Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode Six "Devil You Know"

This week's antepenultimate episode penned by Howard Korder and directed by Jeremy Podeswa features a couple of conclusions to character arcs in a very Boardwalk Empire kind of way.

Old Man Duggan: Anyone wondering how so many storylines were going to get wrapped up in just six episodes got some answers tonight. And all this happened while Nucky was playing hooky and Chalky moved all of maybe four feet.

Wordy Ginters: It began on the gallop with Chalky at the Harlem Cathouse. Kind of unusual for Boardwalk to get rolling so quickly. I made a mental note that fucking around was apparently not going to be tolerated.

OMD: We pick back up with Daughter Maitland, Chalky, and Althea, right where last week left off. Clearly Althea is Chalky's. It must have been a rough seven years for Daughter, as her gift went without professional implementation thanks to being blackballed by Narcisse.

WG: Hey, I get the pushback against those who fetishize vinyl culture. The sound is warm. The cover art was integral to the experience. You have to listen to the whole damn album. I know, I know. But I'll be damned if Daughter's voice didn't sound fantastic coming out of that vintage turntable. Even better was seeing it saw Chalky in half.

OMD: Indeed. The look on his face was tragic.

In the flashback, we have perhaps the first inkling that Mabel may be a bit moody, as she's up in the middle of the night making pies. She seemed to have just a slight undercurrent of emotional fragility that she'd then underplay by speaking in that faux Southern accent.

WG: Homage to Crispin Glover in Wild at Heart. "I'm making sandwiches!"

OMD: While we're in pre-WWI Atlantic City, we may as well talk about Sheriff Lindsay delivering young girls to the Commodore with their mother's in reluctant tow. The look on that mother's face. What the fuck was she thinking? And how the hell does Sheriff Lindsay sleep at night?

WG: On piles of memory-numbing cash. You can't be a cog in the cynical wonderland that is Atlantic City without viewing those not in on the take as less than human.

OMD: As for Gillian, apparently she was always a fucking handful. Around the World in 72 Days. This is where Nellie Bly comes into Nucky and Gillian's story. Funny since she also did that expose on the treatment of the patients at the Women's Lunatics Asylum on Blackwell's Island.

WG: Nothing happens without a reason on this show. The details are on point.

OMD: I guess the Depression made hard, crass broads with a knack for rolling Missourians in the alley with the draw of dirty, back-alley threesomes. Those women also apparently enjoy making men recite Longfellow. I have to wonder if Irene, the near-King Neptune's consort, was one of the Commodore's pedophiliac casualties.

WG: Who didn't see that one coming? Interesting to hear Nucky finally put words to the sentiment he's been carrying around from jump street. He can't escape his prole roots. He can hang at the Ritz, but it doesn't suit him. Drunk on rot-gut whiskey, winning a fist fight, and fucking two women in an alley. Three-fiths of my bucket list. The remainders? Royals World Series Champs. Scott McKinney reinstated at Royals Review.

OMD: That old piece of shit should've apologized to the nice--er, breathing--ladies.

WG: Hey, Nucky may be a piney from the sticks, but he's no mouthbreather. A little respect for the ladies shouldn't be too much to ask.

OMD: Man, Van Alden and Eli's plan that was foisted upon them was a shit one. Ralph is boning in the count room. Agent D'Angelo is asked to take care of them only to have Al come back with Paul Muni and George Raft with him. Timing went wrong in nearly every possible way. "We're having trouble at home." "I can vouch for that." Even when their lives hang in the balance, Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham deliver the funny.

WG: Those two were magic when they found themselves in the same scenes. Too bad it didn't happen earlier and oftener.

OMD: In his final moments at least Van Alden got to be himself again. Crazy, invoking Jesus, insisting wrath would reign down on the man he was strangling.

WG: It was interesting for no other reason than I've always kind of wondered how Van Alden could stray so far from his extreme straight-edge religious vibe. Did he cotton to the dark side, or just get swept along in the tumult that was his story arc? I don't remember if it was this week, or last, but I was glad to see a pre-episode " previously on Boardwalk Empire" clip of Van Alden drowning the crooked prohee from way back in Season One. That batshit brutal baptism/drowning revealed to me how fucking awesome this show is. Shannon was fantastic in this series, it was good to see him going out in a blaze of biblical righteousness.

OMD: Yeah, if he's got to go out, it was nice to see him revisit his roots en route.

Eli says it's Ness gunning for him, and Al unwittingly hands the damning evidence to D'Angelo. Eli is released to return east, presumably to eventually help Nucky.

WG: A little too tidy. But what the hell. Sets up some interesting possibilities for the last two episodes. Shea Whigham was awesome as per usual. Right after Van Alden got popped, and Eli thought he was next, he began nervously mumbling and apologizing over and over to his wife? That was powerful.

OMD: I guess Narcisse's being neutered at least made him amenable to releasing Daughter Maitland. Chalky clearly knew what his fate would be, but he got to hear her voice again, and that was all that mattered. As he stepped into the light of day, he knew what fate awaited him. He still got to do right by his daughter and Daughter, who Althea confirmed did love her father.

WG: Chalky went out with some dignity. It was cool that he knew what was up. What a great character. I don't think that Winter quite new what to do with him. Tough episode when you have popular series icons like Chalky and Van Alden both get whacked.

OMD: "You think I don't know who you are?" I'm really starting to think that there has to be more to Joe Harper's story. If he is Tommy Darmody, though, I've got no idea what his endgame is, as revenge could have been taken in the alley.

WG: It's either a head feint to keep us guessing, or something is up with that dude. Towards the end of the episode there was a split second cut where they flashed to Joe Harper's face. Struck me as odd for a rando extra type guy. He's undoubtedly set up for a bigger role down the stretch.

OMD: Regardless, it looks like Nucky is getting his army ready for a war. Unfortunately his legion of allies seems to be dwindling. I can't imagine how he gets out from under this.

WG: With Mickey Doyle serving as his right-hand man? He's screwed.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode Five "King of Norway"

This week's installment, courtesy of scribe Steve Kornacki and director Ed Bianchi, treats us to a time jump in the story of Young Enoch Thompson--1897, to be exact--where we find him courting Mabel while trying to work his way into the Commodore's inner circle. In the present day, Nucky and Chalky are reunited, June visits Eli in Chicago, dinner is had at the Van Alden/Muellers, and the Young Turks take a shot at the Mustache Petes.

Old Man Duggan: Let's focus on the Young Nucky stuff first. There seem to be some viewer complaints about this aspect of the show. I guess if you don't think the show is about Nucky and/or that he's a dull character then this part of the show would stand still. I don't understand either of those points of view, but it seemed like maybe they should be acknowledged. I, for one, am very interested to see from whence Nucky Thompson came. This bookending works for me.

Wordy Ginters: I've got a small issue with the novelty teeth used by the actor playing Young Man Nuck. The eerie physical resemblance was sufficient to hammer home the flashback vibe without that hornblast grill leaping of the screen. To those faint hearts wounded by the looks back, let's join together and say pshaw. For me, the examination of the boy who became the man is a fresh fucking twist.

OMD: Once again, this time in the flashbacks, we get a Ragged Dick reference for Nucky. This is not the first time that Nucky has been compared against Horatio Alger's protagonist. Of course, that middle-class respectability is something that is likely to elude Nucky, given the choices that he's made. Of course, there's an element of damned if you do, damned if you don't in his tale. He comes from such abject poverty that it's hard to fathom the future he desired without cutting some corners.

WG: Therein lies the rub. He wants it so bad, the ends always justify the means.

OMD: Adult Mabel is played by Maya Kazan, Zoe's sister. The courtship of Mabel Jeffries includes a scene at the table straight out of any classist father-suitor tale. This, of course, plays into the class issues endemic in Nucky's greater story. The life he wants, the woman he wants, all of these are things which the boot black Nucky Thompson is perhaps too bold to want.

WG: Is Buscemi the shit or what? How does he make Nucky a sympathetic character? The flashbacks help establish a patina of empathy, but ultimately he's a loathsome protagonist. Despite his wormy ways, I typically find myself pulling for him. He's got zero charisma. Physically, he's unlike 99% of what we see in male leads. His character is a schemer, a murderer, a womanizer, a liar, a cheat, a lawbreaker, and all of this is carried out with the low-grade menace of a high school principal. He operates with an offhand disdain that burns too cool to be openly hostile. You can feel his patronizing contempt for the majority of the characters around him, who are two beats too slow to keep up with his thinking. The look on his face is best described as lemon-wedge constipated. Yet, at almost every step along the way, I'm pulling for his schemes to succeed. Perhaps this says more about me than the necromancy Buscemi is able to beam through the character.

OMD: I definitely don't feel like I should be rooting for him, yet I am at every turn.

It seems likely that the Commodore wants Nucky's handling of the corpse of Mr. Halligan to be his trial. Though he seems to regard Nucky unfavorably--"mooncalf" is an abortive fetus of a cow but came to mean either a monstrous/grotesque thing (Shakespeare refers to Caliban as such in The Tempest) or later a dullard or fool; one must figure that the Commodore means to apply the latter usage in this situation, though it's hard to see how either really fits here--this must be the Commodore's means by which to evaluate Nucky's ability to do his dirty work.

WG: "Mooncalf" struck me as a little harsh. Nucky had already demonstrated veteran leadership skills by nonchalantly laying out strategy to keep rivals out of Atlantic City. And he showed plus-plus cigar-handling skills. Obviously, the Commodore wasn't hip to his charms. I think the corpse de Halligan is most certainly intended as an acid test.

OMD: I'd watch Stephen Graham clench the Tribune in hand while parked on the shitter any day. Judging by the fact that Agent D'Angelo is hep to Capone's plan to move the whole operation to Cicero posthaste, I'd posit that it's highly unlikely that his rash decision to enlist Eli and Nelson to nab Capone's ledger goes off without a hitch.

WG: Having Capone refer to his own stubborn shit as "fucker" was inspired.

OMD: Looks like Al is going to be taking Owney Madden and presumably George Raft (who was Madden's lifelong friend and actor in Scarface). Raft later made sex on Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, and Mae West.

WG: Raft makes Derek Jeter look like an amateur. I'd love to see them go balls deep with the Hollywood angle. I want to see someone playing your boy Edward G. Robinson, slamming shots with Capone and pouring over a Daily Racing Form trying to suss out the feature at Hawthorne Park.

OMD: Joe Harper, that fresh-faced lad who Mickey Doyle grabbed from the hobo fire in the alley, looks like he'd make a great Mr. Bates. He's got the suit-coat-hold down pat.

WG: Bates! Great series cross over idea. Downton Abbey gets Nucky's Cuban muscle and Boardwalk Empire gets Bates and a footmen to be named later. Hilarity and ear loss ensues.

OMD: I saw someone hypothesize that Joe Harper could also by Jimmy's scion, which would make sense.

With Chalky White so hellbent on revenge against Narcisse, it's too bad that coming to Nucky's aid one last time probably isn't in the cards.

WG: I'm just glad he's around for another episodes. I felt a pang of doom when Chalky rashly showed up at the Harlem brothel.

OMD: Eli's drunken fever dreams are answered. The only man on the show who loves his wife fucked the bitter shrew Mrs. Van Alden Mueller in his seven-year drunken stupor and didn't even know he'd done it until the titular man showed his mustachioed face. Before the key to his nightmares was revealed, that dinner scene was a pretty great snapshot of the shit home life of George Nelson Van Alden Mueller. Their sex scene, whoa. The look on her face. Harpy.

WG: I'm not going to lie. I'm a sucker for the beautiful cruelty. I'm down with Mrs. Van Alden Mueller, for no other reason than her habit of barking out "Husband" to her man like she was trying to get the attention of a pet. That dinner scene was hilarious. How do you create a scene as cliched as the henpecked husband and marital strife without sinking into the threadbare depths of banality? You turn it up to 11.

OMD: "The event you're thinking about? That was an accident. Plain and simple." "You mean like a streetcar hitting a horse? A man getting his head crushed in a metal press? A gas explosion in which bystanders are literally torn limb from limb? That's what your having sexual relations with my wife was like?" "Look, I don't know about you, but my life is a fucking shipwreck." "Well, land ho." Honestly, I could just transcribe that scene and leave it at that. We need a fucking Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham series. It'd be great if it was Eli and Nelson these past few years, but anything. The scene while the waited for D'Angelo was transcendent.

WG: The Chicago scenes in general have stood out with a different type of electricity than the rest of the locales on the show. Looney Tunes. A joy to watch.

OMD: Gillian's future is looking bleak. Dr. Cotton seems quite the kook. Cutting the crazy out like a loony-bin Mengele. Not from the brain either. Jesus.

WG: I'm more worried for Dr. Cotton than I am for Gillian.

OMD: Daughter Maitland and daughter. Methinks Chalky's got another, younger Maybelle.

WG: I didn't even think about that! You might be onto something. I hope so.

OMD: Torrio makes it out of all this unscathed. So do Lansky, Luciano, and Siegel. In Maranzano, it looks like Nucky is betting on a losing horse. And by looks like, I mean he is. It's hard to imagine a peaceful resolution between Nucky and the Mustache Petes. Knowing the fates of the others, it's hard not to assume the worst for Nucky.

WG: I hope Winter has the courage to flout history, and the skills to end the series with the flair it deserves.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode Two "The Good Listener"

Nucky attempts to figure out who tried to off him in Havana. We catch up with Nelson Van Alden, Eli and Willie Thompson, Gillian Darmody, and Al Capone. Eliot Ness is closing in on Capone. Nucky tries to make inroads towards a legitimate empire.

Old Man Duggan: So it would appear that given the eight episode final season, Terence Winter--who penned this episode--and his buds are not going to waste any time in moving this plot along.

We get to go to Chicago this week. The IRS raids George Nelson Van Alden Mueller's warehouse which is under Eli's watch. Eli's separation-related depression and ensuing seven-year drunk complete with crying jags is tragically beautiful. The only man on the show who loves his wife, and he can't see her. The scene between him and Mueller while they laid in wait was priceless. "Sometimes I find it easier to despise someone than to love them." The look on Whigham's face spoke a thousand words.

Wordy Ginters: Eli is definitely the most human character on the show. Mueller's words are a nice fit for Eli. He's obviously despising himself a lot these days, per the unshaven face and the rumpled threads. Seeing him crack listening to the family oriented radio drama at the end of the show was one of many great scenes in this episodes. It underlined Eli's longing for his family, all facets, very nicely.

OMD: Nucky goes to see Johnny Torrio, who was pushed into retirement at the end of last season, to look into who tried to take him out in Havana. Easy to lose in the shuffle of Nucky's suss job is the fact that Meyer goes to Cuba all the time. This furthers the postulation that Meyer Lansky is in bed with Don Maxime Ronis. One can't help but wonder if perhaps Torrio's retirement advice should go heeded, given what we know about the success of Lansky, Luciano, and Siegel's gambit.

WG: How can you do business with people you can't trust?

OMD: At the end of Nucky's afternoon tea with Torrio, Nucky's gaze (and director Allen Coulter's lens) drifts to Christ on the cross before kicking back to his sister's deathbed. It would seem that perhaps this is a symbol--not to infer that Nucky is Christ here--past a simple mechanism of instigation for a flashback to 1884.

WG: Agreed. Foreshadows the line that the sister is "with Jesus now", but you could also tease all kinds of meaning out of the infrequent but too persistent to be happenstance religious iconography in this show. But I'm in no mood for teasing.

OMD: I liked how in the past young Nucky kept his emotions close to the chest while Eli was more openly emotional. Sure, Eli was younger, but he's always been the one to let loose emotion in extreme ways.

WG: What is Winter trying to tell us about Nucky via these flashbacks? Is Nucky's quest for cash, one that he is "this close" to securing, some Rosebud type journey meant to reclaim a lost childhood, a lost sister, or out of an extreme distaste of poverty?

OMD: I think it's primarily to show who he was and in the waning days of his power his introspection as his journey comes to a close.

Since nothing in Boardwalk Empire happens without intent, I'll be curious to see what comes of Willie's interview with the U.S. Attorney of New York.

WG: Cloudy whether or not he's working at the behest of Nucky, or simply trying to get a square type square job, untainted by blood and whatnot.

OMD: Our first glimpse of Al Capone, complete with new scar, has him holding court while congratulating himself on his fame. You got your wish with his acknowledgement of the comedies Public Enemy and Little Caesar as he's getting interviewed by Variety. Then Mike D'Angelo shows up after Capone calls for him--though the reasons for that escape him, likely owing to the syphilis driving him mad--and delivers the news of the bust. Of course, we later find out that D'Angelo is a fed.

WG: Those Capone scenes buzzed with a different vibe, didn't they? Intended comedy? A play on the ravages of the Syph? Completely over the top scene chomping by Stephen Graham as Capone, laughing a little too hard, a little too coked up, a little too everything. I liked it and was irritated by it at the same time.

OMD: That's sort of how I feel with a lot of the Capone scenes. They've always played a little broader than the rest of the show. There's a barbed appreciation of them.

That elevator scene was fantastic. The pheasant feathers in the cap were so goddamn funny. And of course, it fed Eli the idea to hit Guzik on his collection run.

WG: Great scene. I thought Van Alden Mueller might crush that poor dog. And I wasn't sold on the idea of those two society ladies getting out of the elevator alive. The vintage dialogue by the bellboy was a nice touch, too. Homage to movies of the era for sure.

OMD: I had to double-check to make sure he wasn't the bellhop-cum-clerk at the hotel in Masters of Sex.

Gillian's stay in the nut house looks like tons of fun. What the hell does she think she's going to do with a pen and paper?

WG: The Booby Hatch Diaries, coming soon to a book store near you.

OMD: Nucky's quest to transition into being a legitimate liquor man once Prohibition ends brings him into contact with Joe Kennedy. I'm looking forward to the course this will take.

WG: Absolutely. Just when the series begins its final run, it starts to run in some James Ellroy territory. I'd love to see it continue indefinitely into the early 80s.

OMD: "Why do clouds just float in the sky?" Mueller's home life gave me at least four chuckles. Beleaguered with the Battle-axe. I'd watch a spin-off of that.

WG: Don't fuck with Sigrid. I can't listen to her speak without seeing the chef from The Muppet Show.

OMD: Gyp's right hand Tonino was serving at the pleasure of Maranzano. Or rather playing all sides, helping Luciano take down Masseria. Of course, Nucky's man saw to it that Billie Kent was avenged.

WG: How about the dope track that closed out the episode? Nice earhole symmetry as well.

OMD: So Nucky's dad hated the Commodore because he thought he got a raw deal when he sold off their land, presumably on the ocean from whence he could fish. A nice wrinkle to their personal history. Choosing the man who screwed his father over his father, both of whom were bastards, but in their own special ways.

WG: So Eli, ostensibly a family guy? Nucky, a family guy as long as it doesn't interfere with adding to the piles of cash?

OMD: Pretty much.

Nucky's man, who to my knowledge still doesn't have a name but is played by Paul Calderon, sits while Nucky waxes philosophical existentially. He doesn't say much, but when he does, it's awesome. When proffered a drink and asked if he has anything to add to the conversation, he simply states, "I kill them, I don't kill them. Whatever you say." Unfortunately for Nucky, he's not much of a confidante. One has to worry about a man whose loyalty is bought, too.

WG: I got a kick out of how his mere presence freaked out Tonino. Much like Yasiel Puig striking terror in the hearts of mortal MLB players.

OMD: Puig! I wish he hadn't gone ice cold since the break. Really screwed me in fantasy baseball this year.

The Young Turks are clearly gunning to take everything over. It does look like Tonino's fate was sealed with whichever side he chose. Luciano's eyes spoke pretty clearly to me at least. Tonino, the schnorrer (Yiddish for beggar), was not to be trusted. Unluckily for Luciano, they didn't knock off Tonino before he could talk to Nucky. With Luciano's distrust of Tonino, perhaps Nucky having him killed (and left down an ear) will be a point from which the two can gain common ground?

Though you saw him for a second in the warehouse at the beginning, we get our first glimpse of Jim True-Frost as Eliot Ness. Who's going to play Sean Connery?

WG: Roger Moore?

OMD: I wonder if the ledger for the cathouse on Huron that Wilson handed off to D'Angelo after the reveal wasn't the same cathouse that Jimmy met Harrow in?

WG: Nice catch, I had completely forgot about that. Probably. Knowing how they craft the seams on this show.

OMD: "She was a lovely girl, Billie Kent." Eat shit, Tonino. The "Greetings from Havana" postcard was a nice touch.

Eli sobbing alone while listening to America's favorite family on the radio. Quite the shot, leaving us right where he started the episode. It seems like the episode playing out over the airwaves wasn't much different from one that would've played out at Eli's house eight years earlier.

WG: Kind of odd to get a subtle emotional pull for a character who clipped two nobodies via bullets to the brain a few minutes earlier. Great scene.

OMD: Just as season is bookending the beginning and end of Nucky's journey through the criminal enterprise, the episode is bookended by shots of ears--or at least where ears should be in the case of the second shot. Great work from Coulter. I'm guessing he and Van Patten are sharing directing duties this season, since they'd each just have four episodes to shoot. If so, fantastic. They're both so fucking good.

WG: It's going to be interesting to see if the compressed episode schedule amps up the drama. I couldn't agree more though. The show doesn't have the busty sexual pull of hairpin plot twists, heart-pounding cliffhangers, and the like a la Breaking Bad. However, you can't beat the cinematography and the storytelling.

Man on Film: American Hustle

Coming after The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook in David O. Russell's body of work, it was hard to not have high expectations for American Hustle. As a result (and the subsequent innumerable accolades and nominations heaped upon it cannot help for those who have yet to see American Hustle), American Hustle was at least a little disappointing.

That isn't to say American Hustle wasn't good. It is just a victim of its high expectations.

In essence, American Hustle is an acting showcase. From the principal cast to supporting cast members like Robert DeNiro, Elisabeth Rohm, Michael Pena, Louis C.K., and the Boardwalk Empire cameo crew (Jack Huston and the inimitable Shea Whigham), this was an opportunity for actors to shine, regardless of their line count. And as Russell's films virtually guarantee, shine they do.

And while the supporting cast is rock solid, the principle cast is outstanding. Jeremy Renner gets to shine as a faithful family man and politician who actually wants to provide for his constituents. Bradley Cooper turns in a wonderfully complex role, imbuing Richie DiMaso with every bit of obsessiveness, self-pity, egotism, and volatility that it required. Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence are both fantastic and get to make themselves comfortable in these wildly unpredictable and wholly colorful roles. And Christian Bale? Holy shit. Once again, Bale shows that he belongs in that very short list of actors who turn in must-watch performances every damn time. He is brilliant once again, and his brilliance goes far past his physical commitment to the role. Bale disappears into the role of Irving Rosenfeld. He was given a role wrought with pathos, a duality of supreme confidence and insecurity that is thrilling to behold.

After all of this discussion of the stellar acting, it would be a disservice to those working behind the scenes to fail to talk about the production design, wardrobe, and art direction. The painstaking attention to detail that went into realizing the world of this film was obvious in every frame of the film. The uniformity in style and full realization of late-'70s New York/New Jersey is special.

As usual, David O. Russell has crafted a well-directed film. It is hard to argue with the performances or the mise-en-scene. The narrative, however, was just a little lacking in the oomph that his recent films have had. The story in American Hustle was fun but ultimately insubstantial. The richness of characters goes a long way towards helping to remedy this shortcoming, but American Hustle is not a movie that stays with you for more than an hour or so after you walk out of the theater. With a David O. Russell film, this is sort of something that I had come to expect.

True Detective: Season One, Episode Three "The Locked Room"

"The Locked Room" brings the supreme acting clinic that is Woody and Mac into overdrive. A stick man is finagled out of a beer can. Woody actually fucks his wife. And the two finally catch a lead that might lead to the killer.

You should see my sculpture of Rod Beck.

Stan Earnest: Yes! We get a Shea Whigham sighting! The guy deserves more praise than he got for Boardwalk Empire. I'm diggin' the Elvis preacher man.

The interplay between Woody and Mac is beautiful. They both are great detectives in different ways. They both hate each other. They both intensely respect each other. It all seems natural, too, like these guys are two real detectives.

Craig Scholes: And they are both absolutely crazy in different ways.

SE: I love how Woody is a guy hell-bent on ignoring life's existential questions, and Mac is bent on exposing everything. It sure is funny watching these two make each other squirm.

So now it's not "Get off my lawn!" It's "I LIKE TO MOW MY LAWN!"

CS: What a horseshit lie. No one likes mowing.

SE: No way, dude. Mowing is legalized drunk driving if you have a rider.

CS: That yard wasn't big enough for a rider. Funny story though: I heard a guy describe yard size as a count of beer consumption. He had moved into a new place and said that with his rider it was a three-beer yard.

SE: I had a place once with a six-beer yard. And there is nothing like donning a sombrero, putting some live Grateful Dead in my ear, sauntering along with a nice sixer, and welcoming skin cancer. Ok, I lied about the sombrero.

CS: Finally got a Creole accent with the dude in the boat.  He was the first dude to have any sort of Creole accent.  For this taking place in Louisiana, there have been very few backwater Louisiana types.

SE: I thought that was Johnny Gomes' dumb ass. 

CS: They could get Michael Rappaport to double down on his shitty Southern accent he is using in Justified.

SE: So Woody's way of describing how fucked up he has become is to refer to himself as Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff? Now that is fucked up.

CS: So it’s the law when there is an emergency vehicle with its lights on that you must pull over, but you never see a car pull to the side in a chase scene.

SE: I think I saw one old dusty Buick pull over. 

Synesthesia! Warning! Warning! *Psychology nerd alert.* That is a real thing, and a famous scientist Ramachandran posits that it is the basis of artistic creativity.

CS: I can taste emotions.

SE:  Woody's sidepiece can taste bologna.

CS: You and your obsession with Woody’s bologna. 

SE: I've seen some shitty slow country music playing shitholes where the old fogies get down on a Saturday night, but that bar has to be the saddest sad bastard bar I've ever seen. If that band was playing any slower, they might as well have been downloading a song using NetZero dial-up.

CS: That very well could have been Twisters here in Pittsburg.

SE: Just finished the ep, so the killer is Walter White?

CS: Clearly. 

SE: What's this "in two weeks" bullshit? The Super Bowl is a bigger monster than the killer. Looks like a total shit-hits-the-fan episode though.

CS: I don't disagree.  I am only going to watch the game because I feel obligated to attend a social function.

SE: I've been invited to probably an amazing party where there will be nothing but Broncos fans there. Great people, but I might have to wear a Richard Sherman jersey just for spite.

CS: Tebow jersey.

SE: The Tebow Patriots shirsey would throw them all out of whack. They hate the Patriots, but love Tebow. It would be a nice touch.

We have to skip a week of True Detective for this?

CS: Maurice Clarett jersey.

SE: O.J. Simpson Bills throwback!

CS: But that doesn't really have any tie to the Broncos.

SE: Well, just one Bronco, a white Ford.

CS: This has really gone off the rails.

SE: I really don't think half this shit should make it, but I mean not a lot to say about these episodes other than the script is fucking mind-blowing, and the acting is flawless.

CS: So much more happened this episode than the last one though.  At least this episode advanced the plot.

Editing this episode of the podcast is going to be a real fucking asshole. 

SE: You deserve it for the nightmare that this is. 

CS: Says the guy who completely forgot about it.

SE: Mario Galaxy with the kids is fucking addictive.

CS: We haven't even talked about this episode at all.

SE: Preach brother, preach. What do you want to say?

CS: I love how judgmental Woody is of McConaughey (I accidentally spelled that right) while being completely oblivious to how big a piece of shit he has become. I’m not the type of guy that can wax poetic about the technical mastery that McConaughey is doing.

SE: I think we need to give props to Woody just for keeping up with that.

CS: Oh yeah, he isn't doing anything wrong in the show.

Brokeback Mountain II: Psychedelic Mushroom Farmers

SE: I'm just happy to see a show celebrate the dirtiness detectives must be crawling in. I mean, one has to be some kind of evil bastard to catch evil people. It just comes with the territory. Woody is self-absorbed in worrying about his marriage and then the episode flips the script to McConaughey that just explodes the "sin" in every direction. He knows he is bad. What does he care? He thinks he is just a biologically programmed monkey like those he hates, so there is this strange masochism present. I can't remember a character so eye-opening in the last few years.

CS: Yeah, he makes no apologies for being the way he is.

SE: The beer can stick figure was amazing. I can't even shotgun a beer without cutting my hand.

CS: I honestly just thought he was turning that can into an ashtray.  My old roommate was this proper asshole who could be judgmental about anything and everything.  But that asshole wouldn't buy an ashtray; no, he would have these fucking ghetto Coke cans with the top cut off, but we couldn't have a coffee table because it collected clutter.

SE:  I had a roommate that used stacked empty pizza boxes for a coffee table. Fucking roommates.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Four, Episode Twelve "Farewell Daddy Blues"

This season comes to a conclusion with, well, not a bang, per se. Narcisse and Chalky meet. One should fall. Neither do, yet both do. Nucky leaves Eli to deal with Knoxiver on his own, and boy, does he. Having ensured that Tommy grows up a Sagorsky, Harrow gets off the train at the Elysian Fields.

Franz Nadorp's Goethe's Ankunft im Elysium

Old Man Duggan: I really don't know where to start on this one. It's odd having so few bodies dropping and so little ultimate resolution from a season finale of Boardwalk Empire. We open on a storm in the distance, and then a field at night. The storm has its obvious symbolic resonance, but the importance of the spot in the field over which the camera hovers is not clear until about fifteen minutes later when Jimmy Darmody's actual body is finally unearthed. With one exhumation, Gillian's life is effectively over. I think I speak for all of us when I say, thank fucking Christ.

Wordy Ginters: A Boardwalk Empire season with the Boardwalkiest kind of finale imaginable. I too was at full stature during the opening scenes. Thunder rumbles. Restless wheat (nice foreshadowing). Bell Buoys tolling. Unfortunately, the can of whoop ass that was clearly hinted at was only punctured, not completely opened.

OMD: Yeah, after last season's EXPLOSIVE finale, this one wasn't even remotely as big, though they did manage to keep Narcisse in the fold.

Now, of course, this does mean that there could well be an investigation into Jimmy's death now, but I doubt Nucky cuts the deal with Harrow unless he was sure that Jimmy's murder couldn't be pinned on him. Let's hope this officially puts Jimmy's death and its fallout in the rearview.

WG: Good riddance, Michael Pitt. For fuck's sake, let's make it permanent this time. I'll be surprised if the ghost of Darmody is able to get a mention in edgewise next season.

OMD: No shit. Michael Pitt was actually one of the hurdles I needed to jump over to fully embrace the show. He definitely lacked the gravitas of his fellow actors, Paz de la Huerta excluded, in the cast. I'm ready to move on.

Most of the conflict this season came from the corners of Chalky White and Dr. Valentin Narcisse, so it makes sense to go there next, I guess. Chalky sneaks back into town under the blanket of night, sets Nucky on the task of taking care of Narcisse, and meets with Narcisse at the Onyx Club--Havre de Grace posse in tow--where Maybelle ends up catching a bullet meant for Narcisse. On the Narcisse side of the things, at the meet he produces Maybelle in exchange for information on Daughter Maitland's whereabouts only to have Maybelle display the worst timing ever and step in the path of the bullet from Harrow's rifle, ensuring that each one loses a daughter on account of their feud. Hoover flips Narcisse, turning him into an informant on all matters Marcus Garvey; Chalky is left sitting on Oscar Boneau's porch, Maybelle dead, family--for all intents and purposes--lost, much worse off than when the season started. It would appear as though each man is worse off than when the season started. I guess there's a lesson somewhere in there about hubris and fidelity, especially since both men were often in the wrong this season--even within the skewed morality of this show. Both men got too wrapped up in their pride and vanity, and both came out at the end of this season stripped of much of their metaphorical virility. I suppose we'll find out Chalky is actually content to just have his bankroll in one pocket and his pistol in the other next season. We'll likely find out just how Narcisse likes answering to a master, too.

WG: Unconventional to have both Chalky and Narcisse survive, both wounded, both reduced, both nearly broken. It's almost as if the writers set out to present the perfect hell for each character: Narcisse in service to the man, dropping dimes on a personal hero; and Chalky bereft of his daughter, his business, and stuck on the porch back in Havre de Grace with Scrapper and the country cousins.

OMD: Definitely. I really have no idea what trajectory these two characters will be on next season. They've definitely both been effectively stripped of their independence.

I'd posit that the two strongest scenes of the episode revolved around Eli, understandably so given the character's internal conflict these past few episodes. In the first, Eli comes out to the Albatross to pick up Nucky for the meeting that will never happen, and the tension between the brothers hits a fever pitch with Nucky holding all the cards, or at least holding the gun to Eli's head. When Nucky seethed, "It's what you deserve," I thought for sure Eli was a goner. Bravo, Winter, Korder, and Van Patten. The resolution of that scene was fucking spectacular. "Nothing will fill that hole you got inside. Don't you know that yet?" For a second straight week, Eli shows that he understands Nucky better than Nucky does himself. In the second, Eli gets to--as Nucky put it--drown in his mess. I love that the saw-playing--much like the machete for the coconuts earlier in the season--something so innocent, was sullied so effectively with an act of violence. That, mon frere, was a knock-down, drag-out fight if ever there were one, the second epic one this season. Eli's rage worked in his favor this time, that's for sure. Once again, Shea Whigham is outstanding, as he has been all season. In a banner year of award-worthy performances on Boardwalk Empire, it really seems like Whigham's performance stands above them all.

WG: He was/is outstanding. As was Jeffy Wright. And Mike K. And Huston. Van Alden, of course. The dude who played Knoxiver [Brian Geraghty] imbued him with a glee club ruthlessness that was perfect. The show is fucking quality. I'd love to see what Milch would do with those guys and this story. The scene at the Albatross was great. Eli staring Nucky in the eyes, willing/daring/begging him to pull the trigger was intense. I wish the episode could have wrung more of that taut fucking drama out of other scenes. Definitely a good battle between an unhinged Knoxiver and a emotionally-amped Eli. The saw bit was great. As were the other accoutrements of family life that got summoned into deadly action. Vases. Decorations. Windows. A neck tie. Shades of Season Two, Gimcrack & Bunkum. You'll recall in that episode, Nucky made Eli kiss his shoes and beg for forgiveness. Shortly thereafter, Eli ended up beating a dude to death in his garage with a wrench. No one can push your buttons like family.

OMD: Holy hell, that vase. The shudder of Knoxiver's feet as Eli slammed the vase into his head one last time was huge. While we are on the subject of Eli, how about that shot of him waiting under the El for Capone's car only to have Van Alden driving? The bewilderment. The borderline incredulity. The hesitancy that gives way to resignation. I bet they'll have some catching up to do. That definitely adds a nice wrinkle to goings-on in Chicago, now that Torrio has handed the reins over to Al.

WG: Maybe a silver-lining to the tepid hand-job this finale proved to be is the promise of sexy action next season. Van Alden and Eli catching up on things is definitely one of them. Hoover interacting with Narcisse is another.

OMD: More so than in season's past, this finale definitely leaves a lot of strings left untied, ready to be taken into next season. The lack of resolution this season certainly could bode well for next season, as the stakes should be higher next year what with all this pent-up anger carrying over for so many characters.

Are those for us? We're going to need them.

The saddest part of the episode, obviously, was Harrow's demise. Clearly part of him felt like he was saying goodbye to Julia and Tommy at the train station, though that wasn't necessarily what he wanted. If only Harrow was still the ice-cold killing machine that he was before he finally recovered his humanity this season. Sure, within the constructs of this show there wasn't anywhere for his character to go at this point--with Tommy securely in a stable home and too many corpses in his past from which to possibly escape--but clearly we were all rooting for the image that he saw as he walked up the path to the house--his family, his life all put back into place. At least at the time of his death, he had pieced a life back together for himself. It's too bad soldiers such as himself don't get to simply walk away from the war.

WG: A cruel twist to make the new family man and morally re-born former assassin Harrow accidentally plug an innocent woman and fail his last job. Absolutely beautiful death scene though, from the moment he was riding the train, to the imagined homecoming, to the dirt nap by the sea. Harrow was easily one of my favorite characters. Let's tip a glass to the half-mask.

OMD: That was the bitch of it all, wasn't it? The chasm opened up in my heart is the size of the Grand Canyon. I'll miss you, old friend. You got the death scene chock-full of poesy that your tortured soul deserved. Oddly enough, it was hard for me to separate the scene with all its poignancy from the Steven Wright short film One Soldier, in which Wright's character heads to the afterlife in a train after being put to death.

It certainly appears as though Nucky isn't getting to head to Tampa after all, what with Sally Wheet drinking by herself while (I believe) we're to understand that Eli's family is heading out to the Albatross for the time being. Funnily enough, it certainly appears as though Nucky is, in fact, taking Eli's family from him, though at least mostly out of obligation.

I feel like I only scratched the surface. Any thoughts?

WG: Three thoughts. One, Truth is what those in power wish it to be. Two, why is Mickey still upright? Three, how great would Margaret and Rothstein be on House Hunters?

OMD: Three corresponding thoughts. Word. So Nucky can rap him with Eddie's cane again. Outstanding.


One Soldier by mrCham

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Four, Episode Eleven "Havre de Grace"

The penultimate episode of the season finds Chalky nursing his wounds in the Pennsylvania countryside while Nucky tries to ferret out who the skunk in his camp is following a midnight call from Gaston Bullock Means. Roy's play with Gillian comes to light.

Old Man Duggan: First off, sorry for the delay, folks. I was out of commission on the Texas Gulf Coast without HBO or a computer to put this together with, so I come to you all cap in hand begging your forgiveness.

Wordy Ginters: Me? I was healing the poor. Giving sight to the rich. Or perhaps blithely endorsing a mini-vacation from the immediate reaction after-episode deadline pressure cooker.

OMD: Moving on past the excuses for our tardiness, this episode seemed to be operating primarily as a set-up piece for what is to come in next week's season finale. The backstory calm before the epic storm. Focusing first on Havre de Grace, where we spent much of the episode, it may not have been the source of a lot of tension or conflict, but I liked a lot of what was going on alongside the banks of the Susquehanna. Oscar Boneau (Louis Gossett, Jr.) was the first time the show has given us a link back to the black side of pre-Civil War America. It happened only in passing, but Boneau's talk of young black girls being sold on Queen Street and skepticism as to what the Civil War was actually fought over provided a nice bridge and historical depth to the proceedings.

WG: Gossett Jr.'s Boneau brings ancient gravitas to Albert's backstory, as well as a little heft to the race issues that Boardwalk Empire addresses in a pretty sophisticated way. I'm basically a slice of white bread in blue jeans and black Converse, so what the fuck do I know? It's pretty obvious that Terence Winter loves him some Chalky. Anti-heroes are about as passe as zombie fucking wives of vampire county reality TV these days, so to me it says something when an adulterous, murdering, Uncle Tom-ish, hot-head like Chalky is so Goddamn lovable.

OMD: "Never trust no buckras, no matter what." Chalky invoking the old Southeastern black word for white man or boss, likely derived from the Efik word for master, mbakara. Oscar's quick response, "Never trust no browns, neither," probably had a bit more relevance to Chalky's traveling companion than Chalky was gleaning from the advice, lending credence to Oscar's preceding statement, "Well, I told you a lot. Don't know what you heard." They also fit in "ofay" at the dinner table scene, just for good measure, dusting off another arcane term of disparagement against white people. Just like Nucky last season when he was entangled with Billie Kent and was unable to hear Rothstein's advice, we find Chalky in the same position, unable to see what people with wisdom on the matter at hand can see.

WG: The heart wants what the heart wants. The scenes in Maryland were beautiful. I watched the episode twice, and the second time around I realized that whenever Daughter and Chalky shared the frame, they were always separated by a window frame, a car door, a stile on the porch railing, or whatever. The composition on this show is unreal.

OMD: Yeah, it's really crazy how deliberately shot each episode of the show is. I guess that's what HBO money affords you. Time.

I also liked getting a bit more of Chalky's origins. The knockdown with some corner boys that he described in the car in the open took me back to The Wire for a split second. More than anything, though, I think this episode served as a moment for Chalky to peer through the looking glass and glimpse his future. For a man cut from his cloth, there is no going quietly into the night. Of course, Oscar probably goes down differently if Chalky never shows up in Havre de Grace, but as Tupac said, when you "live by the gun, [you] die by the gun."

WG: All in the game, yo. All in the game. I had the same Wire vapor trails sensation during that scene. Had to be a sly nod from the writers. If anything, I wish they would have introduced some of that backstory sooner or spent more time with it. Gossett Jr. was fantastic.

OMD: On the Gillian front, I believe I called it, but let's start at the beginning. The scene with Leander and Mr. Ferry on the stairs was nicely set-up, Gillian torn between her desire to hold onto the past or step into the future, the realization that what she needs to do for Tommy is to simply let go and that she needs to sell the Commodore's house, thus becoming unanchored, whirling out of control. Nicely done, Allen Coulter. Her gift of Jimmy's war medals actually seemed to give her a little shred of dignity before the fall. And what a fall it was. It played out like a long con straight out of The Grifters, surely the intention as the sudden influx of cash by way of the sale of the house gave cause to wonder if Roy wasn't, in fact, simply running a con on her. In a sense, I suppose he was. A Pinkerton. Who'd have guessed? Oh, that's right. Me. You can't run from Roger's corpse, Gillian. Ron Livingston will see to it.

WG: Nice call. Old Man Duggan, Plot Hunter.

OMD: I have to say I really liked the framing and composition in the scene in the diner with Eli and Tolliver. Tolliver: the lawman, bathed in light, clarity of face equating to clarity of vision. Eli: the fallen lawman, face obscured in the shadows, the darkness symbolic of the position he finds himself in, no clear way out. Eli's assessment of Nucky showed that he knows Nucky better than Nucky knows himself. Nucky's constant talk of wanting out is just Nucky trying to run from the obvious fact that he is addressing an internal need in his quest for supremacy.

WG: I'm glad you mentioned that scene. I dug the smoke from the table behind Eli billowing over his shoulder on the close-ups. Poor bastard was stooped over his coffee, bent, broken, and smoking. Knoxiver looked like he was being lit for a 1950's toothpaste commercial. Speaking of smoking, have you had the pleasure of viewing Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast? The Beast looks like a cross between Sluggerrr and the Lion from The Wizard of Oz, but he literally emanates smoke in many of his scenes. I don't know how they worked that effect back in the 40's, nail a smoke pot to the back of the costume? Smoke. So versatile. So sexy. So deadly. So visually communicative. So fucking smokey.

OMD: I've seen none of Jean Cocteau's work. My minor in film studies fails me yet again. Damn you, University of Minnesota. Damn you straight to Hell.

Of course, Eli couldn't cover his tracks well enough at the dinner table after Tolliver's visit to Eli's house was inadvertently revealed while they supped. Nucky knows something wicked his way comes. There's no fucking way he's at that meeting with Masseria and Narcisse, right? He could certainly use the meeting to clear the way a bit, conveniently getting held up elsewhere. He's a cool, calculating sonuvabitch, and he clearly knows something is amiss with Eli. Of course, he could just have Harrow take out Narcisse and anyone else who stands in his way.

WG: I think you've probably bagged another plot twist for your trophy room. I'm guessing Willie and Nuck had time to suss out the queer "insurance salesman" anecdote, and Nucky has done the algebra required to solve Means's hilarious phone call. Harrow will have Narcisse in his crosshairs. If only because I don't think Winter can give history the finger. Got to be a denizen of the fictional world.

OMD: That was a fantastic phone call, wasn't it? I laughed so many times during that scene.

So just a few days to wait for this season's conclusion. Any predictions? I got Harrow snuffing out Narcisse, though I hope Leandor Sydnor takes over his Harlem Chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, running it on the up and up. I sure as hell hope Scrapper and Levi come back to the A.C. with Chalky as soon as they send Weems a-dirt-nappin'.

WG: I think one of the "good guys" gets whacked. Harrow or Chalky. Like Abraham offering his son Isaac. Winter has to let some blood to keep things fresh. Leandor administering a regular program of lectures and one-act plays for the Universal Negro Improvement Association is the Boardwalk Empire spin-off yin to Breaking Bad's Better Call Saul yang.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Four, Episode Nine "Marriage and Hunting"

Van Alden trudges through a sea of emasculating shit only to come out on the other side smelling of roses--virile roses. In the process, bodies hit the floor. Narcisse reprimands Daughter Maitland with his tears and fists. Chalky calls Narcisse out at the Onyx Club. Rothstein comes a-beggin'. Harrow and Julia take a trip to the courthouse together.

Old Man Duggan: Lots to love about this episode. I'd have loved it more had it been simultaneously titled "How Nelson Got His Groove Back," though it's hard to complain about from whence the title came. The episode starts in Chicago, so let's go there first. Van Alden-Mueller is getting it six ways from Sunday. The wife is nagging. Chester's bawling left and right. O'Banion and Capone are both abusing him, verbally and physically. That worthless fat fuck whose face he melted in the most excellent iron-to-face scene ever comes back to get his revenge. The symbolism in that opening scene where he's working on the pipes and can't get it to budge because the nut is stripped was beautiful. A trio of rotting corpses in a through-way, O'Banion filled with lead, and a pilfering of the petty cash on his way out the door later, and Nelson Van Alden is fucking back. With. A. Vengeance.

WG: Van Alden unhinged. By Cream of Wheat. I thoroughly enjoyed the aftermath back home when he turned the Sears & Roebuck lean-to into the set of an ersatz rap video by "making it rain" (who has a thousand dollars in his hand?), and then all but asking Sigrid to say his name (Who built this house? Who pays the bills?). Personally, I prefer a more nuanced power-sharing arrangement for household management, but evidently Van Alden thirsts for control. And frankly, he deserves it.

OMD: I don't know which part had me smiling more: the menace on his face when he was telling O'Banion about drowning Sesbo, or the look of surprise on O'Banion's? I do wish Van Alden--and I think he'd insist that we drop the Mueller noise--had pulled the trigger himself, but alas, it wasn't in the cards. Still, the fact that he got his masculine swagger back at a flower shop is a tasty morsel.

WG: Mueller noise is so last episode. How does Michael Shannon express approximately 117 different emotions in every scene? Rage. Anxiety. Fearlessness. Desire. Heartburn. Guile. Guilelessness. Weirdo. It's amazing to watch. How bad is it for Van Alden that he wasn't the man to wipe out O'Banion? Did Capone lose faith in Van Alden, or did he get too coked up to wait around any longer? He may think Van Alden is still on the Irish side. I'll be hurting if Van Alden and Chalky both get dirt-napped off the show. I expect one or the other but am hoping it's not both of them.

OMD: We'll see how that plays out. I will note that O'Banion died in November of 1924. It seems like Winter & Co. are playing a little loose with history again, as there were still leaves on the trees in Chicago and kids on the beach in Atlantic City. I guess it's not a huge development in the greater scheme of the show. I was just surprised to see O'Banion fall this soon, figuring that was something that would happen as the season reached its fever pitch in the final two episodes.

The irony of Nucky telling Chalky

...when I'm conducting business, I mind it. It, and only it. Not some piece of ass with a sugary voice. Not my pride. My business. 

was not lost on me. Nucky must have really left Billie Kent in the past, huh? To be fair, he does appear to be reformed, in the more literal sense of the word.

WG: Is Nucky trying to forward hard-earned wisdom from his escapades with sweet, silly Billie Kent? Or his he still in a fog about who he is? Either way, it was interesting to see Winter bringing the dimension of power and race back into the Nucky/Chalky relationship, it's been too much "Ebony and Ivory" and not enough "Fuck tha Police".

OMD: Having said that, Chalky needs to get his shit together. If he makes a run at Narcisse in haste, he'll not be long for the world. I'm a bit curious to find out where the Maybelle development goes, as Chalky's dalliance must surely blow up in his face on the homefront. Narcisse heading to see Joe Masseria will surely add a new wrinkle to the story arc, as Masseria will likely back Narcisse in his attempt to exact revenge on Nucky Thompson.

WG: Chalky has been painted in the corner all season. If the kitchen cold-front Mrs. Chalky was laying down before the pre-nup-planning get-together is any indication, it's pretty obvious that someone has dropped a dime on Chalky's wandering ways. He appears to be in several cross-hairs, with no support in sight.

OMD: While we're on the subject of Masseria and New York, it's interesting to see Rothstein so down on his luck. Such is the plight of the high-stakes gambler, I suppose. If Van Alden had been effectively neutered, Rothstein is in the present-tense. Because right now it looks like the Anaconda is wrapped firmly around him, both literally, in terms of the Land Trust that bilked him, and figuratively, with Masseria having squeezed Rothstein out of the heroin game. I hope he uses that sweet Mickey Doyle money--by the way, how fucking great was that scene?--to fuck Margaret's boss up right and proper. Maybe he needs to head to Chicago to find his testes in a flower shop like Van Alden.

WG: It is weird to see Rothstein so pale, neutered, and acting like a flat-footed mark. Up until the this season, he was the one guy who you could count on to dope out all the angles. For gamblers, the line between winning and losing is pretty damn thin. Supposedly, pros need to hit around 35% of their horse-racing bets and maybe 53% of sports bets to turn a consistent profit. Sounds like a low-bar, but if you've ever gambled much and been honest with yourself, it's nigh fucking impossible. Funny that he thought a life-insurance policy on Mickey Doyle would provide leverage. You're right, it was a fantastic scene. Would Nucky so gleefully give up Mickey if the brassy Ms. Wheet hadn't taken at least a little bit of a shine to his folksy charm? Maybe it was just the hat. Women with huge breasts love hats.

OMD: I don't really know where to squeeze this in, so this is as good a place as any, but for the first time, I feel like maybe I might have an idea as to what Ron Livingston's Roy Phillips is up to. He was on the phone with someone that sounded like his wife, against whom he claims to have filed divorce papers. Yet that person to whom he said, "Me too," presumably in response to something on the other end of the line akin to "I love you/I miss you," would have been totally fine with the switch to being called "sir" when Gillian entered the room. I think he's got ties to faux Jimmy, who last went missing in her care in the precise scenario that she laid out for how her son left her. His whole angle seems to be that he wants to be her confidant, and that seems to be the biggest unsettled matter in her past. If we've learned anything, it's that chickens always come home to roost on Boardwalk Empire.

WG: That phone call threw me. Was it the supposedly soon to be ex-wife? Was it some mysterious confederate? Something unsavory is going on. You are likely right suspecting a faux-Jimmy connection. What's the saying? If a character packs a hammer in his bag before the climb, you can be damn sure the hammer will come out before he gets to the top of the mountain? Unless it was a total head fake, faux-Jimmy's acquaintance who recognized Gillian at the cafe a few episodes back had to be a placeholder for something. It will be interesting to see who turns on the other one first, Gillian on Roy or vice-versa. I got a big kick out of Gillian's boardwalk confession. Bathed in the light, cleansed and reformed. Or so I naively thought. Delicious to see her in the courtroom minutes later, realizing that her Boardwalk schtick was nothing more than a dress-rehearsal for her testimony.

OMD: So for the first time since Harrow was in the woods ready to end things, we get a moment that brought me to tears. Julia sits down beside Harrow on the bench seat in the bay window and proposes to him. The bewilderment in his eyes, the tremble in his chin, the stunned silence, her imploring him to cut the awkward silence before his ultimate acceptance. Fucking beautiful. Maybe theirs will never be the typical marriage, as they're both so broken, but I do hope that the broken pieces that are Julia, Tommy, and Harrow can come together a form that makeshift family that can somehow make them all whole, or as whole as any of those three can become.

WG: Awesome scene. Awkward. Authentic. With Old Man Sagorsky saying fuck-all to what's left of his liver and rough-housing with Tommy in the yard? Thank god for serial dramas. You rarely find that kind of depth and character development in most movies. It's damn near like reading a book. And I'm old enough to mean that as a compliment.

OMD: And of course, the development that might yield the most righteous bloodshed--or at least the most bloodshed in support of Nucky Thompson, the de facto hero of the show--is Richard Harrow coming to the Albatross in search of work. Sadly, this probably signals the end of steady TV work for the inimitable Shea Whigham, as I worry now that he won't be able to get out from under the thumb of Agent Tolliver without spelling doom for himself.

WG: Of course. Harrow showing up right on time. He'll help tilt the chess-board towards Atlantic City when shit goes down.

OMD: I guess we'll find out next week how screwed Eli really is. Until then, let's just bask in the glory that is the happy union of Richard Harrow and Julia Sagorsky.

WG: I'll toast to that.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Four, Episode Eight "The Old Ship of Zion"

Shit, well, shit hits the fan this week as Chalky addresses the influx of heroin to the community by way of Dunn Purnsley and Dr. Valentin Narcisse sans subtlety. Narcisse counters the public airing of dirty laundry with an attempted hit on Chalky. Tolliver/Knox moves his attentions to Eli. Nucky gets his first shipment of rum from Florida with Sally Wheet sitting shotgun when the trucks pull in.

Old Man Duggan: Normally I'd work up to this, but let's get down to brass tacks. Much as I surmised last week, Dunn wasn't long for this world. Of course, Daughter Maitland's lapside rendition of "The Old Ship of Zion" sure had me doubting myself for at least a minute or two--especially given the revelation of Chalky's relationship to the song--so bully for Cristine Chambers, Howard Korder, Timothy Van Patten, and Terence Winter for the misdirect.

Wordy Ginters: Some sweet and sour tension in that scene. Powerful. Did Daughter know that Chalky knew he was being double-crossed? Shit was complex. Chalky thinking about his own family, his father's funeral, his children, his infidelity, his problems. Daughter maybe actually loving Chalky and torn at the thought of aiding his demise. Who knows what was behind the pooling tears in those beautiful soulful eyes? Was Chalky able to put the puzzle together by the way she sang the song? I loved his line about Daughter's singing, "...that sound like you tying up a secret."

OMD: Also as predicted Daughter Maitland chose Chalky over her keeper, though the scene played out much better than I could have hoped. I loved the framing and the distance between Dunn and Chalky, pitted against each other in rooms opposite each other. As the distance between the two closed, the tension mounted spectacularly. It would have been anticlimactic for Chalky to go down this early in the season, especially at the hand of Dunn, not Narcisse, but when Dunn was choking the life out of Chalky, my heart was in my fucking throat. Luckily for Chalky, Daughter Maitland chose the potential for freedom that was behind Door Number Two and plunged that knife square into the middle of Purnsley's back. Something about his trying to reach to the knife that was just out of his grasp was humanizing in his last fateful moments. It was really quite a turn for Erik LaRay Harvey, who got to stretch his legs quite a bit more this season. In that final moment, the hope draining from his eyes was palpable.

WG: One of two centerpiece scenes in the episode. I really didn't have any idea which way it would break. For a moment, I thought Chalky was so depressed at the realization that he had been thoroughly undone by Narcisse's scheming that he preferred to let Daughter kill him softly with her song, so to speak. So satisfying to see Chalky fight back. Stabbed him in the mouth with a piece of splintered wood. Sweet revenge for Purnsley being a dick about Chalky's illiteracy way back when. He's been a shadow of his former bad-assed self for most of the season. White patrons patting him on the head. Narcisse making him look like a rube. His daughter's fiance's family thinks he's gauche. He's got everything he always wanted in the Onyx Club, but appears to have less clout than ever. With Purnsley out of the way, things get tight as a drum. What happens to Daughter?

OMD: I can't imagine she doesn't end up being collateral damage. Narcisse will likely see through her when she tries to lie about Dunn's demise.

While we'll likely have to wait until the finale before Narcisse actually dirties his own hands on Chalky White, it's safe to say at least part of him feels like maybe a re-evaluation is in order. It ultimately came down to Chalky's bond with Daughter Maitland, but he still came out on the other side, and all this while punking Narcisse out in front of his incredibly dull play. I can tell you this much: I enjoyed Harlem By Torchlight a whole helluva lot more than Ominira.



WG: I'm with you on that one. Loved watching Narcisse mouth his own dialogue with such sincere pride. "Its symbolism was beyond them." The failed playwright's lament.

OMD: By the way, the Harlem By Torchlight was standoff was fantastic. It really did a nice job of ratcheting the tension up, with Chalky's sneer driving me to maniacal laughter. It felt so good to have him one-up the Doctor.

WG: For me, the trash can lid heroin bonfire represented the best of what Boardwalk Empire can offer. TVP is the go-to guy when it comes to directing episodes that need to reel in plot pay-off. Chalky riffing on The Warriors "come out and play" bottle clinking by banging on the trash can, and then recouping his rep and tarnishing Narcisse in one monologue and a pile of burning smack was magic.

OMD: Moving to the other side of town, wouldn't you like to know what kind of arrangement Eli and Tolliver/Knox came to? Obviously Eli is pissed at Nucky for stepping over the line from uncle to father, but would Winter & Co. really go down the fraternal betrayal road again? I doubt it. My guess is Eli decided to play along with Tolliver/Knox to get a hold on what his angle is. We'll find out soon enough, and if Eli is, in fact, choosing to screw his brother over again, at least this time it will have been in an attempt to protect his son. Something tells me that maybe Tolliver/Knox ends up wrestling with the gators, coming out, well not coming out at all.

WG: It appears that Eli has chosen saving his son over protecting the family biz, but it most definitely could be a holding ploy. Maybe it does boil back down to the sibling rivalry thing. In retrospect, it's like a boil that has never been lanced.

OMD: I loved the look on Shea Whigham's face when Tolliver's compatriot tried to shove him in. Can we give him the Emmy for that? Hell, that whole scene, the intensity on his face followed by his non-verbal sussing out of his options? Fucking great. And the look on his face as Nucky and he come together, Nucky reassuring him--we're to assume that he's turned on Nucky given this expression, though again I wouldn't jump to that conclusion quite yet--and then watching his family have fun while only he knows what's to come, that look is brilliant.

WG: The acting on the show is fantastic. Buscemi may be the weak link, but he's not required to do much other than to look askance at the morons he's forced to tolerate. Shea Whigham is nails. Fucking Knox.

OMD: Perhaps the most shocking turn of events in the episode was the fact that somehow I felt bad for Mickey Doyle, if only for a moment. When Nucky cracked him in the forehead with Kessler's cane, I sort of felt bad for him. What the hell is going on here?

WG: Seeing Nucky get physical is like watching Billy Butler steal a base. Hard to believe on any level. I thought Mickey was pretty solid in the episode. Loved the mindless yammering anecdote about the twins (which may have been allegory about the prohee's, and the difference between Knox and his predecessor), and the stereotypical numbskull math that equates spending money on dates with sexual favors. His awkward reaction to literally getting caned by Nucky was pretty brilliant, too. I thought Sally Wheet was chatting up Mickey just to get Nucky jealous, but her brazen cleavage is as unpredictable as it is independent. Another great character. She was most definitely on top in that scene where the noisy sex woke up young Willie, right? Winter was involved with The Sopranos, so when I heard the heat and the clatter, I imagined Sally treating Nucky the same way Janice treated Ralph Cifaretto, i.e., femdom assplay.

OMD: Oh yeah. She was definitely in control.

We've now got three different times in which Ragged Dick has come up, if I'm not mistaken. Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches story was first used way back in Season One, when Nucky was saying that Jimmy Darmody once reminded him of Ragged Dick. Last season, Gyp took Nucky's copy of Ragged Dick from his desk after he'd run Nucky from the Ritz Carlton. Now [presumably] that same copy returns, this time with Nucky giving the book to his younger self, Willie, as Willie packs up to return home.

WG: Ooh, that's good. I had totally forgotten about the Darmody occurrence. I definitely remember when Gyp lifted it from his desk. I've never read Horatio Alger, but obviously Winter is trying to tell us something.

OMD: Lifting oneself up by the bootstraps. The American Dream (and perhaps a Pynchonian take on it). Roughly half a century after it was published, and the people trying to actualize the rags-to-riches fairy tale are dropping like flies because they're doing so on the wrong side of the law, the concern for the means by which it is achieved being less than an afterthought.

So the theme tying this episode together would certainly seem to have been betrayal by one's right hand. Dunn ends up dying on account of his attempted power play. Eli, painted into a corner by his brother and son, would seem to have been forced (again, not an entirely safe assumption, as a second betrayal would all but guarantee his death) to turn on the man whose side he has served at. Is the bond of blood thicker than the resentment that symbolic servitude breeds? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

WG: Way to put a bow on that mofo. How about some Lou Reed?

OMD: Picture that shit burning atop a garbage can for Sweet Lou.