Fans ofThe Sopranosno doubt have their own pick forthe series' finest episode, but one that tops the list more than any other is Season 3’s “Pine Barrens.” Written by futureBoardwalk Empirecreator Terence Winter and directed by none other than Steve Buscemi, Episode 11 is largely self-contained, and something of a break from Season 3’s main action, just as it’s about to reach its endgame.
The episode followsPaulie (Tony Sirico)and Christopher (Michael Imperioli) as they get lost in the titular snowy woodlands after a botched attempt at disposing of the body of a Russian named Valery (Vitaly Baganov). Valery turns out to not only be still alive, but surprisingly adept at surviving in the frigid wilderness. His ultimate fate is never definitively shown, leading to much speculation amongSopranosfans thatcontinues to this day. But taking another look at the episode, we think we’ve cracked the code thanks to one key detail.
The Snowy Mess in “Pine Barrens”
The main action of “Pine Barrens” kicks off when Paulie and Christopher are dispatched to pick up a collection from Valery at the request of Silvio (Steven Van Zandt), who’s too ill to do it himself. Things go relatively smoothly until Valery gets in an argument with Paulie, leading to a messy brawl where the Russian proves pretty capable of handling himself. Nevertheless, Paulie and Christopher think they’ve killed him, and take his body to the Pine Barrens in South Jersey to bury it.Once they go to take his body out of the trunk, they quickly learn that Valery isn’t dead after all.
This turn of events presents a unique opportunity, as Paulie hands Valery a shovel and orders him to dig his own grave. But a shovel in Valery’s hands turns out to be a pretty effective weapon, as he knocks Christopher upside the head and makes a break for it. Paulie fires at him, hitting him in the side of the head as he disappears down a hill.They run after him, but his body is nowhere to be found. It turns out, as Tony (James Gandolfini) informs them via a staticky cell phone, Valery was a commando with the Russian Interior Ministry who once killed sixteen Chechen rebels singlehandedly. Or, as Paulie hears it, “he killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. The guy was an interior decorator!”
Valery is never seen again, in the episode or in the rest of the series. Winter and series creator David Chase have been asked repeatedly over the years what happened to the character, and both haveresisted offering answersin order to keep his fate ambiguous. Many fans interpreted an overhead shot of Paulie and Chris walking hopelessly lost in the snow to be from Valery’s point of view, looking down at them from a tree, but everyone involved has denied that was the intention.
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Why Valery May Have Survived “Pine Barrens”
While fans will likely never know exactly what happened to Valery, his fate, at least at the end of this episode, actually doesn’t seem as vague as it’s made out to be. It’s established early on that Valery is a highly trained operative who likely has some serious survival skills under his belt, and his Russian heritage makes him much more able to withstand the cold than Paulie or Chris, even clad in just a T-shirt and lounge pants.It’s very likely he would know exactly how to handle himself in this kind of situation, easily able to hide and cover his tracks from his pursuers, who are very much out of their element.
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Possibly the most crucial detail giving credence to the “Valery is alive” argument is that, when Paulie and Chris are finally rescued by Tony and a surprisingly wilderness-savvy Bobby Baccalieri (Steve Schirripa),Paulie’s car is missing. The likelihood that anyone else would have come to this remote stretch of Jersey wilderness and decided to jack Paulie’s car is extremely slim, andit seems much more plausible that Valery would have made his way back to the car and hotwired it to make an escape. Having already established his training bona fides, it’s easy to assume Valery has superior navigation skills and was able to retrace his steps while Paulie and Christopher got increasingly lost in the woods.
Valery is an easy character to root for, one of the few people who would dare to stand up for himself against a mob captain and (possibly) live to tell the tale. While Tony and the gang were often fun characters to follow, they were also a destructive force who would lay waste to anyone who stood in their way, and"Pine Barrens" is so good in part because it gives them a taste of their own medicine. Valery had a distinct advantage in that environment, and the evidence points to him surviving his adventure in the Pine Barrens. But ultimately, the fact that this is never confirmed only serves to enrichThe Sopranos’narrative, another example of how the seriesconstantly upended audience expectations.
The Sopranos
