Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Three, Episode Twelve "Margate Sands"

Boardwalk Empire's third season comes to an explosive end as Nucky takes on Gyp's men while working back-channels to end up on top. Harrow liberates Tommy from the Artemis Club in the bloodiest way possible.

Old Man Duggan: It's pretty rare that a finale, season or series, gives me just about everything I want. While last season's finale brought to a close a season in which the conflict was a bit more personal, this one brought together each last outlying piece of an even more complex season. This season was fucking epic, and this finale made sure of it. Quite the fucking exclamation point, Terence. I'll start by saying, I have no idea how many people died in this episode, but it has to be right around 100. In. Sane.

The reporters laughing at Mayor Bader for insisting that he controlled Atlantic City was priceless.

Wordy Ginters: If only our press were as openly cynical today.  

OMD: Opening shot? Shots. Capone stepping forth with the single bullet to cap it off. Winter and Howard Korder (who penned last week's installment) really followed that fantastic close from "The Two Imposters" with what was promised, Capone offing a handful of Rosetti and Masseria's men. What follows is a gleeful slew of caps being placed indelicately in people's asses. To quote Shea Whigham's character in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, "Whoa." Bodies hit the floor.

WG: The symphony of violence throughout was beautiful. Ghastly, but beautiful. Perfect opening scene. The gangsta's silhouetted in the headlight beams and fog almost looked like they were dancing as they got dusted (Cheney reference) by machine gun fire. Definitely a harbinger of the carnage that followed.

OMD: I can't believe I liked what Mickey Doyle was spinning this week. If they get me in Mickey's corner, I'll be shocked.

WG: Was he operating rogue, or carrying out Nucky's orders? Regardless, it is the first time he's been allowed to demonstrate even a whiff of competence. Or likability for that matter. In that phone call scene, it was a largely unspoken, but effective back at Rothstein's place, showing his complete disdain for dealing with Mickey by reluctantly directing his goon to turn down the record player. 

OMD: It seemed like Nucky called that whole shot. "Big bait? Big rat."

How great was the repeated butting heads of Capone and Chalky? Sure, it was ultimately empty chest pounding, but it made their shared getting off on cutting down Masseria's caravan all the better. 31 down in one fell swoop. Still, the cockswinging was in full effect, and it worked.

WG: It was a nice twist. Of course there would be race issues between Capone and his crew and Chalky's guys. It was a nice way to keep the tension vibrating. Purnsley pissing on the car was great. Capone v. Chalky, who wins? I noticed Chalky immediately got into a traditional boxer stance, moving, feigning dancing. I think Wilfredo Benitez is high on his comp list. I sensed Capone was going to go more MMA style, with a bull-rush, probably try to get Chalky down and work on his ground game. It would be a toss up.

OMD: I'm sure Capone was a hybrid Brazilian jiu-jitsu/muay thai guy. His submission game was likely unparalleled for its time.

Man, I did not see Rothstein screwing over Lucky Luciano coming. I figured something was up, but that was not how I figured the arrest would go away. Looks like that heroin came into play in the big picture though. Just like everything else from this season did. You have to admire the juggling act Winter and crew pulled off this season. There may not have been many developments in the last two episodes that shocked me, but I have to say that for ten episodes there were a lot of strings out there that I never thought would get tied back in to this tapestry.

WG: Me neither. In surface ways, Rothstein has been a somewhat sympathetic character this season, as a partner to Nucky, pragmatic, honest, reasonable. They put the black hat on him in the last few episodes. I assume this might be positioning for Season Four, with him squared up against, rather than tentatively alongside Nucky. 

OMD: If I didn't see Rothstein screwing over Luciano, I definitely didn't see Nucky's whole play coming. He's nothing if not calculating, although that calculation seems to only play well for him in business.

WG: That Capone and Chalky wiped out Masseria's soldiers as they retreated from Atlantic City surely has to stir up a shitstorm that could definitely soil Nucky's fragile situation. 

Stay away from Needles

OMD: Maybe. he told Tonino to bring Gyp to Masseria and tell him they can either be squared up or keep things hostile and acrimonious. After all, Masseria did back a play against Nucky in Nucky's hood. Masseria could have justifiable been retaliated against even more.

Gillian, Gyp, the belt, the needle. All of those chickens came home to roost. Gyp's dirty talk got me going. Or at least it would have if I truly loathed every inch of my being. What a depraved sonuvabitch. I suppose Gillian's failure was inevitable. She stuck the needle in once and got everything she wanted in nefarious ways. Second time was not the charm, though she'll reportedly live to see another day.

WG: Gillian drawing out Gyp's particular brand of kink was compelling as hell. I didn't know whether I should be feeling uncomfortable, aroused, confused, aroused, or horny. The femdom/asphyxiation angle plays well as shock value, and as insight into Gyp's twisted soul. Maybe my favorite character on the show. It's rare to see a character who can exude menace and a loopy, goofy, charm. Usually it comes off like Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze. Gyp was just a shade too much cartoon, but for the most part he nailed it. Getting fragged by his main man was fitting. As was his off-kilter coda on the beach. Goo-Goo-Goo.

OMD: The entrance of Richard Harrow hit the precise beat that it needed to. Masseria's men withdraw. Only Gyp's men are left. Gyp storms downstairs after dosing Gillian, and I looked to the screen knowing what was coming brimming with sick glee. And how glorious was Harrow's precise gunning down of all but four of Gyp's men? Methodical. Detached. "Close your eyes, Tommy." I laughed so fucking hard when he sprayed that dickhead's brains across the window with the rifle he was setting down. Harrow's Taxi Driver Preservation of Innocence spree was even more fulfilling than Travis Bickle's. I loved that when Harrow started gunning fuckers down, Gyp ran for the hills, or more precisely the dunes. The beats of Harrow's delivery of Tommy from evil were spot on. If there's a bigger badass than Richard Harrow, I've not seen him. One can't help but imagine that Nucky knows Harrow did his dirty work for him and offers him a place at his side.

WG: Lots of Taxi Driver homage this season. The overhead shots. The endless supply of weapons in his coat. They should have had Harrow hold up his mask and engage in a "you looking at me" dialogue with it to really drive the point home. I hope he's around for Season Four.  I got the feeling he might be headed back to the woods with suicide on his mind. 

OMD: It would certainly be logical to have him join up with Nucky, especially with Owen having had his neck opened up.

It was a nice touch to have Gillian, in an opiate-fueled daze, confuse the Nucky in the house with the Nucky that delivered her up to the Commodore when she was but a wee lass. It was a poetic little reminder of what Nucky's actions have cost people around him.

WG: Maybe the creepiest cold jolt scene in the whole episode. 

OMD: There was an undercurrent of the elders schooling the younger generation in this episode. There were nice parallels between Mr. Sagorksy/Harrow, Joe Masseria/Gyp, and Rothstein/Luciano. The least likely of those playing out was Sagorsky telling Harrow that a soldier leaves the battle at the battlefield. Hell, it was weird just to see him sober. Masseria's clock correction was fucking great. Such a small gesture, yet it meant so much.

WG: Masseria was a nice addition to the end of the series. Has someone blankly looking at their watch and adjusting the time on a clock ever been more chilling? It was like Pacino kissing Fredo in Godfather 2.      

OMD: Cannavale's impression of Nucky was pretty hilarious. If he's gonna have a last moment, why not have it be as crazy as that? Barney Google. Talk about holding onto something. He's still pissed about Nucky telling him not to take things so personally? Even as he's pitching his vision of the Horatio Alger dream he'd been reading about in the book in Nucky's desk and singing the Barney Google song (a comic strip character), it's clear that he's batshit crazy. If he'd never bludgeoned Tonino's cousin to death, maybe Gyp would've survived, but he dug his own grave with those actions, at least as far as Tonino was concerned.

WG: I think you called that one too Carnac. I'm guessing Gyp was too unpredictable to be left upright. Nice insight on Gyp's Horatio Alger musings at the end as well. Gyp's gravestone:  "Killed pissing." 

OMD: I think it was Sepinwall (who I make sure not to read until I've already written what I've got to write) who noticed the book that Gyp was reading from Nucky's desk last week. It sure came back this week.

It'll be interesting to see where Nucky and Margaret's relationship goes from here. I gather that the character she's based on in real life sticks around, but given all that's happened, it'd be hard to see that playing out the same way. She won't take his money. She eschews her staunch Catholicism in favor of getting an abortion. I suppose all of the women's reproductive education plays its ultimate role here in the finale with the ending of Owen's line.

WG: I suspect she'll reluctantly return to the fold. And that Nucky's next bodyguard will be homely and communicate via grunts and hand gestures. 

OMD: So where do we think things go from here? My guess is New Year's Eve heading into 1924. O'Banion dies in November of '24, and it seems like they wouldn't have introduced his character in so central a way if they weren't going to have his demise play out on screen, though he doesn't fall on account of anything he did to Capone or Torrio. Esther Randolph exacts Nucky's revenge by way of Mellon's mandate that control of Old Overholt be seized from the criminal element that took hold there, blowing up his stake in the deal in the process. Van Alden will be in the mix somehow in Chicago. Harrow takes a place alongside Nucky. Margaret is seeing what St. Louis is all about. What think ye?

WG: At this rate, I would be foolish to offer up any alternatives. You've been pre-saging plot twists and character arcs like you worked on the set. I hope Chalky gets a little more screen time. I'm also hoping for more Mellon. I'm already looking forward to Season Four.

OMD: I'm guessing that with Owen out of the way and Harrow's likely coming into the fold that there will be room for more Chalky story. Mellon is a player through the decade. I guess we'll see how badly Nucky burned that bridge, although you got the sense that Mellon wasn't enamored with doing business with Nucky in the first place.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Three, Episode Five "You'd Be Surprised"

Nucky and Rothstein meet to discuss the Tabor Heights situation. Capitol Hill takes aim at the Daugherty and Harding's crooked Justice Department. Nucky gets more careless and tied into Billie Kent's career. Nelson and Sigrid finish off Prohee Coughlin.

Old Man Duggan: Given Mickey's absence from the episode, it would seem that the concern I had that perhaps the dimly lit corpse in the truck in Tabor Heights at the end of "Blue Bell Boy" was unnecessary. Mickey Doyle did get got [I hope]. Since I'm in transit, I'll let you take the reins here, fella. Shoot away.

Wordy Ginters: Nice opening scene. Even better than seeing Tony Bennett sing "God Bless America" during the Seventh Inning Stretch of the Giants vs. Cards game. As the episode began, and the camera tracked down the hallway, I was certain Gyp would be in the room sawing some asthmatic prick in half. I was half right. Of course the only way Gyp can get off is via erotic asphyxiation. I wasn't quite sold that his character was a sick twisted remorseless monster, but now I get it. As we know from the history books, "safe words" weren't invented until the early 1960's, so Gyp was actually quite fortunate he didn't loose his mortal coil chasing an orgasm. Regardless of how odious, obvious, or ham-handed scenes with Gyp may hit you, he blows up the screen. The menace that dude brings is impressive. Sexual or otherwise.

On Liberty [and Spotters]

OMD: So I had to resort to watching the episode in fuzzy standard definition by way of coaxial cable plugged into the back of a HD TV in a Holiday Inn Express in Downtown El Paso. If there was a blessing in disguise in all that, it's that the depraved sex acts that Bobby Cannavale was called upon to perform for the role in this episode were grainy and bereft of the detail that you High-Def motherfuckers (of which I am usually card-carrying member) were subjected to. If Gyp Rosetti were temporally displaced into the present day and was to start a band, their name would be Sexual Menace. That saucy, belt-wielding minx is the very same waitress Gyp professed an interest in at the close of the last episode, right? While it's a long-established fact that the advent of the safe word wasn't established until after the Great Chicago Scarfing Death Epidemic of 1964, clearly spotters were in use before this, as we were first introduced to their necessity in J.S. Mill's On Liberty.

WG: Director Timmy Van Patten kept things cranked to 11 by transitioning directly to a long time coming dust up between Rothstein and Nucky--by the way, am I the last person in the world to realize that Van Patten played Salami on The White Shadow? Rothstein drops some unpleasant observations on Nucky's head, namely that he's not holding up his end of their business arrangement, and that he's playing the rube by chasing after Billie like he's been sprayed with Love Potion Number 9. Speaking of Van Patten, more than a subtle nod to his previous job on The Sopranos when Rothstein brought up the New York vs. New Jersey theme. Still, it was jarring to see Nucky put in his place or more accurately that he's merely a "convenience" in the broader world. Quite a change from when he had a direct hand in engineering Harding's nomination as the Presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention, or getting tangled up in the Irish War of Independence like he did in Season Two. Now, he's reduced to third nipple status in the relationship between Rothstein and Masseria.

OMD: I had no idea that Van Patten had been on The White Shadow, though my exposure to that show is extremely limited, and by limited I mean that I have seen roughly ten minutes in passing on ESPN Classic when they were re-airing it in what must have been the late 90s or early Aughts. The confrontation between Rothstein and Nucky was fulfilling. Someone needed to call out Nucky for letting himself be led around by his dick while not paying proper attention to the business operations. Early on, it seems like Season Three is arcing in such a way that this is could be known as The Transition of Nucky. Challenged by Jimmy when at the crossroads at the terminus of Season Two, he chose the path of being the thug, and his influence in the legitimate world has waned in accordance. Without real sway, without the immediate power of political office, Nucky only has his criminal enterprise and its successes/failures from which to measure his influence. His power is essentially tied to the geographical proximity of Atlantic City to New York and his Irish connect. The growing pains and slowness with which he is adjusting to his new place in the world are surely jeopardizing his future at least as much as Gyp Rosetti is.

WG: Old Man Duggan, I'd like to see you take a crack at cranking out some copy for Margaret's pre-natal night school. "Come discuss your Vagina" has a certain forthright authenticity, but it might draw the wrong type of crowd. Attendance is flagging.

OMD: Here goes:

Ladies, Women, Madames, Mademoiselles,
    St. Theresa wants to acquaint you with your PLEASURE BOXES, as the HEALTHY and WELL-OILED VAGINA is the pathway to a FULLER EXISTENCE. Kindred spirits have come from hither and yon to GAIN KNOWLEDGE both to ENSURE the WELL-BEING of the FAMILY. The WELL VAGINA is the GATEWAY to the WELL FAMILY.
    Brunch served with classes. Nun unfortunately present, but we shall overcome.
    French Stewart-looking cad, Dr. Mason knows your lady parts and will forbid you from drinking raw milk.

WG: "I believe your left shoelace is in a state of dishabille." Gaston Means, another great character. That syrupy, self-assured, no-place but every-place dialect could breath meaning into the most asinine text. I'd pay to hear him read David Brooks columns.

OMD: Thank Eric Hosmer (ca. 2011 and hopefully 2013 and beyond) for Stephen Root.

WG: Van Alden Mueller! Sigrid! A twisted little couple. When the unfortunate prohee Coughlin slid his card underneath the door, did you notice Van Alden Mueller was framed by the bars of the baby's crib in the foreground? Nice touch. Not sure if it foreshadows the crossbar hotel in Mueller's future, or just added to the growing sense of claustrophobia around his character's situation, but either way, I get a kick out of that kind of cinematic flourish when I notice it. I also thought the scene in which the Van Alden Mueller's snuffed out Coughlin had some parallel's to Gyp's opening scene. It would have been seamless if Gyp would have also said "avert your eyes."

OMD: The influence of German Expressionism rearing its head once again. Man, if there's something I did not see coming it was Sigrid clubbing the crooked Agent Coughlin to death. I also loved the reveal that Coughlin was there to complain about the shitty irons he purchased. His dogged pursuit of Van Alden over faulty irons is pretty fucking hilarious. Nelson/George has always been in his own personal prison, hence the violent self-flagellation. This development obviously would seem to put Van Alden not only in O'Banion's debt but also likely his employ. As for the parallels, this episode could just have easily been called "Stop Breathing."

Chalky and Purnell's Cup of Tea

WG: Even though Rothstein called out the error of his ways, Nucky keeps self-destructing over his fixation with Billie. Tellingly, the first words out of his mouth after the meeting with Rothstein were "when is rehearsal." Margaret busts him dress shopping with Billie at the Fashion Bug. Only after his mea culpa, does he appear to begin to get his footing. After Eddie Cantor brushes him aside, he flexes his muscle and has Purnell and Chalky pay Eddie a visit. Awesome. Nights at the speakeasy have left them immune to Eddie's brand of entertainment. They acted like they were at Branson.

OMD: Nucky should look to Rothstein as the paragon of self-neutered restraint and should attempt to emulate that. It would certainly seem that he has designs (at least in part) on rebuilding Rothstein's empire in his own image, but as long his dick is a divining rod to self-ruination, his designs are on the back burner. The weird thing about Nucky's struggles to readjust to his new place in the world would seem to have manifested themselves in his apparent loss of self-awareness. Hopefully for Nucky's case (though probably not for Billie Kent), Rothstein gave him a wake-up call. Can you imagine how horribly Eddie Cantor's brand of entertainment would play today?

WG: And although the planning and plotting happened off-screen, evidently Rothstein and Nucky conspired to have Gyp knocked off. I believe that was Benny Siegel, who earlier had been scolded by Meyer Lansky for slacking off on his gun registration number filing homework, who went with the old paper boy gambit and shot the shit out of the Kinneret Lodge. And the luckless paperboy, for the thrill of it. Maybe Lansky is acting on his own? Gyp taking over Tabor Heights fucking with his smack distribution as well? How did you read it?

OMD: Oh, it was Young Bugsy all right. I love it when a show plays with off-screen planning like Boardwalk did here. I definitely took this as Rothstein choosing Nucky over Gyp. For all of Nucky's dalliance-related shortcomings lately, he's still more useful to Rothstein as his Irish Connection than Gyp Rosetti. Even if Rothstein took that meeting in Tabor Heights in earnest, Gyp's interaction with the paperboy could well have been the final nail in the coffin of their potential business relationship. I definitely don't think Meyer Lansky would step out of line an make that play on his own. Rothstein is a pragmatist, and his scolding of Nucky was a pragmatic attempt to scare him straight, but there's no world in which Gyp is the better business partner, even if Gyp is in league with Joe Masseria.

WG: How great was the aftermath of that scene? Shot from overhead, with Gyp hanging dong and taking in the carnage with a belt still looped around his neck? You could splice that into a Mike Vick dog-fighting video and maintain narrative continuity, piece of cake. They should show those two scenes in high schools to combat erotic asphyxiation. It's gonna end up being the death of you Gyp!

OMD: I'd love a back-and-forth video cut of the two together. Given Gyp's constant craving for choking out while choking out, wouldn't it be great if after all this build-up that Gyp dies with a belt 'round his neck?

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Three, Episode Three "Bone for Tuna"

In "Bone for Tuna," Nucky returns to Atlantic City to be confronted with his conscience and the responsibilities that come along with being king. He attempts to come to an agreement with Gyp Rosetti. Nelson Van Alden struggles to adapt to his life in Cicero and gets caught in a raid. Mickey Doyle spouts off and says he killed Manny Horvitz, which gets around to Harrow. Mickey somehow still lives at the end of the episode. Things are heating up in New York with Joe Massaria making a move on Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Margaret gets her way at the hospital and a pre-natal unit will be put in. Gyp reneges on his agreement, hating being wished good luck.

Old Man Duggan: Two episodes in the can and we're finally getting down to the internal (and to a degree external) emotional strife Nucky is experiencing that comes with the territory of having ascended to the throne. Terence Winter and scribe Chris Haddock waste little time in getting down to brass tacks. Haunted in his dreams at having to kill the boy he raised like a son. Haunted in his homelife at the consequences of having taken a queen. Haunted in business by trying to keep his kingdom in order. Those actions he took were not without their consequences. Is it good to be king?

Wrong.

Wordy Ginters: Mel Brooks was wrong? This casts History of the World: Part I in an entirely different light. Nucky has one foot on a nervous breakdown, and the other foot on a roller skate. The gnawing realization that his empire building has brought him riches, but no one to share it with, may get to him more than his guilt for killing Jimmy.

OMD: How long before Nucky walks into the confessional? He has to unburden his soul. It's either that or keep running to the side-action in the city, an endeavor wrought with its own pitfalls and stressors.

WG: Given his fragile state and Margaret's impressive manipulation skills, there is no limit to the hilarious shenanigans he could be manuevered into. Fuck confession. Selling "smoothness" shoulder to shoulder with Agent Van Alden Mueller is a real possibility. Or perhaps piloting a diving pony off a 30-foot platform into a baby pool, for a nickel-a-head down by the shore. He's vulnerable.

OMD: As I was watching Mickey Doyle taking credit for the murder of Manny Horvitz I thought this has to come back and bite him in the ass, right? Within fifteen minutes of screen time and no more than a couple hours of Boardwalk time, Harrow finds out Mickey is taking credit for the murder. Please [insert higher power you might subscribe to here] let Harrow off that putz. Of course, it didn't happen in "Bone for Tuna." That fucking shitbird has nine lives. I bet that dipshit ends up dying crossing the fucking street. Maybe by a trolley in Brooklyn.

WG: At the time, I said aloud to no one in particular, "Who dies first? Mickey or some random bastard at the hands of Gyp Rosetti?" I still can't quite get my head around the fact that Mickey remains upright. If for no other reason than how ridiculous he looked with his two sizes too small bowler hat at such a disheveled angle when Harrow marched him into Nucky's office. He could get aced, a la Omar, by a little kid in a convenience store. Or else he'll be the only one standing at the end. Laughing that irritating little affected laugh as the credits roll.

OMD: How great was the scene in Nucky's office after Mickey has been dismissed? Harrow's Code is clearly delineated: you can only take out people if they're in the game; you don't take credit for other people's work; you don't joke about killing men you didn't kill. Nucky looks for solace and guidance from a soul so troubled that he had a gun in his mouth in the woods in the recent past.

WG: The failed suicide attempt you reference came from one of the stronger Boardwalk Empire episodes in Season Two. I think tonight's episode was a step back in that direction.

OMD: Sometimes I wonder if part of the purpose of having Nelson Van Alden around is to show what piety, fundamentalism, and temperance get you: misery. That and hot immigrant sex. If only Norwegians weren't so fucking fertile. You know that late night sex-making has to lead to yet another Van Alden yoot. Also, what do you think Van Alden thought of to make him happy as Sigrid was kneading his junk? As for the invitation to the Herkmeyer's, holy shit did it look like his head was going to explode. Is there a more expressive face out there than Michael Shannon's? And the misery seemed to permeate his entire being while he was there. It seems odd to me that he'd give any shits about being one of the boys at Faraday's. Crooked Treasury Department Agent. Shite working situation. Likely re-knocked up wife. He's working for Dean O'Banion by Episode Six, right?

She-Brimley

WG: I love the extreme characters on this show. Van Alden. Gyp. Harrow. They all peg the needle on weirdness. I'm speculating that Van Alden's happy thought was "baptizing" Sebso, or perhaps a neatly stacked pile of papers, or the tassles on a lampshade hanging straight, neat, and clean. He's not much of a mixer, is he? And with Sigrid, he's upgraded significantly in the comely wife department. Can you recall the pernicious brow beater he was formerly saddled with? Picture Wilfred Brimley with enormous breasts and a smart purse. Wifey #1/She-Brimley didn't dabble in soft core role playing with an intoxicating Scandinavian accent. The no sale woes, and the corruption he experienced when he got popped in Herk's place will surely send him running for dirty money via O'Banion. He's a wild card though. Wouldn't surprise me if he flips and whacks one of the merry pranksters from Faraday's either. You don't fuck with another man's dress shirt. You most surely do not fuck with Van Alden Mueller.

OMD: She-Brimley. Nice. Van Alden's first wife was about as fetching as Mary Todd Lincoln or Carrie Nation. Stern. If that stain doesn't come out, I'm sure there's a verse in Leviticus that calls for a stoning in a public square.

Poetry readings at the Artemis Club. It was the last two verses of co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Dream-Love" for those keeping track at home. I'm assuming when the men are away, it's fucking slam city up in there. I bet Saul Williams's grandfather went there when the crackers are away. Also, what's going to happen when Lucky Luciano figures out Gillian is lying about Jimmy still being alive?

WG: Awesome catch on the poem. List. Of. Demands. It's a classy joint. Art first, sweet release later. I'm eager to see Gillian's schemes take shape. She's almost as good at moving around the chess board as Margaret. Boardwalk Empire is about Prohibition Era gangsters on the surface, but peel back the label and it's about women who run game. Feminists Empire. A whole mess of plot arcs have been set in motion. Since Winter prides himself on being surprising, who knows how it will play out. Viewers will be frustrated. Which is fine, as long as Mickey ends up pushing up daisies.

OMD: How about the big fuck you to the hospital administrator? Way to go, Margaret. Dr. Landau was a sexist dick who clearly didn't know how effectively the former Mrs. Schroeder works back channels and manipulates people to do her bidding. Hell, she pissed away Nucky's fortune by way of highway money on a church donation.

WG: Particularly satisfying to see Margaret jam it all the way up there and twist it off inside that smug fuck. And with such a quaint little smile. I knew he was destined for a fragging when he patronized her about the hydrangea flower selection for the landscaping.

OMD: "Obviously I offended you in some way, but since you're a man who could find an insult in a bouquet of roses, I'm not sure quite how." What a line. Gyp Rosetti, the psychotic semi-literate with a chip on his shoulder the size of Denali, just will not view any act as anything other than a slight. Sure, the sheriff was a dick, but three episodes in and this maniac has taken a tire-iron to an innocent passerby's head and set a lawman ablaze in the middle of Tabor Heights. He may be subtarded and Cannavale's accent work might be inconsistent, but he makes things interesting.

WG: At this point in our relationship, I love Gyp unequivocally. He literally lights up the screen. He's got a bit of that Jim Thompson The Killer Inside Me vibe going on. Not as dumb as he purposefully appears. The scene where he worked himself into a lather over Nucky's "Bone For Tuna" send-off was fantastic. Nucky has climbed the heights by being smarter than everyone else and being pragmatic. That isn't always going to work with the animals he has nipping at his heels. They may be just as smart, in a way, and a lot less predictable and pragmatic. It's like playing poker with guys who don't play very often. They'll do crazy shit just because. The general unspoken rules of poker probabilities and decorum go straight out the window, with the tourists chasing every card on the flop, hoping to pair up that seven of clubs. It leads to chaos.

OMD: Tourists ruin everything. Or a lot of things. Or something. Gyp makes things far more interesting, that's for damn sure.

WG: Did you catch Gyp's driver talking about Nosferatu as they left with the last load of Nucky's sweet, sweet, whiskey? I'm telling you, Gyp's coat was influenced by Count Orlock's. The buttons. The length. The menace. The dread. Dread threads. Sometimes I see one scene of a movie and It allow me to peer straight into the soul of the costume wrangler.

OMD: Gyp's also growing his fingernails out to be just like Max Schreck's. We used to joke about an old friend of mine's newborn looking like Nosferatu. I don't think he took too kindly to that.

WG: My next hypothesis has to do with the rotund Police Chief in Tabor Heights being Emil Jannings, circa The Last Laugh.

OMD: I just looked over his filmography and shamefully have not seen any of his work. I have no idea how I've made it this far in life without having seen Blue Angel or Murnau's The Last Laugh. I also had no idea that F.W. Murnau died so young. He was only 41. I guess that answers the nagging question I'd always had about why his career never really transitioned to talkies, especially since his German Expressionist contemporaries made hay in Hollywood. Holy shit. Apparently Murnau was 6'9".

WG: There was also a nice bit of set work in an early scene back at the diner in Tabor Heights. Gyp and Nucky were breaking bread (I'm thinking about the pot roast) and hashing out the issues, and a moment of tension arose where you didn't know which way Gyp was going to roll (like pretty much all of his moments), the sign on the wall framed in tight right beside his head said "Red Hot Frankfurter." Nice.

OMD: Nice touch indeed. Angry. Dick.