Analyze these sentences:
He had told me that before I went into the store
He told me that before I went into the store.
Does the past perfect had told in the first sentence become unecessary considering that I have a subordinate clause "before I went... that already implies that something else happened before another action (in this case, the independent clause "He told me.." happened before the subordinate clause).
So, what is the point in using the past perfect there since the function of the past perfect is to express something that happened before another past action?
Is it unecessary?