alive and Chris and Paulie get lost in the woods almost freezing to death. Meadow finds out that Jackie cheats on her. And Tony discovers that being with Gloria is trouble.

An outstanding episode. A lot of intensity, thrill as well as comedy. It was interesting to see how Valery kept on surviving. And I as both interested and laughing watching Paulie and Chris dealing with their situation. Bobby arriving in his camouflage at Tony's house was the funnest part of the episode.

I also really liked them getting the parallels between Irina, Gloria and...Tony's mom.

Pine Barrens is an episode directed by Steve Buscemi who Is most known as an actor in his most notable works Fargo reservoir dogs and of course his biggest role as Enoch Thomson in boardwalk empire, so why I am saying all of this? It's because he is most known in his early career in the 90s by violent horrific scenes which somehow someway are very funny. If you don't believe that you sure didn't watch Fargo The movie yet. Well in this episode he did not act but directed it and what he created was the greatest episode of the sopranos so far. The episode follows Christopher and Paul trying to get money from somebody but things weirdly get wrong and they end up killing him, at least we think that's what happened. So they take him in a bag to the woods in a very cold day to burry him, however he is not dead yet so instead of killing him and finishing the deal our two very smart characters decide to kill him after he digs his own grave so they don't get tired, but of course this issue get worse even more . He kicks them and run, so they run after him and shoot a dozen of bullets in the air cause they aren't trained or anything they are just normal people despite that Paul hits him once in the head but weird things keep happening. Instead of falling and dying he keeps running, therefore they lose his track. So as a consequence of all of this mess, They are lost and this creates somewhat of a survival from cold and hunger which we see a lot of time in movies, Sometimes its even the main theme of it, But we take this topic as a serious one cause it deals with life and death, Except in this case it's not like that. It's dealt in a comedic way that can't allow you to stop laughing and that what's great about this episode. So how is that possible? How did they successfully turn a very serious matter to a comedic one. First thing is a very simple trick but effective. Paul and Christopher believe they are in danger but most importantly we don't think there is a 1% possibility that they may die, because we know the writer can't sacrifice two of the most important characters in what is nearly a filler episode. As a result of that I nearly died laughing.

Second these two characters are hilarious. You put them together that's a recipe for comedy. Forget the fact that they performed their best acting so far. They showed frustration, anger, fear, even hunger I felt it and of course genuine laugh on each other and on their stupid decisions Just amazing. And what makes the episode even greater is that Steve Buscemi didn't just fill the rest of the episode with empty nonsense. He exploited it developing the main plot, we observe the fall of the relationship between Tony and Gloria, and that's because of the craziness of her, throwing meat stakes at him, And the reason of that doesn't make any sense, he left dinner to rescue two friends from dying. Is that a realist reason to hate him, Nonsense. Anyway the point of all of that is the question asked by his therapist. What attracted you to this woman in the first place? Is there a woman you knew before that has the same character the same needs you can't forget her? Well we need to ask ourselves is it Irina who called him in the same day when he was with Gloria in the boat or is it someone else we don't know about yet? I think that question will be answered in the next episodes.