Boardwalk Empire
Season One
Episode Six
‘Family Limitation’ – 7.0
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| Director to Paz De La Huerta: 'No dear, pretend you're in a porn movie. No, not that porn movie.' |
It’s just not gonna stop is it?
We have to meet every character, then we have to delve as deep as we can
into the personalities and histories of these characters, then we have to
re-evaluate who the characters are, and THEN we might get some proper plot.
I’m not calling Boardwalk Empire low on substance, characterisation is
substance, and yes it is technically plot, but I want the actual story to get
going. I don’t want to know why the people here are what they are, I want to
know what they are doing. You don’t need to tell me why beforehand. To be
frank, I’m getting kinda bored.
Margaret and Nucky are lovers now.
Oddly, it was for this episode that Kelly MacDonald received an Emmy
nomination. I mean, she is good, but she’s no better tonight than she is at any
other point in Boardwalk Empire. I admit she has one fantastic scene, but that
was mostly due to the quality of the script. To be specific, following the
blossoming of Margaret’s sexual relationship with Nucky, Lucy Danziger returns
to her work La Belle Femme. Noticing her romantic rival fixing clothes racks,
she plays a passive-aggressive card, forcing the normally coy and submissive
woman to try on an excessively revealing pair of undergarments. I actually find
Lucy hilariously slutty and stupid, she’s so naked so often that it’s stopped
being special, or attractive. In fact, I think the character is a tad insane,
because during this scene with Margaret, she goes on about how much control she
has over Nucky, even opening her legs up to reveal television’s rarest
commodity. Margaret, showcasing her undying wit and general intelligence, tells
her a nice parable that ends with a simple message, and I quote ‘Maybe your
cunny isn’t quite the draw you think it is’. Ha! I’ve decided I love this
woman! Anyway, to end the conversation on an even more dramatic and cathartic
note, Margaret storms out of the store telling Madame Jeunet she’s quitting.
Nucky is more about business tonight, having to negotiate with Lucky
Luciano following a robbery on the boardwalk. I didn’t know that they knew
Luciano was in Atlantic City, but they obviously did, and there isn’t any
evidence proving otherwise. What I appreciated about the meeting was that Nucky
actually stood up for Gillian Darmody, after Luciano said some crude comment
about their time together. Nucky is starting to look like a strangely
honourable individual, especially where woman and black people are concerned.
He gives Luciano a little whack on the back of the head, sending the Italian
boy into a rage and giving Eli an excuse to beat on him, holding Lucky up so
Nucky can say his piece.
Nucky also has to deal with Mayor Hague of Jersey City, who is also in
line to receive the road appropriations money. I’m still not overly sure what’s
going on here; I think that Nucky wants a road built between Philly, New York
and Atlantic City, while Hague wants them built to Jersey City instead. I
actually had to look at a map to work out what that all meant, and I’m still
don’t really know. Before you start ragging on my lack of geographic knowledge,
note that I’m actually an Aussie, so asking me to point to an American city is
only slightly better than asking me to point to an Albanian one. So, ignoring
that, Nucky’s plan is to buy Hague off, rather than have him go for the money
from the bill as well. Sure, I understand that.
The best plot of the night was certainly Jimmy’s, as he actually got a
bit of action in – and not sex action either. No, after Al Capone almost
single-handedly started a war between Sheridan and Torrio, Torrio had a meeting
arranged so that the two parties can discuss their differences. That’s not
their plan, in the end though, and it all depends on one, random thing; the
coat girl. Apparently fancy places have them on TV, and as they come into
Sheridan’s place they hand their stuff over to the coat girl, this pretty
blonde thing Sheridan takes a shine to. After the meeting, which ends up being
entirely irrelevant, everyone comes to retrieve their paraphernalia, only to
see it’s a new coat girl. The second Jimmy and Al have their coats, they pull
out concealed guns and take out Sheridan and his entire crew, seizing
Greektown.
Rather than focussing on Jimmy, this episode had a larger focus on Al,
with Jimmy visiting Al in his home early on. It is a pretty awkward dinner,
with his mother only able to speak Italian, and his wife only able to speak
English. Their son, however, doesn’t speak at all, since it turns out young
Sonny is deaf. Stephan Graham, who plays Al with a sense of compassion as well
as brutality, is especially good. Graham’s best moments are when Al is silent,
watching as Jimmy receives credit and adulation from Torrio, leaving him out in
the cold. At a party celebrating the successful conquering of Greektown, Al
speaks out, jokingly mocking Jimmy, who then returns in kind by pointing out
Al’s uneven war record. In their last scene of the night, Al reveals that his
major limitation is his lack of ability to properly communicate with others
when he visits Jimmy up in his roof. At the end of the scene, the viewer is
left unsure whether Al was trying to be friendly with his accomplice, or
threatening him. I’m not sure Jimmy knew either.
The most confusing character is now officially Van Alden, who
requisitions the immigration file on Margaret Schroeder, supposedly to further
investigate her deceased husband. However he only ends up removing her
photograph, setting it beside the bed, placing a towel down on the mattress,
then... self-flagellating? Riiiiiiight.... This is getting weirder, though does
it actually hold any significance?
As of the end of this episode, we are halfway through season one, and
despite being complex from a character point of view, we have little idea where
the plot is heading and it is beginning to grind me the wrong way. Hopefully
the final half of the season will be more eventful, and less focused on
characters I already know and who I mostly don’t want to know.
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