Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Paulie (Tony Sirico) are alone in the New Jersey wilderness, nearly freezing to death as they search for the escaped Russians – is The Sopranos a comedy, a drama, or something beyond both?
As explored in the new HBO documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, the series’ season 3 episode, “Pine Barrens,” is considered one of the greatest hours of television ever. It seems creator David Chase thought, let’s leave Tony Soprano’s (James Gandolfini) two mobsters alone in the snowy woods and see what happens. Well, it worked.
Since Tony, of course, has some tragedies of his own, the complicated New Jersey mafia boss sends Christopher and Paulie to collect money from Valery, a member of the Russian mafia. When the money drive goes wrong and Paulie thinks he’s killed the Russian, the men call Tony, who’s not happy and has some choice words for his companions.
After Tony tells them to dump the body “a little further away from me,” the duo head to the Pine Barrens in South Jersey. When they get to the woods and get the Russian out of the trunk, they discover he’s still alive. He attacks Christopher and Paulie before racing into the woods. Paulie shoots their target, but he disappears.
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“My connection’s bad so I’ll be quick, the guy you’re looking for is an ex-commando or some asshole. He killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handedly,” Tony tells the men, who can’t hear him because, once again, they’re lost in the woods. “He works for the interior ministry. He’s some kind of Russian green beret. This guy can’t come back to tell the tale.”
Paulie, who only heard half of the conversation, thought the man they were looking for “killed 16 Czechoslovakians and was an interior decorator.” Christopher, who delivered the best line of the entire episode, replied, “His house looks like s–t.”
Anyway, the two got lost in the woods and Tony eventually came and rescued them. The Russian? He was never found.
While one might assume that filming in the woods would be the most difficult part for the cast and crew of The Sopranos, Sirico’s hair was actually the biggest problem.
Several notable A-list actors made surprise cameos on ‘The Sopranos’ “One of the aspects of the episode is that when you first see Paulie, he’s perfectly groomed and getting a manicure,” writer Terence Winter said in the documentary Wise Guy, which premiered on HBO on Saturday, September 7. “The whole idea is that he’s absolutely the worst version of himself by the end of the episode. He’s a complete mess.”
The writer told the late Sirico, who died in 2022, that his hair couldn’t be perfect.
“He said, ‘I’m not going to ruin my hair,'” Winter recalled, finally convincing the actor that he had no choice. “That’s the only time you ever see Tony Sirico with his hair like that.”
