tv: Sunday night Boardwalk Empire returned for its third season in a very interesting place. The end of the second season wrapped up almost all of the story lines that led to the end to the season. Nucky beat his plethora of charges and evaded prison while managing to deal with the overthrow in Atlantic City lead by his former driver, James Darmody. Agent Van Alden was forced to flee to the Chicago suburb of Cicero after being accused of murder. The only loose end was the repercussion of Margaret signing the highway deed over to the local church and how Nucky would handle that. It almost felt like that could have been the very Sopranos-esque life goes on ending that the story deserved. But it wasn't the end. The story of prohibition gangsters in Atlantic City moves on.
The story picks up a year and half later at the dawn of 1923. Nucky is living large as the kingpin of Atlantic City once again, in thanks, largely, to Margaret's handing over the deed to the highway and making them the most generous benefactors in town. He is also now the full gangster that the now deceased Darmody told him he would have to be in the pilot when he famously said, "You can't be half a gangster." No longer looking for forgiveness and embracing who he is we find ourselves with a gun toting Nucky now recommending so bluntly that his problems be dealt with by putting bullets in peoples heads.
The episode tracks him through he and Margaret's New Years Eve party highlighted by many familiar faces both historically true and made up such as Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, and the lovable buffoon, Doyle. Nucky has also now aligned himself with Manny Horvitz, played by the devastatingly creepy William Forsythe, who gets sent out to take care of the hit on the wheel man for the thief for whom that aforementioned bullet to the head was meant.
The B story of the episode is about Darmody's son, mother, and friend, Richard Harrow, played by Jack Huston as a sympathetic, mangled war hero turned cold-blooded killer who views himself as nothing but a soldier who hasn't really returned from the war. Harrow is given the charge of taking care of Jimmy's son as almost a nanny while his mom, Gillian, played by Gretchen Mol, looks to turn the Darmody house into a brothel. Gillian spends her time trying to turn herself into her grandson's mother while Richard looks to teach him about his past and true parents.
The show did very little to create a conflict, or even a story over its first hour back this year. Without a driving story to compensate for the lack of universality, this is about a specific place and time, not like Mad Men where the Draper's story could be anyone's story in any time. This, I believe, is going to be ok. The threads are there. A new potential villain has been introduced in the character of loose cannon Chip Rosetti who has not taken kindly to Nucky's new plan to sell only to Rothstein, and let interested parties buy from him. Also the pending tension between Richard and Gillian could prove interesting as they fight over Jimmy's son's knowledge of the past.
I can only hope that Richard will prove to be a player in the episodes to come in more than a nanny capacity, which was alluded to when he shockingly and coldly dispatched of Manny (I wish Forsythe could have stayed on, but alas, the Mob Doctor had an appointment with him.). He proved in season two to be one of the most interesting characters. He gave a real sympathy to an unsympathetic world by using his tragedy, the mask he wears everyday, the brutality beneath it, and the burden of a soldier who has seen too much, to give meaning to the horrible world around him.
It is almost impossible after an episode such as this to look forward with any idea of what is going on. Not because it was so confusing or suspenseful, but because there was so little to hang your hat on in terms of plot. This may rub viewers the wrong way, but should come as no surprise. Terrence Winter, the shows creator, was one of the key members of the Sopranos writing staff during season four and five when the show spent most of both of those seasons laying the groundwork for the ends with such subtlety that it seemed to go nowhere at all only to find by the end of the season that everything we saw did matter and we were in for a gripping end. It is hard to say that that is what we are in for. The pace could really pick up. But based on how little was accomplished in terms of progressing the plot in this first episode, and the show runners track record, it certainly seems that way. The only real struggle for the show at this point seems to be that it must overcome the loss of Michael Pitt as Darmody and the need to work Richard Harrow into a meaningful role in the story. As the world of Boardwalk Empire unfolds, it appears that patience will have to be a virtue. And in the meantime, soak in the sumptuous, beautiful world that you can literally see on your television: Atlantic City in a time gone by.
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