'Anastasia' - Boardwalk Empire, Season One

Boardwalk Empire

Season One

Episode Four

'Anastasia' – 7.0 

Nice colour scheme. Apart from the torture this picture would make a good Christmas card. 

While the first two episodes of nothing but character exposition were fantastic, I admit I'm starting to get tired of watching a large number of people simply living in stasis. Yes, the quality of the episode is pretty damn good, with terrific acting as normal, as well as a script that matches its cast's talent. However, I wish that the show could let something happen that changes the way things are in this universe, because we are a third of the way in now and I have no clue where we're going.

The title for this episode comes from a story that seems to be sweeping the news of the world, even though out of the main characters only Margaret refers to it. Apparently an amnesiac girl found shivering in a river has begun claiming she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, despite the fact Anastasia was killed along with the rest of her family three years prior to the date of Boardwalk Empire. Margaret finds the thought of a normal woman being hailed a princess inspiring at first, allowing her to develop an almost deluded fixation on Nucky Thompson. When the story is proved false close to the end of the episode, the change in her is immediate, as she realises one doesn't simply become a princess, one must earn power and prestige, or take it from someone who has it.

Jimmy Darmody is the only character who has been developed over the course of the season, with his world being turned upside down by his and Al Capone's involvement in the massacre outside of Atlantic City. Now that Nucky has forced him out of his home and away from his family, Jimmy's found his way to Chicago and to Al. Sharing a bed with a prostitute named Pearl, the first time we see Jimmy tonight is a surprisingly intense scene, where Al Capone creeps his way into Jimmy's room with a gun, holding it just over his friend's head, before shifting it to the left and firing into the pillow. It was a jump moment, but ultimately a false one. If anything it is an example of the sort of person that Al Capone is; a rash, relentless, almost idiot thug, but for some reason he is an endearing contribution to the story, and a terrific choice of actor for the iconic gangster. Al actually gets quite a lot to do tonight, and in a rather unintelligent move brutally forces a Greek tavern-owner into buying his liquor from Torrio, rather than the Irish Mr. Sheridan, the supplier in Greek town.

This move results in this Irish gangster arriving to confront Capone at the Four Deuces, where Al and Jimmy work as bouncers. Sheridan doesn't appear to threatening initially, as it doesn't take him long to cave to Capone's brash manner, apparently agreeing to a fifty-fifty split of the earnings from Greek town between Torrio and him. It's obvious that something else is happening that Capone isn't picking up on, and that it might just have something to do with Pearl, who walks in during the meeting to say goodbye to Jimmy. It wasn't particularly subtle, but I don't think subtlety was what the writers were going for. If we weren't somewhat aware of what was going to happen later, it wouldn't have been as suspenseful as it was.

Sheridan's men return to the Four Deuces later in the episode, and upon discovering Al and Jimmy are somewhere else, they settle on enacting their revenge on Pearl. It was a very disturbing scene, as Pearl is lured closer to a man who wants to harm her. When he draws his knife, he doesn't do anything straight away, giving us that brief moment of opportunity to think she'd get away, but alas she doesn't even know what's happening until he runs the blade right down her face in a bloody line, then leaving her clutching her face on the ground. The entire gang then ditches the club with guns firing, a clear act of vengeance and of Sheridan's true intentions. I don't know about any of you, but facial injuries are more unsettling than most other injuries, though it wasn't too violent to detract from the show. The film makers even went so far as to actually flesh Pearl out during the episode, although I can't say whether she'll make more appearances or not. Jimmy's delivery of flowers may indicate that he will continue to see her, but it may also be a sense of closure to her story. We shall see.

While Jimmy's over in Chicago, his wife, son and mother are all over in Atlantic City. At a time when Angela is out and Gillian is left to babysit, Lucky Luciano arrives from New York, presumably on the mission Rothstein gave him last episode. As one would upon seeing Gillian, Luciano assumes immediately that she is Jimmy's wife rather than his mother, and you can see his interest peak straight away. Over the course of the next few nights he follows her from Jimmy's home to her extravagant strip shows - can I just say how stunning those sequences are? - before Gillian gives up on ignoring his presence and explicitly offers him a place in her bed. For a second there I thought she was gonna get a bullet through somewhere unpleasant, but in the end it went the other way, in tone and character.

It's Nucky's birthday party, an event that has been casually referred to since the first episode, and it is a grandiose as one would expect. Nucky clearly wishes to use the party as a political event, and spends a lot of the night communicating with Mayor Hague and Senator Edge, both of whom could be instrumental in constructing a paved road to Atlantic City. I didn't really care about this, because roads don't really interest me unfortunately. So don't expect me to be an expert on this plot line. I was impressed by Nucky's 'I do expect everything' line, though I really can't be stuffed describing why. Did you know I didn't get to sleep until four in the morning? And not through lack of trying. Is four and a half hours of inability to fall asleep normal?

I have to congratulate the bravery of the man who portrayed the Grand Cyclops (was that what KKK leaders were actually called?) for delivering such an intensely racist speech. It actually made me physically uncomfortable, which is a sign of a powerful performance. Anyway, the Cyclops gets arrested by Sheriff Eli for the lynching of Chalky's driver the episode before, and in one perfect scene is interrogated by Chalky himself. It needs to be heard to appreciated, but it was a captivating and beautiful tale by a clearly angry Chalky, played with unwavering flamboyancy and intimidating confidence by Michael K Williams.

Margaret gets a bit of focus as well, and despite not being heralded a princess, the show thrusts her out as the only strong feminine character on the show. In a well-written dialogue she shoots witty comebacks at a shamelessly sexist Senator Edge, almost officially cementing herself as the voice for women in the cast. Yet at the end of the episode, she falls to the level of stealing a negligee from Madame Jeunet, something almost foretold by the Anastasia plot line.

So yeah, it was pretty interesting at points, but making one character a shoplifter and slicing another's face in half won't change that much either. If anything, this episode establishes newbie Sheridan as an antagonist for a little while, and that's not such a bad thing.