'Bone For Tuna' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Three

'Bone for Tuna' -7.0

Those are the kind of deals we made in the high-stakes fish-mongering business

In a rather strange twist, the most interesting storyline tonight belonged to the ever more corrupted - and corrupting - Margaret Schroeder Thompson, who used her manipulative wiles to get the ball rolling on the women's health clinic. It doesn't sound very interesting, sure, but her slow turn to the dark side is absolutely captivating to me, and I'm not sure why. 

In her first manipulation, Margie convinces a Catholic father to grant her a meeting with the Bishop presenting Nucky with his award, by pretty much threatening her donation to the church. Maybe? I wasn't sure, it was definitely a power play, and the religious man was shaken by the implication. Who knows? Either way, he gives it to her, which leads her to setting the second aspect of her plan in motion; convincing Dr. Landau, the chief doctor of the hospital or something, to come witness Nucky receive his award. 

This is fairly simple, though it does involve her pretending to be a dumb, subordinate housewife for a brief time ('the flowers make people cheery!'). The real con of Landau happens once the award ceremony is underway, and Margaret is able to bring him over to meet the Bishop. In a brilliant move on her part, she opens the conversation by mentioning the doctor’s plans to build the clinic, before detailing these plans without letting Landau get a word in edgewise. It was fast and clever, and hopefully only a taste of the sort of person that Margaret will become; an intelligent, witty and somewhat conniving woman, who is able to verbally spar with the best of them.

For other characters they are receiving less luck. Nucky is clearly being haunted by his murder of young Jimmy, and keeps seeing a vision of his protégé in his childhood, except with a bullet hole in his sinus, which is a good look for him. The new craze; deadly facial injuries! Poor old Nuck sees Jimmy at the church and in his office, with the latter occurring during a rather shoddy dream sequence. Why was there a frying pan? I think it was foreshadowing, but I don't like foreshadowing in this sort of drama. We don't tell the future in real life people! 

Nucky decides to try and reason with this season's best new addition; Gyp Rosetti; after last episode's debacle at Tabor Heights. Rosetti is happy to accept a thousand bottles of liquor in a one-off deal to get him through the month, but things turn sour when Nucky doesn't come to send him off (he was at the church), and when he instead receives Owen Sleater reciting a farewell message; 'Bone for Tuna’ - Bon fortuna, FYI. Rosetti is pissed beyond words, but leaves Atlantic City without causing a big kafuffle. It's not that easy when he gets back to Tabor Heights though, as he is met by the sheriff who expects the gangster to be heading off. Rosetti admits he is leaving, but the poor sheriff has the misfortune to send the guy off with a 'Good luck', resulting in him being saturated in petrol and set alight. Pleasant. 

I enjoyed the tenseness during a scene featuring Rosetti going to visit Gillian's whore house, as it looked like he was going to kill her for a while, before he realised that she was being somewhat stiffed over by Mr. Thompson as well. The two get to talking, and it seems that together they form an unlikely and potentially devastating duo. Also, was Gillian being coy or does she legitimately not know that Jimmy is dead? She mentions to her business partner, Charlie Luciano, that Jimmy will sign the deed to the mansion over to him once he's returned from wherever, but was she just making sure Luciano was happy? I don't know. 

For Richard Harrow and the salesman-formerly-known-as-Van Alden, I honestly had no clue what was going on. Why? I'm not sure, neither was a complex tale or anything, it just felt like... well in Van Alden's case, it felt like we were seeing a normal-day-in-the-life-of featurette, involving a practical joke by his coworkers, a nice romp with the new wife, a visit to a local speakeasy and getting caught in a prohi-raid. Instead of being taken in, the nice head prohi chooses to let Van Alden off with a cash-in-hand fine, letting the wanted criminal walk out the door without a second glance. Point being?

For Harrow... Well, it started with Mickey Doyle, who was pretending that he had killed Manny Horvitz in order to keep one of his customers in line, threatening the poor guy with a similar fate. Some lad over hears this failed attempt at salesmanship, and later lets slip to Harrow that Doyle is claiming the assassination as his own doing. Harrow chooses to sort this out with violence, lying in wait within Doyle's apartment, then stealing him away and bringing him before Nucky. I really enjoyed their conversation with one another, as Nucky realises that Harrow murdered Horvitz to avenge Angela Darmody, and he wonders aloud whether he is in any danger. In a very truthful admission - very characteristic of Richard Harrow - the burnt man tells Nucky that he is safe, and that Jimmy was a soldier who had fought and had lost. 

In other news, Masseria - who is? I mean I remember the name, but how is he important again? - is still on the outs with Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano, who have both gone into heroin together. They have some kid, Benny, who's cap they lace with the stuff before sending him off to exchange it for moolah. During one of his trips, Benny is assaulted right off the bat by a whole crew of Masseria's men, but he is rescued by Lansky, who ends up having to physically pull Benny away from engaging in an all-out gun battle with the men. Why did we see this? Well it was some action, and Masseria's clearly going somewhere. I thought it was worth it.

I honestly didn't see the need for the brief flashback to the pilot, which showed Jimmy being introduced to Nucky's crew. Yeah, it was the same room that he met Rosetti in, but it was a bit annoying. So far, Boardwalk Empire has only used this device sparingly, and I'd much rather it remained that way. 

The cultural reference to Nosferatu was fun, as it is one of the first horror films I've seen. It is legitimately scary, though only if you get the one that is scored with the interesting music, and not the droning repetitive crap you sometimes get on it. A little off topic, yeah, but the little things matter in television. Look at Fringe, there are websites devoted to discovering all the differences between the two universes. 

In my opinion 'Bone For Tuna' was a bit of a step up from the last episode, and provided us with a bit more action and intrigue than we normally get this early in the season. Hopefully the writers have learnt from past mistakes, and are opting to present a much more thrilling first half than we normally get. I do appreciate the constant threat of violence, though I also wish they came through on it more often, and didn't just let the characters breeze from place to place and scenario to scenario so easily, but I will note that there isn't a single character whom I especially dislike. The new guy on the block, Rosetti, is especially interesting, though from the looks of it, he'll likely die in the not-too-far-distant-future. Oh well, as long as the story works I'll be happy.