These are North Jersey guys, so that in itself is hilarious. Steve Schirripa (Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri): Oh my God, they’re in Southern Jersey. And of course it was Tim’s story, so he and I shared story credit.Ĭhase: The idea of Chris and Paulie-who on some level hated each other-trapped in the woods together, I could just tell it would be something you could mine. Winter: We put a pin in it and then as we plotted out Season 3, I ended up writing it. Let’s do it next year.”Ĭhase: It seemed like it would be very entertaining. And I might not have responded except to laugh at it, and then he told Terry. You’ve got to go pitch that to David immediately.”ĭavid Chase ( The Sopranos creator): All I remember is Tim telling me about it. Winter: I said, “That’s a great fucking idea. So, I was lying in bed and I sort of half-dreamed this idea. It was a spooky place with a kind of magic in it. He’d tell us these crazy stories about the Jersey Devil-half man and half beast-living in there. On the way down, he’d always try to make an adventure out of it, so we’d stop off at the Pine Barrens. Tim Van Patten (writer/director, to author Brett Martin ): My father was a horse player and he used to take me and my brother to Atlantic City. Tim came in and said, “I had a dream about a story but it’s really stupid.” I said, “Well, what is it? It can’t be any stupider than what we’re talking about.” He said, “I had a dream that Paulie and Christopher got lost in the woods after trying to kill somebody, then they couldn’t get out.” He and I were sitting in the writers’ room alone at the time and just talking and trying to cough up story ideas. Terence Winter (writer): Todd Kessler was another writer on the show. The story of “Pine Barrens” actually began during the planning of The Sopranos ’ second season, when director Tim Van Patten had a nightmare so vivid that he thought it might make good fodder for the show. “It’s the ultimate fish-out-of-water story.” Part 1: “Just Don’t Fuck This Up” “Guys who seem to always be in control-or think they’re in control-of their lives, suddenly being in the woods, lose all power and ability to dictate their own fate,” says Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher. Like in real life, mysteries often went unsolved. But back in the early aughts, no TV drama possessed as much coglioni as The Sopranos, which even before its ambiguous finale, had little interest in clean endings. “His house looked like shit,” Christopher responds, fully serious.) And it is also shorthand for the type of one-off showstopper that small-screen auteurs now periodically attempt to pull off. Guy was an interior decorator,” Paulie says at one point, referring to the elusive man in question. On top of being one of the most memorable episodes of The Sopranos, “Pine Barrens” is possibly the funniest. It was just a really different way to spend an hour.” “It was a totally new location for all these characters and more or less a self-contained episode. “It was very much a departure for the series,” says Sopranos writer-producer Terence Winter. Yet 20 years after “Pine Barrens” first aired, the duo’s evening out in the cold is what fans remember most. And the episode’s B- and C-plots, one involving Tony Soprano’s tumultuous love life, are far more consequential to the overall narrative than the two wiseguys’ misadventure. The fate of their target is never revealed. The men who venture deep into the Garden State’s tree-covered expanse, Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri and Christopher Moltisanti, learn no lessons. “It has a fairy tale quality.”īut unlike a fairy tale, there’s no moral. “In the woods, in the snow,” says David Chase, the show’s creator. The 11th episode of the show’s third season, “Pine Barrens” is a cross between an anti-buddy comedy and a living nightmare at once hilarious, absurdist, and terrifying. But two decades ago, it was avant-garde, even for a television series as radical as The Sopranos. Today, it’s the kind of premise that a studio might instantly green-light as a budget-conscious horror movie. They bond, bicker, and threaten each other, until they’re finally rescued in the light of the next morning. As day turns into night and cold turns into much colder, the gangsters give up their search and go into survival mode. Then he vanishes, leaving only a trail of blood. Two mobsters chase a seemingly invincible man through the South Jersey forest. In May 2021, The Ringer published this oral history on one of the show’s most beloved episodes (and one of Sirico’s most renowned performances), “Pine Barrens.” Editor’s note, July 8, 2022: On Friday, actor Tony Sirico, who played Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri on The Sopranos, died at age 79.
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