Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

[Gold Trumpet]

Filmmaking wise, the show has slowed down since the first episode. There isn't even an attempt to imitate the Scorsese style, but I don't care about that. The show was going to evolve with a new tone to settle in for the episodes. The show also has not defined itself yet with stories and character arches. The one thing I am noticing is that the stories are shifting to make your best early assumptions wrong. I didn't see Jimmy leaving the city so soon, but it looks like it's a build up for his new resurrection with Capone in Chicago. I'm glad they are utilizing stories in other cities because Atlantic City had a small window of importance in this crime world. Other cities came into huge importance so you can't qualify all these historical characters and keep it Atlantic City based. It wouldn't work.

One element I do love is the odd humor involved in some of the stories. Like in the last episode, the federal agent played by Michael Shannon goes to dirsturbing but amusing ends to get a confession out of a dying man. It would be faux humor setup today, but the realism of showing it with straight lace sincerity is good because people did go to very interesting ends to do lots of things back then. Of course, they do it today for many things, but the history of gangsters and police have its own sordid history of amusing anecdotes. So far, the show is honoring that element.

[Bethie]

Gretchen Mol, I can't get enough.

[modage]

cut to: next week

"Gretchen Who?"

...

wait 10 years

...

(repeat)

[Gold Trumpet]

Spoilers

First bad idea for a storyline: Lucky Luciano hired to kill Jimmy and starting to get involved with his mom. Jimmy is the only major character not based on a real person. He's a lot of the anchor for the show and he is how we relate to other real characters. So, his situation is at the behest of the writers to make interesting. It's convenient, cliche, and dumb for Luciano to go visit her looking for Jimmy and fall for her based on just one conversation. He's geniunely smitten, but it's obvious where this will be going when Jimmy returns from Chicago. The rest of last night's episode was pretty awesome because the show is continuing to branch out by focusing on new realms of Atlantic City, but this story is probably going to just annoy me.

[Pubrick]

cut to: next week

"Gretchen Who?"

...

wait 10 years

...

(repeat)

haha this is spot on.

her being in this is a sure sign that it will have absolutely no lasting appeal.

[Gold Trumpet]

Spoils

I'm going to blog about it soon, but Boardwalk Empire season finale happened last night and I loved it. Going into the final show, the series had a chance to do a lot of things. In TV talk, that means a lot of murders and drastic relationship changes. However, the show did the minimal, but in this case, I loved it doing the minimal. The only major change is that Jimmy is being set up to go head-to-head against Nucky next season. But I liked how the major personal component of the show is focusing on Nucky's moral motivations. With the way he means well but does ruthless things, I can see the creators playing a Richard Nixon angle with him where throughout the seasons, he will continue to disenfranchise himself from everyone around him. Many people are already trying to fantasize about his future ruin and he's finally coming out to people like Margaret with what he wants in life. The burning of the kettle moment will be how he gets closer to happiness and everything is taken from him. That's going to be great television.

I also love how historically oriented the show still is. The feature of the first few episodes was to overplay it to make audiences get a feeling for how the show was going to be, but normally shows do go back to relationships and drop off the better elements of the story that do not automatically relate to characters. The good thing is that the show stayed historically fascinating through out.

[SiliasRuby]

No matter what I do this show always pulls me in and demands to be watched. Not sure what is going to happen next yera but they kept me hungry for more. Although, I really wanted more Chalky White (AKA Omar from 'the wire'). Hopefully he will be featured more prominently next season.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Finished the season this week and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The finale was great and left me wishing it would start soon. And Steve Buscemi is pure class, and a terribly underused actor. His moment with Margaret was powerful, one of the best things on TV. The only small issue I have is with Michael Shannon's character. Not that I deslike him or the man he plays (he's such a loony, and completely unpredictable) but in the last episodes he kind of felt somewhat apart from the rest of the narrative. But something tells me it's going to be very different on season 2.

[Alexandro]

Ate the 1st season in a week and a half. Like I couldn't wait to watch another episode.
This is great TV and despite it's awards I get the feeling is a little underrated. Perhaps the Sopranos influence is way too strong (it felt like that to me in certain aspects of the writing and directing) and compared to THAT, everything will be a dissapointment.

However, time will probably make this a classic. Everything is so perfectly done, from the writing and acting to every technical detail and historical data. At points it feels like a great pulpy novel coming alive.

Buscemi is awesome, really. His performance goes a lot of places and he shines. Yet the one who really impressed me is Kelly MacDonald, that's a character who's been changing in major ways from the beginning and she has been able to make it convincing.

All in all, season 2 can't get here soon enough.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Have you guys seen this? Most impressive.

[Fernando]

am I the only one seeing this?

last episode was fucked up.

this sunday's season finale should be good.

[Neil]

am I the only one seeing this?

last episode was fucked up.

this sunday's season finale should be good.

I was uncomfortable for about 25 minutes of the show.  Very fucked up.  Couldn't believe they took it there.

[cine]

i think this should be in The Small Screen...

everybody start talking about the greatness of season 2 immediately.

[ElPandaRoyal]

I'll talk about its greatness. Just finished with it yesterday, and was blown away. Aside from being a perfectly well made TV show, with great acting, writing and production, it has some huge balls. The last couple of episodes from season 2 were something. Dark, powerful, dramatic, especially magnificent in exploring Nucky's persona - he truly is a monster, manipulative and cold. Does he really like his wife and kids? Was it all to get what he wants? Great character. Looking forward to season 3.

[samsong]

is NO ONE watching this?!?!

this season was fucking great, and the finale delivered hard.  easily the best drama on tv.