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***OFFICIAL*** Boardwalk Empire thread (2 Viewers)

I've watched the last 5 minutes of last season's finale (i.e. Harrow's "homecoming") probably 10 times or more. something about it just gets me. such powerful and sad imagery. :cry:

 
Maik Jeaunz said:
I've watched the last 5 minutes of last season's finale (i.e. Harrow's "homecoming") probably 10 times or more. something about it just gets me. such powerful and sad imagery. :cry:
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And there lies the problem for all to see. There is so much to BE that everyone loves including myself. None of it is the central story with Nucky Thompson at the lead.

Harrow - unreal character and fantastic story, even when he went grand theft auto.

AR - perfect casting. Very interesting.

Capone - owns the screen every time he's on it.

Michael Shannon - when they didn't leave him out in the wind his screen time was fantastic.

Chalky - wasn't a fan of dragging in the family but MKW is such a good actor.

Charley/Lansky always entertaining anyway.

I'd watch a show dedicated to any one of these guys.

Now let's look at the centeral characters

Nucky - zzzzzzz

Margaret - outside of season 1 just shoot me in the face

The children - total joke

Jimmy - ok now we onto something. Unfortunately he was such a Richard the whole team wanted him written off. The second he dies they should have ended the show.

Jimmy's mom - I still can't figure out why she was on the show.

The Irish guy - probably could have been a great character but they had to waste him on Margaret.

Eli - probably the only centeral character anyone cares about.

So you got a show with some of the best side stories in a HBO show attached to a rotten corpse of centeral characters.

 
Well. Looks like we got a bit of a clean slate. In some ways that exactly what this show needed........ three seasons ago.

So it was Meyer and Charlie who put a hit out on Nucky. Now we get 7 episodes of cat and mouse.

 
Winter told me he wanted to bring the story of both Nucky and the series full circle, and "Golden Days for Boys and Girls" begins that process in more ways than one. Not only do we leap forward to 1931 to see Nucky preparing for the potential end of Prohibition (just as the series began in the hours leading up to the implementation of the Volstead Act), but we jump back in time to 1884, to the beginning of Nucky's apprenticeship with the Commodore.Now, the issue with "Boardwalk" has always been that Nucky is among the show's less compelling characters. When he has a strong co-lead (Jimmy in seasons 1 and 2, Chalky last year), he can work very well as the more reserved and thoughtful counterpart to that man. On his own — and Nucky is very much on his own at this point, even though he and Sally are getting along just fine — he becomes too inwardly-focused for a show with so many outsized characters, both real and fictional. So in pairing Nucky's attempt to end his criminal career with flashbacks to its very start, Winter, Howard Korder and company are doubling down on a guy many viewers would rather see hanging in the background in favor of Chalky, Narcisse, Lansky, or the motley bunch in Chicago.

That said, I found myself liking the flashbacks — and not just for the novelty of John Ellison Conlee sounding eerily like Dabney Coleman at times as the young Commodore. Nucky and Eli have talked a lot about their awful childhood, but seeing it adds new depth and shading to their difficult upbringing. In particular, I like Ian Hart a lot as the young Ethan Thompson. We met the crotchety senior citizen version of Ethan in the show's first few seasons, and we've heard Nucky talk about what a monster the old man was, but Hart's performance and the writing manage to find both the man within the monster and vice versa. He's not just a cartoonish abuser who comes in yelling and smacking everyone in sight. He lets young Enoch tell the whole story of the ceremony at the pier and the coins he failed to secure, seems even tender for a moment, and then goes in for the brutal smack, knowing that Nucky will simply take it as part of the lesson, that his wife (caring for their dying daughter, and clearly afraid of Ethan) won't say anything, etc. We'll see if these flashbacks ultimately make us care more about Nucky, but it's a promising start, and it's good to have a functioning boardwalk set again after the show lost its lease on the original set after season 2.

In any era, and any location, Tim Van Patten continues to shoot the hell out of this show, and I liked seeing the transitions not only from present to past, but from the bright opulence of Nucky's decadent Havana lifestyle and the grim, grey world that Chalky has descended into over the past seven years. We get no explanation for how he wound up in prison (whether for the business with Narcisse or something later), and he says very little over the course of the hour, but exposition is unnecessary. Michael Kenneth Williams' face says all we need to know about how far Chalky has fallen and how much he hates himself for the mistakes that led to this point.

By jumping ahead to 1931, we lose the organized crime convention that the real Nucky Johnson set up in 1929 (assuming Winter ever had plans to dramatize it, given how far the stories of the two Nuckys have diverged), but we land in a major year for the stories of the wiseguys and of the illegal liquor trade. Nucky knows Prohibition is on the way out, and is trying to buy an influential senator's vote as part of his retirement plan. Lucky Luciano, meanwhile, finally gets out from under the unyielding thumb of Joe Masseria(*), though for the moment he seems to have simply traded one godfather for another by jumping over to work with Salvatore Maranzano. And even in a more reputable business — even if it's just as rotten as bootlegging — like the brokerage house where Margaret still works, the Great Depression has taken a heavy toll, and one that drives her boss to a very public suicide.

(*) Luciano actually being at the restaurant when Bugsy Siegel and others assassinate Masseria seems to be a case of "Boardwalk Empire" printing the legend rather than the fact. (Most historical accounts dispute the tall tales about Lucano being present.) But for dramatic purposes, it's necessary to have him there, given how conflicted he's been about the relationship with Masseria for much of the run of the series.

As always happens at the start of a "Boardwalk" season, "Golden Days for Boys and Girls" is almost entirely set-up, albeit with a few memorable pieces of action like Chalky's escape from the chain gang, Masseria's murder and the failed hit on Nucky in Havana. Given that Nucky, love him or hate him, is our central character, the most pivotal event of the hour takes place back in 1884, when he gives the $50 bill back to the rich man and only gets a job sweeping sand out of it. You can look at that as a big bet that fails, or as Nucky — like "Boardwalk Empire" itself — playing the long game. That's an enormous amount of money (over $1200 in today's dollars) for a poverty-stricken kid like Nucky to give up. But he knows — even if the Commodore refuses to acknowledge it — that there's much more money to be made over the long haul from becoming part of the Commodore's machine than there was in that hat. And we know from where we found Nucky at the start of the series that the gamble paid off enormously, even if Nucky's bottomless need for more kept bringing him frequent physical and financial peril.

Will the various stories introduced here pay off as well for us in the audience as Nucky's gamble did? We'll see, especially with a shorter season to play with. But after the previous four seasons all ended so well — and almost always made the slow early parts of those years feel rewarding in hindsight — I've learned not to bet against this show.

Some other thoughts:

* It's good to still have Patricia Arquette around as Sally, and to see that the nature of her relationship with Nucky hasn't changed much in seven years. They still enjoy each other's company and are good business partners, but neither has any illusions that this is some great romance.

* The flashbacks introduce us to several familiar HBO actors, including Ian Hart (one of the degenerate gamblers from "Luck") as Nucky's father Ethan, and Boris McGiver (the odious Lt. Marimow from "The Wire") as the sheriff. Meanwhile, that's Nolan Lyons as young Nucky.

* Character actor Paul Calderon makes an early impression as the quiet bodyguard who foils the attack on Nucky and takes an ear as a trophy. With Jimmy, Owen and Richard Harrow long dead, the show could use some interesting muscle, and Calderon seems to fit the bill nicely.

* By far the biggest downside to the time jump: we lose Arnold Rothstein, who was murdered in 1928 (allegedly over a poker debt). Though Margaret's business arrangement with "Mr. Redstone" has been over for three years, it's clear she has a reason to try to access the Redstone file before her bosses can do it.

* Absent this week: Narcisse, Gillian, Mickey Doyle and the show's Chicago contingent. Always a juggling act with an ensemble this big and widespread.
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I didn't realize seven years had elapsed since last season on the show. Watching the first episode I almost stopped and watched last season's finale. May have to watch the both of them again.

Perhaps Eli and Shannon's character have come up in the world and will butt head's with Nucky in the end. As well as Chalky going after Narcisse.

 
Maybe Sons of Anarchy is onto something. At least people are looking forward to the trainwreck that is the final season. Doesn't seem like anyone cares about this show anymore.

 
:thumbup: at the Masseria murder and the moment Maranzano announced to the 5 families that he's the Boss of All Bosses.

 
Took me a while to figure out that wasn't Dabney Coleman as the Commodore. Good casting and acting by that guy.

I'm not even sure I remember what was going on leading up to the premier, but being 7 years later it probably doesn't matter anymore, if it did at all.

 
Really good episode. It's hard for me to watch and not think of all the wasted chances they had with thsi show though especially when I see Margaret's face.

 
Apart from a few notable exceptions (and I don't mean Buscemi - I think he's doing a good job with the character/material he's given), the acting in this show is so good. It's a shame they wasted the last two seasons on Gyp and Narcisse - they really blew it there.

 
good start to the season. I actually liked all the flashback stuff to when Nuck was a kid.

I'll miss Rothstein though, all his scenes were money.

 
Character development of a major character in the final season? True blood did the same thing with Bill compton this season :lmao:

 
shadyridr said:
Character development of a major character in the final season? True blood did the same thing with Bill compton this season :lmao:
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Hello! Exactly!

People saying this Nucky backstory is so great and I agree.... But I should have happened in season 3 after they "had" to kill Jimmy.

 
By shifting the final season into 1931, Terence Winter and company have brought us into a year where Al Capone isn't just a mob boss, but a celebrity, and when Lansky, Luciano and Siegel are making moves that will turn them into organized crime legends in their own right.The series could conceivably do a major pivot at the end and do a serialized version of "The Untouchables," with Stephen Graham and Jim True-Frost (Prez!) standing in for De Niro(*) and Costner, and/or focus heavily on the schemes of the not-so-young triumvirate of New York wiseguys. But the show has always been about Nucky's story, right or wrong, and "The Good Listener" plays interestingly off of the ways that this show's main character has become such a minor supporting player in the big action happening in Chicago and New York.

(*) Certainly, I imagine Graham could have some fun with a "Boardwalk" version of Capone's baseball monologue, and given Tim Van Patten's facility with shooting action, this show could do its own excellent version of the stairway shootout. Also, who'd fill the Sean Connery slot in this scenario and explain the Chicago Way to Ness? Aside from being busy with "The Affair," is Dominic West too young and/or obvious? (I asked Andy Greenwald, who suggested Sean Bean, which would be excellent on several levels.)

Capone's doing boastful interviews with Variety and ordering around the hapless Van Alden and drunken Eli, while Nucky is having fruitless meetings with old money men who have no interest in consorting with a gangster like him. Luciano and Lansky are planning something big, while Nucky just wants to make it to retirement like Johnny Torrio, and preferably without acquiring John's difficulty in swallowing. Nucky knows he's gotten too old for this game and wants to quit, but the Depression has put enough of a squeeze on his fortunes that he can't afford to walk away just yet, and that's dangerous.

The meeting with the New York money men is a reminder that Prohibition opened a short window for someone like Nucky to ascend to the ranks of high society. Once the repeal of Volstead renders Nucky's specific skills and contacts less essential, these swells have no use for him. But that scene also introduces us to a bootlegger who managed to turn Prohibition into permanent entree into the national elite for both himself and his many, many children: Joe Kennedy, played by Matt Letscher.

Everywhere he turns, Nucky is coming face to face with people who are becoming much more successful as either gangsters or legitimate businessmen (or gangsters who can pretend to be businessmen). In many of these cases, the characters will have long and fruitful careers long after the events of this series, but whether or not Nucky Thompson lives to the same old age of Nucky Johnson, his story as a relevant figure in this world is nearing its end, and that lends weight to what he's going through, even if events elsewhere seem grander and more likely to wind up in a history book.

It's Nucky whom we've been primarily following throughout the series. So while it's fun to see Capone at the height of his powers ordering Nelson and Eli around, Nucky getting revenge on Tonino for his role in Billie Kent's death — but only after first extracting intel about what Luciano and friends are up to — is a bigger piece of what "Boardwalk Empire" has been about.

Some other thoughts:

* Gillian (remarkably well-preserved, given that she's seven years older than when last we saw her) at first appears to be in some kind of high-end spa, but instead it turns out she's in some kind of facility for the criminally insane. Similarly, there's a brief fakeout where it seems like the administrator is looking to trade favors for sex, when in fact all she wants is one of Gillian's nicer dresses.

* While Eli's off in Chicago, Willie Thompson has grown up into a young lawyer, and we're left with the question of whether he's joining the U.S. Attorney's office to get revenge on Nucky for his role in his father's downfall, or functioning as a mole in the government on behalf of his beloved uncle.

* Speaking of moles, while the press has their attention focused on Elliot Ness — exactly the kind of straight arrow Treasury agent hero Van Alden once fancied himself as — it appears the more important fed is Mike D'Angelo, who has gone deep undercover into the Capone organization.

* I still wish we had gotten to see the conversation Eli and Nelson had when they first reunited in Chicago, but these past seven years have been kind to neither of them, with Eli an alcoholic mess and Van Alden coming to deeply resent his "marriage" to Sigrid. But they're involved in some fine darkly comic moments here, from the long sequence in the elevator where they have to keep removing their hats when civilians get on (including one whose own hat keeps assaulting Eli) to the robbery that inspires Van Alden to bellow my new go-to line in life: "WHY MUST IT ALWAYS BE PANDEMONIUM?!?!?"

* Also, the stolen money Nelson and Eli have to replace would be worth about $300 grand today.

* Every now and then, the show gives us an episode like this with a distinctive visual device to bookend the hour. Here, it's the collage of spinning images (the record in the opening, Tonino's severed ear in the close), which, if nothing else, provides a visual link between the two Thompson brothers, even though they're 800 miles apart at the moment. And it's always good to have Allen Coulter's sharp eye directing an episode.

* While talking to Joe Kennedy, Nucky notes that he and Margaret are still technically married. (Their marriage is legal, even though they never see each other, whereas the "Mueller" marriage is fake, even though they're stuck together in that apartment for years on end.)

* Notable from this week's Young Nucky flashbacks: we get to see just how much Ethan Thompson despises the Commodore (and get an explanation for why), and we also get one of the most cynical character beats in the show's history, when the sheriff suggests that the Commodore try to buy Ethan's vote by paying for his daughter's funeral.
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So many monster characters in this now, hard to get a lot in and be smooth. Not sure why they waste anymore time on Gilian, unless she wraps up the Nucky storyline somehow in a big way.

I knew we'd see Joe Kennedy eventually.

 
Just caught up with this season. I like it so far, a lot of good stories. How can they possibly wrap them all up with a shortened season?

I bet I will regret writing this, but I am interested to see where Margaret's story goes.

 
Right. So she just walks in after 8 years. Why? Because AR's wife said she would out her for being marred to Nucky. Makes sense.

3 out of 8 shows down. Chalkys just wandering the countryside. OK.

The flashbacks are best part of this show. But again I have to ask... where was this back at the start of season 3?

 
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