I have not appreciated the humour of the Sopranos until the most recent three episodes which had me in quiet fits of laughter throughout. They begin with episode 35 in season three on Carmela’s birthday when her son gives her a DVD of the Matrix which dad comments as being right up her alley while the daughter fares no better using her Mother’s credit card to buy them both a gift certificate for a day’s relaxation and beauty treatment at a spa.
The three episodes The Telltale Moozadell (Italian slang for mozzarella cheese and the Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Tell Tale Heart) To Save us all from Satan’s Power (God Rest you Merry Gentleman) and Pines Barrens (Protected New Jersey Wilderness and covers a quarter of the land mass of the state) are spread over either side of Christmas with heavy snow covering the Pines in the third of the series.
Tony begins in an excellent mood buying an expensive but gaudy sapphire ring for his wife’s birthday and who appears to have no inkling that he is having another of his great passions with the Mercedes Motor Sales firm executive, Gloria Trillo, who he met at the Psycho Analyst office when there was a double booking and who in a session with Dr. Melfi and unbeknown to Tony, has a suicidal past as well as a tendency towards having unhealthy relationships. They both hint to Dr Melfi they are in an important relationship and when the doctor works out the two are together they both react with hostility when she reminds them of their history of disastrous relationships. She has one joint session with Tony and Carmela and notes that they both appear able to talk over matters without becoming angry and frustrated with each other which pleases them both but afterwards Dr Melfi fumes to her consultant about patients who lie to her.
Tony denies he is presenting situation is a false one despite being remind what happened in relation to the Russian girlfriend, and who rings him at the boat when Gloria is waiting for him. Using the boat is one indication of how much he is smitten as until now he has avoided visiting because it reminds of when he took Pussy out to swim with the fishes. To Gloria’s amazement he accepts an invitation to visit the zoo forgoing an afternoon of bedtime pleasure although they end up having a quickie under a canopy in the reptile house oblivious to a giant serpent entangling above their heads.
All appears to go well until one evening when he skimps his food at home claiming he had a late lunch because he has promised to have a meal in with the mistress and then he has to leave because of a crisis caused by one of his Captains and Christopher and when she throws the main course at him and trashes the carefully lain table top settings. Tony denies to Dr Melfi that he has an inclination to go for depressed woman who seek to control him and their association with his mother, Livia. Tony is feeling so good that he gives additional fee money to Dr Melfi which she refuses and he tells her to give to charity if she wishes. Her son phones on the cadge for more funds because he needs expensive text books so she swallows principles and uses the criminals stolen money to help her son. She has become another corrupted soul.
Carmela still oblivious to Tony’s behaviour tells a friend that Tony has changed his mind about getting a Mercedes Sport car saying that these are bought by men having a midlife crisis.
Where Tony and his wife agree is over the unsuitability of their daughter’s relationship with the son of Jackie Aprile. When his wife first raises the concern Tony defends the young man but over the three episodes his eyes are opened. He finds the young man in a gambling joint and then when he goes to visit the sex bar of the opposition for a night out with two of the boys he catches the young man fooling around with a topless dancer. He beats up Jackie Junior during which he finds he young man is carrying a piece
Jackie had arrange for a gun after an incident involving one of his associated drug pushers and a new joint The Lollipop Club which has been taken over by Christopher and the mob when its owner fails to keep up with protection payments/gambling debts because the place is dying on its feet. Christopher gives the club to his girl friend Adriana to manage, and she renames it The Crazy Horse. Christopher tells her that she will be the owner-manager and that the previous owner will work for her, as he broke himself financially betting on a football game and had to give up his business as a result. Furio Giunta and Christopher own a percentage as "silent partners"
Christopher also sees the club as an opportunity for the gang to run their business in a safe environment without FBI interference. However, at the opening, a drug dealer named Matush is caught pushing Ecstasy and is kicked out and told not to return. The pusher appeals to Jackie Jnr who is trying to appear a big man with his friends but when he approaches Christopher to make allowances, for a cut, he is told no and instead of admitting his failure he tells Matush he can go ahead but do so outside the club for a couple of weeks.
Matush is then badly beaten up by Furio when caught peddling outside the club and put into traction over the Christmas period. Knowing that if this gets back to Tony he gets his mother’s new man, the gangster Ralphie, to get him the gun. Over Christmas Jnr admits he was sent down from College. Previously he had said he was getting an A grade in literature because Meadow had written his paper. He had given Meadow an engraved necklace saying I will always be true. However it is not Tony’s efforts which end the relationship but Meadow, when she finds Jnr with another girl following a tip off.
Tony sister Janice, has decided that after spending Christmas’s with Carmela over several years, she wants to cook Christmas dinner for the family but when Tony and Carmela go over to help with the preparations they find chaos because Janice is finding it difficult to do anything because of the pain in her arm following the incident when a Russian came over to retrieve the expensive artificial leg belonging to Livia’s nurse. Tony has a list of things to do in his note book and adds The Russian. Arising from his trip to Italy Tony is doing deals with the Russians over the expensive car thefts and recycling and also laundering money by the hundreds of thousand dollars. He asks a favour to locate the Russian who has caused Janice ongoing pain for him but says he will sort the man out when his partners offer to do the damage. They pose as revellers and take the taxi the man has for his official living and later we see a news video of the man beaten up and left and a sleigh in the window of a store in a shopping mall. Janice understands this will have been Tony’s work and is moved by her brother’s gesture despite they way they are constantly at each others throats, verbally.
If Meadow has taxed her parents, their son AJ has driven them to despair. He persuades them to let him have a sleep over with a friend after attending Carmela’s birthday party but later we find him and friends having broken into their high school pool eating Pizza, yes clue to the first episode title. When they are finished swimming, they break into an office and throw papers and contents into the pool, and then they smash the large several shelf glass door covered trophy cabinet. The police are able to trace the culprit through the special pizza order box left behind. The pizza parlour owner is hesitant to reveal the name of the individual for fear of reprisals but after being threatened with police action.
A J’s parent are horrified and say he will be lucky not be expelled and can expect to be kicked out of the sports team. This appears the situation when they visit the Principal with their son. However in part because they have financially contributed to the school, in part because who they are, and that AJ is doing well in class and is an important member of the football team they let him off with a final warning and leave punishment to the parents. They are just as horrified with this thinking their authority has been undermined. They ground AJ for a month and make him do jobs including clearing the guttering of leaves. He has to be shown what a gutter is!
The Christmas Season episode To Save us from Satan’s Power has the mob trying to get one of their number of dress up as Father Christmas and give presents out to local children. The problem is that the role was carried out by Pussy. Tony was already affected when on the New Jersey Boardwalk he remembered sending Pussy to swim with the fishes. At Christmas Meadow gives up one of the singing fishes Big Mouth Billy Bass. Mine sings Be Happy. They select the giant Bobby Bascala because of his weight and finds he can use the outfit worn my Pussy and realise he had been wearing a write hence some of his questions about work on the day of the present giving. Bobby is no good as Santa so they propose to send him to Santa school for next year
In the third episode, Tony asks Paulie and Christopher to collect $5000 from an associate of the Russian mob, Valery, in Fair Lawn. Because Paulie resents being told to do the job when he is otherwise occupied he picks a quarrel with the Russian destroying his universal remote control by dropping it, feigning it as an accident. Valery insults Paulie, prompting him to attack the seated Russian. Christopher had tried to stop Paulie from acting out, but he jumps in on Paulie's side. The three men fight, and eventually Paulie chokes Valery with a floor lamp, severely injuring him and apparently cracking his wind pipe so that he appears dead. The situation causes the two to panic and they wrap Valery in a carpet before wheeling him out to their car. While trying to figure out what to do with the body, Paulie suggests that they take it to the Pine Barrens, as it will be deserted and is in close proximity to Atlantic City. Christopher, who has not yet eaten, wants to stop for breakfast but Paulie insists that business must come first, and will soon be completed.
In the woods, Christopher and Paulie open the trunk to find that Valery is still alive and has chewed through the duct tape. They lift him out of the car, present him with a shovel and force him to dig his own grave. When the pair are distracted, Valery smacks them with the shovel, delivering a brutal blow to Christopher's head and a jab to Paulie's groin before fleeing. Christopher and Paulie draw their guns and give chase, but are amazed when Paulie shoots Valery, clearly hitting part of his head, and the Russian immediately gets up and runs into the woods. They try to track his blood and footprints in the snow but are eventually left with no clues. Still on the hunt, the pair hear something and run, firing some shots. Paulie slips down a slope and loses his shoe. They discover that they killed a deer. They try to return to Paulie's car but cannot find it, and soon realize that they are lost in the woods. Paulie uses his cell phone to call Tony for help, but communication is limited by poor reception, interference and crosstalk.
Tony learns from Valery's boss and best friend, Slava, that, although he has developed substance abuse problems since, Valery was previously in the Russian Ministry of the Interior's Special Forces and once killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed. However, the poor phone signal between Tony and Paulie results in a mix-up: Paulie passes the message on that Valery killed 16 Czechoslovaks and he's an interior decorator, to which Christopher replies, "His house looked like shit." As the night draws nearer, the lost, shivering pair become more desperate to find their way to food and warmth.
Sometime later, Tony fails to show up on time at a dinner Tony gets a call from Paulie telling him to come and get them as they may be dying of hypothermia, starvation, or even injury to Paulie's shoeless foot. Left with no option, he tells Gloria that he has to leave for an emergency and can't eat, causing her to become extremely angry. She throws a cooked steak at Tony, who suppresses his annoyance by laughing off the situation and leaves to help his associates, as Gloria trashes the laden table setting.
Paulie and Christopher manage to find an abandoned plumber's van, where they spend the rest of the night. For warmth, Paulie rips up the van's carpet and he and Christopher share packets of frozen ketchup and relish from an old Nathan's bag. Later, Christopher is seen clumsily trying to light a fire using sticks. When Christopher, standing outside the van urinating, blames Paulie for the predicament and accuses him of trying to save himself at Christopher's expense, the two have an angry confrontation. Christopher claims Paulie was planning to choke him to death when he slept. Paulie then attacks Christopher and begins choking him, so Christopher pulls a gun on Paulie, saying he thinks Paulie was conjuring up a plan to murder him. He had overheard Paulie blaming the whole fiasco on Christopher when speaking to Tony over the phone. Christopher then angrily says he'll leave Paulie out in the woods. After a few moments of tension, Christopher breaks down in laughter, realizing how ridiculous the thought of their killing each other is, given the severity of the current situation. Paulie tells Christopher to promise not to leave him, and also says he would never kill Christopher.
Tony asks Bobby Bacala, a skilled outdoorsman, to help him find Paulie and Christopher. He shows up dressed far too appropriately, wearing over-the-top outdoor/hunting gear and resents the ensuing ridicule, especially after being called to help at such an inconvenient time. Driving to the Barrens, the two share their first friendly moment when Tony apologizes for making fun of Bobby, and expresses gratitude for his taking care of Uncle Junior. Bobby tries to make a joke but it is embarrassingly juvenile and stale, to the point where Tony can't even begin to feign amusement. Arriving at the woods, they park in the same spot where Paulie and Christopher parked, Paulie's car is gone. Tony and Bobby holler for a response, but realize that they will have to wait until dawn.
In the daylight, Tony and Bobby are out searching for Paulie and Christopher, who have left the van and continue to struggle some distance away. 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, calling for Paulie and Christopher. They respond and soon meet up with one another. Paulie and Christopher are grateful they have been found and climb into Tony's Chevrolet Suburban, where there are food and drinks, but Tony is clearly irritated with Paulie for getting him into such a predicament with Slava and for losing the original target of their mission: Silvio's $5,000, which was in Paulie's car.
The four men wonder whether Valery took Paulie's car. When Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, Christopher backs him up. Tony tells Paulie to take responsibility for any trouble created by Valery's disappearance or potential re-emergence, and to make an executive decision about whether or not to further pursue Valery, as Paulie holds the position of caporegime and should have to take responsibility. Paulie decides to give up and head back home to North Jersey.
Valery's fate is unclear. He was possibly killed by Paulie's shot, but as the two men search, the camera suddenly pulls back and up, showing a viewpoint looking down on the two gangsters, possibly implying that Valery is watching them from high up in a tree. Paulie's car is missing and possibly stolen by him. Valery is never seen again (on-screen) for the remainder of the series. David Chase has said in the past that the episode was not intended to evolve into a story arc. HBO's promotional material lists him as dead, although it does so with a question mark.
On the fate of the Russian, Terence Winter said:That's the question I get asked more than any other. It drives people crazy: 'Where's the Russian? What happened to the Russian?' We could say, 'Well, he got out and there's a big mob war with the Russians,' or 'He crawled off and died.' But we wanted to keep it ambiguous. You know, not everything gets answered in life.
David Chase said: They shot a guy. Who knows where he went? Who cares about some Russian? This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it.
The three episodes The Telltale Moozadell (Italian slang for mozzarella cheese and the Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Tell Tale Heart) To Save us all from Satan’s Power (God Rest you Merry Gentleman) and Pines Barrens (Protected New Jersey Wilderness and covers a quarter of the land mass of the state) are spread over either side of Christmas with heavy snow covering the Pines in the third of the series.
Tony begins in an excellent mood buying an expensive but gaudy sapphire ring for his wife’s birthday and who appears to have no inkling that he is having another of his great passions with the Mercedes Motor Sales firm executive, Gloria Trillo, who he met at the Psycho Analyst office when there was a double booking and who in a session with Dr. Melfi and unbeknown to Tony, has a suicidal past as well as a tendency towards having unhealthy relationships. They both hint to Dr Melfi they are in an important relationship and when the doctor works out the two are together they both react with hostility when she reminds them of their history of disastrous relationships. She has one joint session with Tony and Carmela and notes that they both appear able to talk over matters without becoming angry and frustrated with each other which pleases them both but afterwards Dr Melfi fumes to her consultant about patients who lie to her.
Tony denies he is presenting situation is a false one despite being remind what happened in relation to the Russian girlfriend, and who rings him at the boat when Gloria is waiting for him. Using the boat is one indication of how much he is smitten as until now he has avoided visiting because it reminds of when he took Pussy out to swim with the fishes. To Gloria’s amazement he accepts an invitation to visit the zoo forgoing an afternoon of bedtime pleasure although they end up having a quickie under a canopy in the reptile house oblivious to a giant serpent entangling above their heads.
All appears to go well until one evening when he skimps his food at home claiming he had a late lunch because he has promised to have a meal in with the mistress and then he has to leave because of a crisis caused by one of his Captains and Christopher and when she throws the main course at him and trashes the carefully lain table top settings. Tony denies to Dr Melfi that he has an inclination to go for depressed woman who seek to control him and their association with his mother, Livia. Tony is feeling so good that he gives additional fee money to Dr Melfi which she refuses and he tells her to give to charity if she wishes. Her son phones on the cadge for more funds because he needs expensive text books so she swallows principles and uses the criminals stolen money to help her son. She has become another corrupted soul.
Carmela still oblivious to Tony’s behaviour tells a friend that Tony has changed his mind about getting a Mercedes Sport car saying that these are bought by men having a midlife crisis.
Where Tony and his wife agree is over the unsuitability of their daughter’s relationship with the son of Jackie Aprile. When his wife first raises the concern Tony defends the young man but over the three episodes his eyes are opened. He finds the young man in a gambling joint and then when he goes to visit the sex bar of the opposition for a night out with two of the boys he catches the young man fooling around with a topless dancer. He beats up Jackie Junior during which he finds he young man is carrying a piece
Jackie had arrange for a gun after an incident involving one of his associated drug pushers and a new joint The Lollipop Club which has been taken over by Christopher and the mob when its owner fails to keep up with protection payments/gambling debts because the place is dying on its feet. Christopher gives the club to his girl friend Adriana to manage, and she renames it The Crazy Horse. Christopher tells her that she will be the owner-manager and that the previous owner will work for her, as he broke himself financially betting on a football game and had to give up his business as a result. Furio Giunta and Christopher own a percentage as "silent partners"
Christopher also sees the club as an opportunity for the gang to run their business in a safe environment without FBI interference. However, at the opening, a drug dealer named Matush is caught pushing Ecstasy and is kicked out and told not to return. The pusher appeals to Jackie Jnr who is trying to appear a big man with his friends but when he approaches Christopher to make allowances, for a cut, he is told no and instead of admitting his failure he tells Matush he can go ahead but do so outside the club for a couple of weeks.
Matush is then badly beaten up by Furio when caught peddling outside the club and put into traction over the Christmas period. Knowing that if this gets back to Tony he gets his mother’s new man, the gangster Ralphie, to get him the gun. Over Christmas Jnr admits he was sent down from College. Previously he had said he was getting an A grade in literature because Meadow had written his paper. He had given Meadow an engraved necklace saying I will always be true. However it is not Tony’s efforts which end the relationship but Meadow, when she finds Jnr with another girl following a tip off.
Tony sister Janice, has decided that after spending Christmas’s with Carmela over several years, she wants to cook Christmas dinner for the family but when Tony and Carmela go over to help with the preparations they find chaos because Janice is finding it difficult to do anything because of the pain in her arm following the incident when a Russian came over to retrieve the expensive artificial leg belonging to Livia’s nurse. Tony has a list of things to do in his note book and adds The Russian. Arising from his trip to Italy Tony is doing deals with the Russians over the expensive car thefts and recycling and also laundering money by the hundreds of thousand dollars. He asks a favour to locate the Russian who has caused Janice ongoing pain for him but says he will sort the man out when his partners offer to do the damage. They pose as revellers and take the taxi the man has for his official living and later we see a news video of the man beaten up and left and a sleigh in the window of a store in a shopping mall. Janice understands this will have been Tony’s work and is moved by her brother’s gesture despite they way they are constantly at each others throats, verbally.
If Meadow has taxed her parents, their son AJ has driven them to despair. He persuades them to let him have a sleep over with a friend after attending Carmela’s birthday party but later we find him and friends having broken into their high school pool eating Pizza, yes clue to the first episode title. When they are finished swimming, they break into an office and throw papers and contents into the pool, and then they smash the large several shelf glass door covered trophy cabinet. The police are able to trace the culprit through the special pizza order box left behind. The pizza parlour owner is hesitant to reveal the name of the individual for fear of reprisals but after being threatened with police action.
A J’s parent are horrified and say he will be lucky not be expelled and can expect to be kicked out of the sports team. This appears the situation when they visit the Principal with their son. However in part because they have financially contributed to the school, in part because who they are, and that AJ is doing well in class and is an important member of the football team they let him off with a final warning and leave punishment to the parents. They are just as horrified with this thinking their authority has been undermined. They ground AJ for a month and make him do jobs including clearing the guttering of leaves. He has to be shown what a gutter is!
The Christmas Season episode To Save us from Satan’s Power has the mob trying to get one of their number of dress up as Father Christmas and give presents out to local children. The problem is that the role was carried out by Pussy. Tony was already affected when on the New Jersey Boardwalk he remembered sending Pussy to swim with the fishes. At Christmas Meadow gives up one of the singing fishes Big Mouth Billy Bass. Mine sings Be Happy. They select the giant Bobby Bascala because of his weight and finds he can use the outfit worn my Pussy and realise he had been wearing a write hence some of his questions about work on the day of the present giving. Bobby is no good as Santa so they propose to send him to Santa school for next year
In the third episode, Tony asks Paulie and Christopher to collect $5000 from an associate of the Russian mob, Valery, in Fair Lawn. Because Paulie resents being told to do the job when he is otherwise occupied he picks a quarrel with the Russian destroying his universal remote control by dropping it, feigning it as an accident. Valery insults Paulie, prompting him to attack the seated Russian. Christopher had tried to stop Paulie from acting out, but he jumps in on Paulie's side. The three men fight, and eventually Paulie chokes Valery with a floor lamp, severely injuring him and apparently cracking his wind pipe so that he appears dead. The situation causes the two to panic and they wrap Valery in a carpet before wheeling him out to their car. While trying to figure out what to do with the body, Paulie suggests that they take it to the Pine Barrens, as it will be deserted and is in close proximity to Atlantic City. Christopher, who has not yet eaten, wants to stop for breakfast but Paulie insists that business must come first, and will soon be completed.
In the woods, Christopher and Paulie open the trunk to find that Valery is still alive and has chewed through the duct tape. They lift him out of the car, present him with a shovel and force him to dig his own grave. When the pair are distracted, Valery smacks them with the shovel, delivering a brutal blow to Christopher's head and a jab to Paulie's groin before fleeing. Christopher and Paulie draw their guns and give chase, but are amazed when Paulie shoots Valery, clearly hitting part of his head, and the Russian immediately gets up and runs into the woods. They try to track his blood and footprints in the snow but are eventually left with no clues. Still on the hunt, the pair hear something and run, firing some shots. Paulie slips down a slope and loses his shoe. They discover that they killed a deer. They try to return to Paulie's car but cannot find it, and soon realize that they are lost in the woods. Paulie uses his cell phone to call Tony for help, but communication is limited by poor reception, interference and crosstalk.
Tony learns from Valery's boss and best friend, Slava, that, although he has developed substance abuse problems since, Valery was previously in the Russian Ministry of the Interior's Special Forces and once killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed. However, the poor phone signal between Tony and Paulie results in a mix-up: Paulie passes the message on that Valery killed 16 Czechoslovaks and he's an interior decorator, to which Christopher replies, "His house looked like shit." As the night draws nearer, the lost, shivering pair become more desperate to find their way to food and warmth.
Sometime later, Tony fails to show up on time at a dinner Tony gets a call from Paulie telling him to come and get them as they may be dying of hypothermia, starvation, or even injury to Paulie's shoeless foot. Left with no option, he tells Gloria that he has to leave for an emergency and can't eat, causing her to become extremely angry. She throws a cooked steak at Tony, who suppresses his annoyance by laughing off the situation and leaves to help his associates, as Gloria trashes the laden table setting.
Paulie and Christopher manage to find an abandoned plumber's van, where they spend the rest of the night. For warmth, Paulie rips up the van's carpet and he and Christopher share packets of frozen ketchup and relish from an old Nathan's bag. Later, Christopher is seen clumsily trying to light a fire using sticks. When Christopher, standing outside the van urinating, blames Paulie for the predicament and accuses him of trying to save himself at Christopher's expense, the two have an angry confrontation. Christopher claims Paulie was planning to choke him to death when he slept. Paulie then attacks Christopher and begins choking him, so Christopher pulls a gun on Paulie, saying he thinks Paulie was conjuring up a plan to murder him. He had overheard Paulie blaming the whole fiasco on Christopher when speaking to Tony over the phone. Christopher then angrily says he'll leave Paulie out in the woods. After a few moments of tension, Christopher breaks down in laughter, realizing how ridiculous the thought of their killing each other is, given the severity of the current situation. Paulie tells Christopher to promise not to leave him, and also says he would never kill Christopher.
Tony asks Bobby Bacala, a skilled outdoorsman, to help him find Paulie and Christopher. He shows up dressed far too appropriately, wearing over-the-top outdoor/hunting gear and resents the ensuing ridicule, especially after being called to help at such an inconvenient time. Driving to the Barrens, the two share their first friendly moment when Tony apologizes for making fun of Bobby, and expresses gratitude for his taking care of Uncle Junior. Bobby tries to make a joke but it is embarrassingly juvenile and stale, to the point where Tony can't even begin to feign amusement. Arriving at the woods, they park in the same spot where Paulie and Christopher parked, Paulie's car is gone. Tony and Bobby holler for a response, but realize that they will have to wait until dawn.
In the daylight, Tony and Bobby are out searching for Paulie and Christopher, who have left the van and continue to struggle some distance away. 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, calling for Paulie and Christopher. They respond and soon meet up with one another. Paulie and Christopher are grateful they have been found and climb into Tony's Chevrolet Suburban, where there are food and drinks, but Tony is clearly irritated with Paulie for getting him into such a predicament with Slava and for losing the original target of their mission: Silvio's $5,000, which was in Paulie's car.
The four men wonder whether Valery took Paulie's car. When Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, Christopher backs him up. Tony tells Paulie to take responsibility for any trouble created by Valery's disappearance or potential re-emergence, and to make an executive decision about whether or not to further pursue Valery, as Paulie holds the position of caporegime and should have to take responsibility. Paulie decides to give up and head back home to North Jersey.
Valery's fate is unclear. He was possibly killed by Paulie's shot, but as the two men search, the camera suddenly pulls back and up, showing a viewpoint looking down on the two gangsters, possibly implying that Valery is watching them from high up in a tree. Paulie's car is missing and possibly stolen by him. Valery is never seen again (on-screen) for the remainder of the series. David Chase has said in the past that the episode was not intended to evolve into a story arc. HBO's promotional material lists him as dead, although it does so with a question mark.
On the fate of the Russian, Terence Winter said:That's the question I get asked more than any other. It drives people crazy: 'Where's the Russian? What happened to the Russian?' We could say, 'Well, he got out and there's a big mob war with the Russians,' or 'He crawled off and died.' But we wanted to keep it ambiguous. You know, not everything gets answered in life.
David Chase said: They shot a guy. Who knows where he went? Who cares about some Russian? This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it.
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