Certain shows’ protagonists are not always the most honest, upstanding “heroes” that the good-guy-always-wins Hollywood has trained us to expect them to be. Some shows feature down right criminals and monsters and somehow build a story around them that causes the viewer to sympathize with, and even root for, the antihero. Not all of these…
The final season of Boardwalk Empire had been on two distinct tracks: one focused on Nucky’s professional struggles and the other on his personal demons. Until last week, it appeared that these two trains were on a collision course and that Nucky would pay for his personal transgressions, but at the professional hand of Luciano…
At the start of “Friendless Child,” the penultimate episode of Boardwalk Empire, the war between Nucky (Steve Buschemi) and Luciano (Vincent Piazza) has escalated. Nineteen men are dead, trucks are being fire bombed, and Nucky is ready to hit back harder. Despite Maranzano’s counsel of patience, Nucky, feeling “impetuous,” moves on his own, kidnapping Bugsy…
It’s taken nearly five seasons, but we’re finally close to answering the crucial question of Boardwalk Empire: Why is Nucky Thompson such a wet blanket? I mean, for a guy at the epicenter of the Roaring Twenties with wealth and power, he’s always a bit glum, isn’t he? Take last night’s episode, “Devil You Know.” Nucky’s…
In an episode heavy on talk about beginnings and endings, the most telling conversation in “King of Norway” comes between Nucky and Chalky, who are reunited at last. After Nucky advises Chalky to forget about the past and focus on starting over, Chalky reminds Nucky that “we aren’t schoolboys no more.” Nucky replies that “we…
“Cuanto,” the fourth episode of the season, starts with a revealing flashback. Summer is over and the Commodore dismisses Nucky (but not before Nucky sees both the Commodore’s vision for Atlantic City as well as his pornographic photo collection of young girls). Nucky, lost without a job and furious over his family’s moral and economic…
The first two episodes of Boardwalk Empire’s final season were sprawling and raucous, with assassination attempts, mob hits, and multiple severed ears. Last night’s episode, “What Jesus Said,” is distinctly quieter and more plaintive than its predecessors. This isn’t to say that the episode is free from carnage. Far from it. Violence—or the threat of…
At the end of last week’s stellar season premiere, Nucky’s new bodyguard slices the ear off of a would-be assassin. Episode Two, “The Good Listener,” continues this auricular theme in both its visuals and its message. The opening shot is of Eli’s ear (both the outer and the inner) as Eli lies passed-out, drunk on…
Season 4 of Boardwalk Empire was both its most satisfying and gloomiest season to date. A host of new characters and plotlines were introduced, allowing the show to avoid the pattern of having each new season revolve around a different foe for Nucky to tangle with and defeat. Still, going into last year’s finale, it…
This Sunday, Boardwalk Empire will return for its fifth and final season. Viewers will see a huge jump in time, we're now not looking at the Prohibition Era of the 1920s, but jumping straight into the Depression in 1931. As Michael K. Williams, who plays Albert “Chalky” White, said in an interview “The days of…
