Boardwalk Empire - A Mr Mo First Watch Thread

I've started watching Boardwalk Empire. I'm 5 episodes in, and i've decided to do some half-assed attempt at a half-assed first watch thread. As of right now I'm not planning on doing time-stamping on comments, but I may do that with certain episodes if i feel so moved in the future.

This is a beautiful period piece, and the period is (so far), 1920. I imagine the year will go in the same direction as the season and episode titles - so far this is linear storytelling and there's nothing wrong with that. Considering the fact that Martin Scorsese directs and executive produces, with Marky Mark also executive producing, i expect mostly linear storytelling. These guys aren't into narrative sleight-of-hand, and i respect that. The sets and costumes and cars are outstanding. I can't say that there haven't been some slips because i'm not an expert on the period.

One thing i like to think i know a lot about is language, particularly the history of English, and i can say that liberties have been taken with the style of English that most Eastern Big City United Statesers from that time period spoke. I think they're well applied liberties, though, because the common tongue of that group was a patois of contemporary English,  Dutch, German, French, and Italian, with pinches of Greek and Arabic at least, and few of today's audience would understand it, myself probably included if it were spoken at contemporary speed. One thing so many other pieces of this period have is pointing out how fast everybody talked, not just in NY but along the Eastern Seaboard in general, and at that time that included places like Pittsburgh and Chicago even though they weren't coastal.

However, the show-runners are aware of the language issue, and have nodded at the issue subtly, and it seems unavoidable that a misunderstanding or lost in translation moment or both will provide at least one plot point.

There is so much to love about the greater themes that this is already embracing, i won't try to enumerate them all. Some of the background elements are very telling of the artistic intent behind this series, and so far i'm pretty sure that i absolutely love it. Nucky is weird kind of Anti-hero, and Buscemi is the right actor for the job, most of the rest of the casting seems similarly outstanding. I've recognized several more of the actors/actresses but not worth enumerating them all. A few of the men and women weren't all that great in their roles, but most of those characters are dead already. Serious care went into casting this show, at least so far.

I'll post more as needed, or probably more often than that.

Season 1 Episode 6, Family Limitations

This ep starts off with a great shot of the old Boardwalk, and the skyline is all vice advertisements, Marlboro, Coca-Cola, Camel, etc.

Then a big fella gets lured to chase a speedy young punk who goes just slow enough to allow the mark feel like he has a chance to catch up, and then the big fella gets laid out with a broken jaw by another fella with a big ass sap, and then the big fella loses his lunch money along with what looked like maybe a few months worth of rent at the Ritz. A bold crime in broad daylight, but actually pretty well planned out, and obviously they picked their mark well, damned few people would've been carrying that kind of wad without other fellas around for security purposes.

I didn't get a good look at the mug of the fella with the sap, but i didn't think it was "Lucky." As far as Nucky is considered though, he's better off backing Lucky down anyway. Lucky's come across as very bloodthirsty, like those collector/enforcer types who would rather hurt somebody than take their money. There are people like that in this world, and they're nothing but danger to everybody in their orbit, even guys like Rothstein who think they can use them as straight paid muscle. I'll be interested to see if this fictional Luciano is further developed in different directions or if he remains such a psycho.

I don't think Nucky is genuinely interested in Margaret. He likes her, sure, maybe has a soft spot for her, but i don't think he sacrificed her husband intending to move in on her like the Biblical King David making a move on Bathsheba. I think he expected her to believe the story about her husband, and when he saw her marching with the Temperance League as the Hibernian club was shut down, he realized he'd underestimated her and knew he'd have to find a different way to shut her up. He'd noticed the way she'd looked at him, and he was ready to step to the plate, but in the long run i don't she means much to him. Perhaps i'm underestimating her too. She did a fine job standing up to his existing girlfriend, Lucy.

That Federal IRS man, Agent Nelson, is clearly not going to give up, and i have to admit i laughed out loud when it was revealed that he's a self-flagellating masochist. I have a feeling the Thompson "Family" can hand out more punishment than he wants, though. I guess we'll find out.

S1, E7, "Home"

This episode opens with a Chicago newspaper's headlines. Apparently people are just thrilled with prohibition, and the populace is having something akin to a communal orgasm as a result.

A lot happens in this episode.

We really get to see some of the emotional inner workings of Nucky and his brother Eli and their father, and widow/girlfriend Margaret sees some of it too, and she'll eventually realize that Nucky burned the house down. She may or mayn't care, and her opinion on the matter may or mayn't matter.

One particularly interesting moment in the dialogue is when displaced girlfriend Lucy tells Nucky she wants to go to cinema, and he says sure babe whatever you want and she loudly whines, "Doctor Jeckyll & Mister Hyde?!?" because that's the film she wants to see, and we get to see a few frames from that film in the episode, and one could've potentially thought that she was calling Nucky names instead of requesting a particular film at cinema if they hadn't pointedly shown us that that film was playing at cinema at that time!

But Jekyll and Hyde are already clearly an overarching theme of the series, unless the show alters subtly enough for it to become a motif, which i doubt. I'm already convinced that the Duality Of Man is a major theme, and they're just riffing on it here. And yay, i dig it.

Lots of fun being had with the episode title, too. A nowhere near complete list should at the very least contain: Nuck's childhood home will go to earnest unimaginative loyal family guy Damien until our Anti-Hero becomes an arsonist; Nucky looks like he's ready to puke and shit himself as the guy talks about his wife caring for his 7-wk preemie! Babies that early VERY rarely lived at that time, although infant mortality rates overall had started to fall in the US after that Great War. (never called The Merely Very Good War of course) and also of course, the adjustments made by returning vets from that war to... home, or at least as close as they could get to it.

I'm not remembering Mister Winslow from the scenes that he seems to be remembering as he supposedly spills his guts to Agent Nelson. I'm not ready to re-watch yet though, i'll just see where it goes. Maybe he was a lookout that night, maybe he wasn't.

Mask Face Guy who Jimmy D peeped without his mask is a very interesting addition. I was highly entertained by the elaborate dance these two performed in this episode. This was a very tightly interwoven episode, and my favorite little design in tis particular pattern was these two meeting and committing murder in such artful style, and such a perfect first victim.

There was some great background art about Now fighting Venereal Disease, The Tin Soldier being malarkey, "The basis of fiction is that people have a connection to each other, but they don't," and, "they're interested in what's in our heads so that we'll fight better next time."

Lucy and Angela have a lovely lesbian love scene, but maybe Nucky already knows? There's some major name dropping going on in these pillows. Robert's friend Jonathan is the gallery owner from Greenwich Village? I couldn't follow all the fast paced dialogue in this scene, not while distracted by nipples anyway, but i have a feeling that momentous shit is being discussed.

We found out who the mugs behind the Boardwalk sapping are: the D'Alessio Bros. Interesting that "Lucky" was able to figure out who'd brought heat down on his own head in a town supposedly run by Nucky's people, but it's not necessarily unrealistic, especially since of the people at the table when they start to talk business openly is a local except the guy who doesn't walk away breathing. "Lucky" also shows that he likes making lots of money even more than he likes killing people, so maybe his psychotic body language and gestures and stuff when Rothstein is around were more for Rothstein's credulity than anything else, not that "Lucky" isn't a sadistic sick piece of shit, just that he has far more control over himself than he displayed when his boss was around. Clearly he sees himself as more than just muscle, but he still likes to get his hands dirty, so to speak.

Nucky hopes there'll be no fires in town. We see a Junior Beach Patrol knots trophy plaque burning. He always dreamed of fixing the place up, and the sudden intimacy scares Margaret, but she thoroughly apologizes for her balk later on in the episode.

JD's first toast with Richard is, "To the lost." There is no designation for the second shot. Richard and JD take to each other like nature's own symbiotes. It was beautiful to see their intricate initial dance, at least as beautiful as anything horrifying deadly can still be considered to have beauty. The thirty-aught-six with the sight is Richard's favorite, but he's conversant and deadly with firearms in general and not genuinely squeamish about his own countenance.

Harry wants Nucky to buy International Reply Coupons. It sounds vaguely like a pyramid scheme. Nucky doesn't strike me as the type to buy into get-rich-quick schemes, though, so i wonder if the point of including this bit of dialogue is to remind viewers that confidence artists were getting away with a lot during that era, or maybe if we're supposed to see that Harry is a credulous if lucky fool.

Nucky says he had a catcher's mitt signed by Hardy Richardson. Could be true even tho Hardy never caught in the "bigs" lol: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/richaha01.shtml The long and short of Richardson's career: he was one of the National League's earliest breakout stars. He played a handful of years for the Buffalo Bisons and made a name for himself, then went to Boston to play for the Beaneaters and then the Reds, and had brief stints with the DC Senators and the NY Baseball Giants. The Boston franchises that he played for were involved in the League breakouts too, including both the American Association, which later became Ban Jonson's AL, and the ill-fated Players' League. Richardson's not in the Hall in Cooperstown, but then he has some pretty great company in that category.

The story about the catcher's mitt, and the earlier one about the poker, definitely illuminate Lucky, Eli, their father, and the relationships between them. The Old Man's a mean bastard, and while Nucky loves his brother, he also sees a bit of Pops in Eli and it makes him uncomfortable. I hope that Nuck found some catharsis in the fire. That fire shows a dangerous spontaneous side of Nucky, which fits in with the greater theme of duality that probably exists throughout the series but is particularly focused in this episode. Nucky's a calculating genius, a criminal politician who runs a whole county through a city Treasurer's office, and he does it all in broad daylight because sometimes "out in the open" is truly the best hiding place. But when something gets to him enough to get him to act irrationally, things get burned the f*ck down, and he doesn't blink at the cost.

Lucy sat alone in theatre watching Doctor Jeckyll & Mister Hyde and weeping was a great moment, and the very slides chosen from the film seem particularly apt. "Think what it would mean! To yield to every base impulse but leave the soul untouched!" Ah, an ignoble goal that will never be realized anyway; the soul cannot be impervious.

I almost forgot to add that we're finally getting to know a little bit about Chalky White, the man played by the same actor who played Omar Little on The Wire. Chalky surely seems unfoolish, and now he's got confirmation that the little dude with the bankroll wasn't one of Nucky's. I imagine the little fella will be back at Chalky's place again soon, and i think he's with the same crew that sapped Nucky's bagman on the Boardwalk, the same guys who just signed up through "Lucky" to rep Arnold Rothstein in Atlantic City. Interesting.


And the final scene was well done as well. Capone's tip to JD from the very beginning of the episode allows JD to avenge the girl upon Liam by bringing Harrow the Sniper into the fold of Murder Inc. Brilliant. I'm eager for the next episode already.

I wanted to start this a while ago, but I wasn't in the place. I understand Martin Scorsese directed the pilot, so I'm about ready to give this another shot after I finish Band of Brothers.

Band of Brothers is incredible. How far into it are you?

I just finished Bastogne, ep 6, I believe. Yeah it's amazing. With Spielberg and Hanks as producers - it's like 10 hrs of Saving Private Ryan in its quality and intensity, but following the 101st Airborne. Definitely one of the best series so far.


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I really the first season. The 2nd and 3rd season both start and finish strong. Kinda falls apart after that. The best episode of the series was probably the 2nd episode of S2. Just frakkin' brilliant hour of TV. Kelly Macdonald is great in this (as always). Pretty darned good cast in general.

Mr. Bill - 

Bastogne is definitely one of my favorite episodes, though there are no weak episodes in that series. My very favorite is Why We Fight, though it's also the darkest in its own way. Bastogne is one of the darkest also. I feel the need to warn you that the last episode will probably make you cry, tough guy.

Mr. Stidd -

Was there ever a show that you thought got better with age?

I loved Band of Brothers as well. Bastogne is the best episode. So moving.

His Royal Dorkness wrote:

Was there ever a show that you thought got better with age?

Off the top of my head:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 1st season was kinda weak
Halt and Catch Fire - great to start with, but actually got better every season (check it's Rotten Tomatoes scores)
Northern Exposure - definitely got better in 2nd & (especially) 3rd seasons
Once & Again - another show that great thru-out, but got better each year (especially it's outstanding 3rd season)
Parenthood - definitely improved in season 2
The Paper Chase - season 1 was basically just a replay of the movie
Fargo - another show where season one was kinda too similar to original film
Forever Knight - few changes in cast & one rather big change in a major character made a difference
The Good Wife - altho season 1 was great seasons 2 & 3 only upped the ante
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - definitely got better in season 2

OK, good answer and fair enough! Thank you for that!

I intend to get back to this show this week, although with the NBA cramming so many games per day, and with MLB not exactly guaranteed to keep going for more than a few days at a time, Boardwalk Empire isn't exactly my top priority.

I have watched a couple more episodes, s1 e 8 & 9. I didn't feel compelled to break out a notebook at any point, but i am pretty curious about the federal agent's behavior in ep 8. He yells at his wife about the expense of the proposed corrective fertility surgery, then relents, then appears to steal money from work to send to her with a note that essentially begs her not to use the money for the reason that she wanted it, and she cries her eyes out upon reading the note.

I got the distinct impression, during that uncomfortable domestic dinner scene, that the wife's fertility or infertility has had little or no bearing on the fact that the couple is childless. Perhaps i'm wrong in that, though. Maybe the whole point of this sub-story is that the agent is a complex guy who loves his wife as far as his limited emotional capacity allows, but he also ruthlessly manipulates her to suit his own ends.

It was virtually impossible to miss the juxtaposition of Nucky becoming more reliant on Margaret, and trusting her more in the bargain. She's really much more Nucky's speed than his last girlfriend, the spoiled sot. I enjoyed seeing Margaret stand up to her in public a little more than i probably should've.

I liked that we got to see Richard Harrow's face. There are some fun things being done with his character and varying "monster" tropes, but he seems like a decent fellow, for a mass murderer and contract killer. Hey, everybody's got to make a living, right?