Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Three, Episode Eight "The Pony"

Nucky, Gaston Bullock Means, and Esther Randolph plot to enlist Andrew Mellon in their mission to take down Remus and Daugherty. Van Alden begins working off his debt to O'Banion, but not before going out at Farraday Electric Iron Company with a bang. Gillian uses Proxy Jimmy's body to gain Tommy's inheritance and sets about avenging her son's death by siccing Gyp on Nucky. Babette's on the boardwalk would appear to be no more and Billie Kent would appear to have gone right along with it. 

Old Man Duggan: Primitive ages these folks lived in. Proxy Jimmy passed for Jimmy rather easily. "Jimmy deserved better than this." Well said, Harrow. Apparently all you need for the County Coroner to pronounce you Dead James Darmody are a dopey haircut and his dog tags. Well, that and an unscrupulous mother/lover.

Wordy Ginters: Cremation too. It occurred to me that a scene from an early episode this season reveals that Harrow knows Nucky killed Jimmy. After rubbing out Manny, Harrow marched into Nucky's office to tell him that Mickey running around claiming the kill as his own was bullshit. Nucky, understandably, was worried that he might be next on Harrow's revenge tour. I don't recall the reason why, but essentially Harrow gave Nucky a pass. He knows Proxy Jimmy is in the kindling box. That Jack Huston was able to milk an ambiguous response like that with half a face is evidence of his royal acting bloodlines.

OMD: Harrow had known where Jimmy was headed when he left, and Jimmy had told Harrow to stay where he was needed. Harrow didn't blame Nucky for doing what needed to be done because Jimmy was a soldier. Harrow basically believes that Jimmy was in the game and that he understood why Nucky took him out. Nucky and his family always did right by him, so he doesn't begrudge Nucky anything.

It sure looks like Van Alden will get to go after Capone after all. Not exactly in the way I had envisioned, but still. My favorite Van Alden moment in this episode was the iron to the face. So great. That buffoon got his without a doubt. The entire staff at Farraday were toolbags. I don't know about you, but I am glad they're all traumatized. I hope he walks by the front door every day and just leers at his former co-workers Fuck that face-burned mook. I just hope we get to see Mr. and Mrs. "Mueller" pushing their kitchen aquavit at every Norwegian celebration.

WG: That scene was tense. The build up was tantric. The steam iron in Van Alden Mueller's hand was hissing like a snake. And the way he destroyed the office reminded me of Frankenstein on a rampage. The best part may have been the way Van Alden Mueller mustered up a "smile" into the headwinds of future skin-graft patient's withering smart ass repartee. The friendly grimace that emerged on Van Alden Mueller's mug reminded me of a teenager trying his first shot of whiskey, not wanting to make a face to play tough in front of friends. As we've mentioned before, a lot of the characters in Boardwalk Empire run cool, with icy hostility pushed down below the surface. No one shows the intense effort required to keep a lid on it more than Van Alden Mueller.

OMD: Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes of the women's issues. The build-up was as slow as one could expect from an HBO Drama, but we're finally getting to what feminists worked for: reproductive rights; birth control. It seems to be an especially timely episode given the women's issues playing a central part in this Presidential Election. We get to see up close and somewhat personal what a woman would have to have gone through just to get birth control to keep their pawing husband's sperm from impregnating them. How demoralizing would it be to have to go to French Stewart's doppelganger every time you needed a diaphragm?

WG: Being a man and everything, it is sadly too easy to overlook how brutal life was for women in that regard, up until the very recent past. Other regards, too. Let's see. Right to vote? Check. Equal pay for equal work? What year does that get accomplished? I believe the pill came on the scene in the 60s? Jesus. Dutch Caps? It was a refreshing bit of lightness to see Owen and Margaret waxing nostalgic about tinkers and bandy-legs in the Pony Rain. Pony Rain. Sequel to Purple Rain. Replace Prince with U2. Setting moves from Minneapolis to Belfast. Switch out Morris Day & the Time with The Alarm. The Edge doesn't have a word of dialogue but carries around a mirror so that Bono can ensure that his sunglasses remain at a rakish angle at all time. Slainte.

A Man not to be trifled with

OMD: Johnny Torrio's trip to the homeland and the ensuing waxing nostalgic/poetic about Italia (I loved the Pompeii allegory) brought back a flood of images related to the seminal 1986 Burt Reynolds star vehicle Heat, in which Nick "Mex" Escalante spent his free time gazing longingly at a poster of Venice. If you've not seen it, you've not seen the best action sequences in the history of the medium that is film. Capone sure seems to be on edge now. Has Torrio taken a turn to the existential? I can tell you that I'd pay to watch Greg Antonacci turning history into allegory as Johnny Torrio.

WG: Agreed. Sweet, silly, Torrio. Traveling does have a tendency to open your eyes to different possibilities, an antidote to the myopia one can fall into. Timmy Van Patten contrasted Torrio's new found laissez-faire outlook nicely with the half sides of beef hanging in the background (ribs!) at the stockyards. I can only assume Upton Sinclair was creeping around just off camera. I share your hard-on for Heat.  Best Burt Reynolds movie ever, right? I'd entertain arguments for Hooper. Deliverance was more of an ensemble thing than a proper Reynolds vehicle. Stroker Ace maybe? Thoughts?

OMD: In the Burt oeuvre, I'd be hard-pressed to omit Sharky's Machine, and the White Lightning / Gator combo is pretty sweet. I also hold Malone and Stick in special places in my heart.

"Whatever you're trying to pull, there's something you best keep in mind: You exist in this town because I allow you to." Well, Gillian, I'd say your days are numbered because I think Lucky will know he told you where he was heading for dinner. Only so many people knew. Your number is coming up soon. It's only whether Nucky or Lucky does her in.

WG: No doubt, a definite contender for the next cremation. It's one thing to seek counsel from Leander, quite another to mix it up with Luciano, Nucky, and Gyp.

OMD: As for Gyp, again with the fire? This time it's at least a flaming ball of it. He really gives zero fucks about collateral damage. Bystanders be damned.

WG: Now that we've established that the pack of homely jackals at Easter dinner in the last episode included Gyp's wife and daughters, how hard are they trying to make Gyp unlikeable? Jesus. One of them looked like a buxom Ernest Borgnine. That family was seriously ugly for television standards. The big blow up at Babette's seemed a little too impersonal for Gyp. The failed attempt to get any of  his target sets up some interesting themes going forward. The bosses in New York and Chicago are moving to the fore.

OMD: I was shocked that he'd do something as hands-off as just blowing up their dinner destination. I'm sure they were watching from nearby, but still, you would think Gyp would want to light the match and see the looks on their faces.

Horniest ginger in the Western Hemisphere

Who's hornier: the sex ed nun or Ethel from Downton?
 
WG: Ethel. She's had a taste and is ruined because of it.

OMD: Did this episode make you more or less likely to pick up a bottle of Old Overholt next time you hit up the liquor store? It seems as though the backroom dealing is going to succeed in taking Daugherty down. I like that Mellon is in the mix now. Interesting character. I like that he worked to get the top marginal tax rate cut from 73% in 1922 to 24% in 1929 only to have all of his work undone by FDR. All that work for naught.

WG: Mellon serves well as a stereotypical barron. Maybe if Mitt wins, we can return to those halcyon days, when something as juvenile as democracy wasn't a hurdle for leaders of men. Galt lives! 

OMD: How about Nucky beating down that nunce Gilbert Longacre? Bully for you, Nucky. Lesson to all: Don't call Nucky "sir."

WG: I guess Nucky's rough upbringing gave him the skills to handle himself. I thought maybe Bin Fartin would get over on him. Barely plausible. 

OMD: It would seem that with the presumed death of Billie Kent the Winter & Co. will make sure to punish any character as soon as they abandon their beliefs for the glitz of the gangster lifestyle. There's a cost to every action. Once she was kept, that was all she wrote.

WG: The real tragedy: she died a blonde.  

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Three, Episode Two "Spaghetti & Coffee"

While Nucky is away sort of tending to business and sort of tending to Billie Kent in the NYC, Eli gets out of prison and begins working under Mickey Doyle. Gyp Rosetti takes up root in Tabor Heights to block the way between Atlantic City and New York. No goldfish were harmed in the filming of this episode.

Old Man Duggan: So an entire episode without either Harrow or Van Alden is a sad one, but the world keeps spinning on its axis. At least the specter of Harrow's bold act at the conclusion of "Resolutions" looms over the proceedings herein.

Wordy Ginters: Building blocks. Bricks were laid with future mayhem in mind. Still, it is a buzzkill to endure an episode without some of Boardwalk Empire's best characters.

OMD: Starting at the top, we are presented with two potentially innocent victims who are mercifully spared by the larger Powers That Be. First, the goldfish, dumped from its bowl into the sink left to, well, do whatever the opposite of drowning is, only to be spared that dire fate at the cost of a glass of whiskey, of course. Second, the gas station attendant. If there were any question as to whether or not Gyp Rosetti's introduction was an effective one, you need look no further than the tension that fills the scene with that kid. Motor oil? Map scaling? Both petty corrections that could result in one's death, I suppose, at least when those corrections are directed at Gyp Rosetti--or do we call him D.L. "Pop" Collingsworth now?

WG: Gyp reminded me a little bit of Nosferatu walking around in that long coat with the black gloves. Terence Winter did a nice job of setting Gyp's character at full-on menace. That he ultimately restrained himself this week is a nice touch too. Who knows what he'll do? What do you think happened to Pop Collingsworth? The Italian accent drifts into Super Mario Brothers territory from time to time, but the "everybody has a gotta the guns" scene was as good as it looked in the previews.

OMD: Eli wastes no time, does he? "Let me ask you something, Mickey: How the fuck are you still alive?" I, for one, am glad that someone asked the question that has been nagging at me every moment I watch him do anything. It's even better that it is the great Shea Whigham who gets to chew on that line. And the hand on the leg? Great touch.

WG: Mickey is irritating. I'm going to call my shot and suggest Gyp rub's him out eventually. I cackled when Eli said that straight away on account of you asking the same question last week. No one knows the answer. With the shipment to Rothstein getting queered, and Manny pushing up daisies, Mickey may be losing his value.

OMD: Samuel comes a-courtin'. Can you imagine the media attention young Samuel would get if he were an athlete this day and age? Jesus, all the subcutaneously racist buzzwords would get thrown in his direction. And, of course, when Maybelle is given the opportunity at the life that both her father, Chalky, and Samuel want for her, she attempts to piss it away, favoring the excitement that the danger inherent her father's way of life could bring. Well, she favors that until she's presented with the harsh reality of that danger. I'm pretty sure she shat herself. Samuel, however, got his druthers about him rather quickly and began to tend to his severely bludgeoned assailant. You think Maybelle still wants to walk on the wild side, or is she done wanting to slum it? All that really matters though is that we get more Michael K. Williams.

WG: Maybelle definitely gains a better understanding of the distance between whispered stories of jazz speakeasies with her brother in the safety of her house, and the hot, sweaty, unpredictable reality underneath the glare of bare bulbs in a real roadhouse. I liked that Samuel, the Jacque Vaughn of Boardwalk Empire characters, side-steps Chalky to tend to the man who carved his cheek. The dude who plays Samuel did a great job of alternately trembling like a bunny, and then forcing himself the courage to deal, i.e., regulate the motion offense from the point, knock down the money free throws at the end, and then dazzle Bob Davis by using 4 syllable words and being polite in the post-game presser.

I don't know if devil_fingers lurks in these parts, but it would be interesting to hear his take on the jazz in this episode, and the series in general. Chalky mentions something about a Professor from Kansas City who beat on his piano pretty good, I wonder if it was Count Basie? Also a reference to a King and Carter number. Klaassen, reveal thine self and share the jazz love in the comments section.

OMD: I also like the parallel drawn between Chalky and Eli in this episode. Both wanting better lives for their children. Both having lived lives with a modest amount of success but having had to make sacrifices of themselves to get where they were. Then they are faced with their children not embracing the lives they envisioned for them. Did their respective sacrifices of character poison the well from which their families drink? At the very least, I can answer Chalky's question. Yes, you're interesting now.

WG: Excellent question. Seems like Chalky's kids are well-suited to succeed. He can't read, if I recall correctly. But his children appear to be headed for bigger and better things, college for example, which was pretty rare for African-Americans back in the '20s. I assume the incident at the speakeasy has washed away any lingering fantasies about living a bohemian lifestyle that Maybelle had. Maybe not. Eli's kids seem like they are in a tougher spot. Will obviously resents Eli. Didn't even open up his present from a few years ago, and has quite literally taken over man of the house duties. Even his clothes looked too small, like he was growing over the course of a few scenes to further illustrate how he made the move from boy to man in Eli's absence.

Dr. Mason, I presume?

OMD: So Dr. Mason is a douche. He certainly does have "a maddening way." More importantly, doesn't it just feel like the actor Patrick Kennedy is channeling French Stewart. Also, appalling tobacco? Is that code for something? And a Catholic Hospital? Do we think Dr. Mason simply wants to educate about birth control or something far more nefarious? Abortions for all the poor, perhaps?

WG: I think he was inferring that they spend an inordinate amount of time covering up child abuse within the diocese, doesn't leave the resources necessary for pre-natal outreach.

OMD: What do you think Gyp said to Sheriff Sickles between the point at which Sickles tried to give them the ol' heave-ho from the hospitable Kinneret Lodge and Tabor Heights with the head on back to New York line and when they're cowering in fear in the street telling the booze caravan to turn tail.

WG: Very effective to leave that bit of business off screen. Only helps Gyp grow in stature. Sickles is still alive. So I'm guessing Gyp crushed his palm with paper. With favors of more sweets to come. Or more likely, totally bulldog bullied him into turning traitor.

I got a big kick out of Gyp and his henchman forcing down the diner's spaghetti and meatballs. Reminded me of the faces on the gang at Downton Abbey after Daisy sabotaged some of Patmore's dishes.

OMD: Just like mom made. Would you put $40K in a fishbowl, sight of contact unseen?

WG: Remus did. Remus is what Remus does. I don't think I would have. More out of fear than bravado. Seemed too shady. The Gaston Bullock Means character was a trip. He'd fit in nicely in a David Lynch movie. Cryptic. Intense. Knew too much. I loved how he insinuated that Smith and Daugherty were gay.

OMD: Bringing Jimmy James into the fold is never a bad idea. I'm just glad that he's not a fish killer. Stephen Root should be in everything, especially when being called upon to generally confuse all those with whom he interacts.

It seems that Nucky spends the episode living in a haze like Don Draper in The Village, running from the life he fought/lied/cheated/killed for, finally obtained, and now has mixed feelings about having gotten in the first place. And in Billie's apartment, the razor blade? I mean I get what's going on with the razor (it's not his), but why did he take the blade from the razor in the first place? Obviously, if he can kill his figurative son, the gloves are probably off, but are we to view the temporary removal of a razor blade as a brief flirtation with killing Season Three's Paz de la Huerta in a jealous rage? And leaving Mr. Sleater out to dry? Obviously, he doesn't know he's shirking off an urgent phone call for himself, but I suppose that's what happens when the King tries to run away from the throne.

WG: I read it as a possible way for him to emasculate his various competitors. She IS a vivacious young woman. Nothing more emasculating than staring at a mirror with a face covered in of ridiculous cream, and nothing to raze it with. Stealing their razors. Sending a message. Could completely be a prelude to a Soprano's style goomar whacking as well.

OMD: That seems a much more likely reading of that scene than mine.

WG: I wonder if there is anything more to the playing pool at Rothstein's place scene. Nucky and Rothstein engage in their usual bon mots chess match (Nucky has a nice habit of zeroing in on exactly the issue at hand with his speech, usually clouded in some social nicety.) Rothstein runs the table as easily as he ferrets out Nucky's knowledge of the Manny murder, and the depth of his relationship with Billie. The one point where he gets stopped in his tracks is when Nucky, absentmindedly, I think, gives the wrong date for a shipment of booze. Rothstein stuffs the pool cue in the corner pocket and gets assertive and says I hope your boys have calendars. Now that the booze run has been put on hold, I wonder if the little moment of confusion Nucky had over the date of the delivery is going to get him into hot water. 

OMD: It's hard to say whether or not that will play out at all. One would assume it would, but I can't imagine Nucky doesn't relay news of the obstructionist Gyp setting up shop as Pop Collingsworth.

WG: Ordinary men avoid trouble. Extraordinary men turn it to their advantage. This has to be about as close a definition of private equity work as I've ever heard.

OMD: Pretty on-point there. That said, Mitt Romney must have been horrible at it, judging by his complete inability to avoid trouble on the campaign trail, this in spite of the fact that an entire "news" network employs advisers to his campaign.

WG: Time for a White Rock beverage.

OMD: Crack comes in liquid form?