Pine Barrens (The Sopranos)

• 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

Jackie 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, and she sees him leaving with another girl. Meadow confronts him 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 hurt, but they reconcile again and have sex, and she cooks dinner again. Then, just before eating, Tony receives a phone call and has to leave on urgent business. She yells at him and trashes her dining room after he leaves.

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.

Tony instructs Paulie to make a collection from Valery, a Russian, on behalf of Silvio, who is ill. He takes Christopher. Paulie needlessly provokes him and starts a fight. Though drunk, Valery fights skilfully but the other two manage to gain the upper hand and throttle 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 using accounts in the Isle of Man, tells him that he and Valery, a trained commando, are closer than brothers.

In the snow-covered woods, Paulie and Chris prepare to dump the body but find that Valery is still alive. They walk him some distance, give him a shovel, and make him dig his own grave. While both are distracted, Valery hits them with the shovel and flees. They chase him, shooting wildly. Paulie thinks he has shot him in the head but he keeps running and goes out of sight. They follow his track, but it ends: Valery has vanished.

After some time wandering the woods, 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, who receives the call in Gloria's house. Paulie 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 but 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.

• The Pine Barrens is a protected wilderness area managed by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission in Southern New Jersey. This is where Christopher and Paulie try to "dispose" of what they assume is Valery's body.

• Paulie likens Valery to Rasputin, who was notoriously difficult to kill.
• When Paulie is tying on his makeshift shoe, Chris ironically likens him to Bruno Magli, the name of an Italian luxury shoe company.
• When Chris and Paulie are in the van, Chris remarks that Valery is trained and that it is like Die Hard.

• Director Tim Van Patten had dreamed about the idea of Paulie and Christopher getting lost in the woods during the production of season 2, and after discussing it with writer Terence Winter, presented the concept to David Chase who worked it into season 3.[5][6]
• The forest scenes for the episode were filmed at Harriman State Park in New York, after the production team was denied a permit to film in New Jersey at the South Mountain Reservation. Essex County executive James Treffinger said The Sopranos "depicts an ethnic group in stereotypical fashion".[7] Treffinger was later convicted and imprisoned for corruption.[5][8] This is a fairly rare instance where the show did not depict an environment similar to the one suggested, as neither Harriman State Park nor South Mountain Reservation are ecologically or visually similar to the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
• There was an unexpected snowfall just before the shoot. Both the cast and the crew agreed that the snow added to the emotional effect of the episode.[5]
• The interior of the truck was shot on a sound stage. The actors' freezing "breath" was added in CGI.[9]
• Director Steve Buscemi successfully threw the steak at James Gandolfini's head in the scene of Tony's argument with Gloria Trillo; neither Annabella Sciorra nor the prop handlers had been able to hit Gandolfini.[5][10]
• "Pine Barrens" took 12 days for shooting, setting a record for the longest episode shoot in The Sopranos at the time.[5]
• 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 take of Gandolfini seeing the strap-on.

• The song played during the opening scene, where Gloria arrives at the docks, is 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 La Merope by Geminiano Giacomelli, sung by Cecilia Bartoli. This is the same music that opens the next episode, "Amour Fou".

• Time and Entertainment Weekly consider this to be one of the best episodes in The Sopranos series, due largely to the offbeat and dark comedy between Paulie and Christopher.[11][12]
• Former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg lists this episode as his favorite in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.[13]
• 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."
• For its 65th anniversary, TV Guide picked this as the fourth-best episode of the 21st century.[14]
• Terence Winter and Tim Van Patten received the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Episodic Drama for their work on this episode.[15]

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