'Blue Bell Boy' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Four

'Blue Bell Boy' - 6.5

If only someone did a drive-by with a tommy gun right about now. 

A sex scene is always a good place from which to start the action, and 'Blue Bell Boy' opens with a largely unnecessary ogling of Heather Lind, who plays Margaret's maid Katy, as she engages in coitus with Owen Sleater. We don't learn much from the scene other than she seems to have named his dick; Mr. Poofles, no less. Clearly very new to this whole fucking business, aye?

Their tryst is interrupted by a call from Nucky, who wishes to gather his employees together to discuss the coming delivery, which is seriously jeopardised by the Rosetti gang which have commandeered their only petrol station. He orders them to avoid Tabor Heights at all costs, with the only other option being the frozen back roads, an apparently impossible trip at this time of year.

While Mickey Doyle and Eli Thompson sort out the liquor business, Nucky and Owen head to the suspected hideaway of thief Rowland Smith, the accomplice of whom we met in the season premiere. They arrive to find him not present, but the house is filled to the brim with stolen liquor. It doesn't take too long for Smith to come home, revealed to be a young boy of sixteen, and a rambunctious sport at that.

Some of the stolen liquor actually belongs to Waxey Gordon, a character I've never really understood or plan on understanding, but it seems to have some meaning to Nucky. Anyway, it's not the theft that's important tonight, rather corrupted prohibition agents arrive on the scene, many of whom are under the payroll of Waxey himself. The first thing these feds do when they get there is shoot Nucky's guards, causing Nucky, Rowland and Owen to flee to the basement.

The awkward conversations between these three men are probably some of the highlights of this episode, they were just so well-written, managing to develop Owen and Rowland really well. Rowland Smith is a poor boy, whose lifestyle has made him cool in a crisis, and with a charming demeanour he tries to play for sympathy with Nucky, who seems to be falling for it. Owen is less impressed, and offers a few times to simply do away with the boy.

By far the best scenes of the show belonged to Al Capone, who so far has had little to do this season. Mostly they focused on his relationship with his deaf son, and his desire to protect him and make him a stronger person. I don't usually go for the soppy stuff, but it was moving when Capone tries to coax the boy into punching him in the face, only to cause him to burst into tears, which in turn almost made tough-guy Al cry.

Al's professional life is as complicated as his personal one, as one of his associates is badly beaten while making his rounds. Al decides to confront the attacker, one Joe Miller, in the same bar, using fists rather than words. The assault is brutal and unflinching, resulting in the death of Miller, to which Al simply tells the barkeep to 'pay for his funeral', throwing a wad of cash over the bar. Later, he pulls out his mandolin and wakes young Sonny up, playing a depressing little number for him to finish up his plot line for the night.

Stephen Graham did a splendid job of humanising the angry and violent Al Capone, and I would say his was the best performance of the night. It's a shame we haven't seen more of him this season, though I really hope that he'll become more prevalent as we go on. I know the tale of Capone is often told, and that many people are no doubt tired of the same gangsters getting the same treatments, but there is something much more pleasant about this flawed recreation of the famous killer.

I've been noticing how short a time each episode occurs over more and more this season. I know there were a few times over the years that entire episodes took place only over a couple hours, but 'Blue Bell Boy' can be timed by Nucky's entrapment in the cellar of Rowland's house. They remain in there for one night, and we see the day before and after, thus this episode is two days in this world. I don't know why it bothers me, but I think it is cleverer for a show to try and span instalments over longer periods, if only to make characterisations and the sequences of events more realistic. Just a thought though, it's not a quality issue.

Lucky Luciano is called to meet with Masseria in one of the tenser scenes, as Masseria has the edgy businessman sit with his back towards the big restaurant windows, leaving him knowingly open to any surprise attacks. Our stress builds along with his, and it is no surprise that he caves to a deal that the gangster offers that is requires him to pay six times more than he and Lansky agreed on. I honestly thought that Luciano was gonna die for a second there, and I don't mind him for some reason, like all the characters on this show he has some good flaws that make him more realistic. Masseria tries to play on the fact that he is Italian, while his associates are Jewish, and hints at a possible past connection between the two of them. What does 'Salvatore' mean? Other than 'I'm a wussy vampire in love with doppelgangers'.

Mickey Doyle opts to still have his men take Rothstein's liquor through Tabor Heights, so an angry Eli scouts ahead to pace out the situation. He discovers the town over run with Rosetti's gang, as well as the corrupt Sheriff and all the police men who he's obviously persuaded. Eli leaves the town but stops just a few kilometres out, intending to stop the convoy before they can be ambushed. Unfortunately the drivers have already been instructed to stop for no one, so everyone passes right by him and into the town, the echoes of gunshots and tires screeching heard all the way to where Eli basks in his failure.

The corrupt prohis eventually leave Rowland's house, allowing the three to emerge from their asylum, finding every ounce of liquor removed. For a while there, Nucky looked like he was going to offer the young thief a job, but he seems to turn when he finds out the kid is really nineteen. During a moment of distraction, Nucky puts a bullet in the back of Rowland's head, and his life's blood drips down through the cracks in the floorboards, landing in the flooded cellar they had been hiding in minutes earlier.

I didn't quite understand why Nucky could kill the kid so easily, despite having spent the last episode obsessing over the murder of Jimmy, but I'm sure the writers have some trick up their sleeve to make this event meaningful and relevant, though right now I admit I'm confused. Oh well.

There is always a lot to like about Boardwalk Empire, though some of these plots already look like they’re going nowhere. Is there a reason we are watching Margaret organising her woman's health clinic? What's with all this heroin shit? I don't know, like the death of Rowland, this all confuses me just a little.

I'm gonna stop now. I enjoyed this episode when it was about Nucky or Al, but otherwise it was pretty uninteresting. Graham was absolutely amazing, but he was used sparingly throughout 'Blue Bell Boy'. I like Rosetti as well, but all he did was talk about banging some waitress the whole time. The use? None. That was pretty much the episode - kind of pointless, if likeable in places.