'Home' - Boardwalk Empire, Season One

Boardwalk Empire

Season One

Episode Seven

‘Home’ – 5.5

Everyone loves melodrama. 

Ok, well it’s not looking like some sort of overarching plotline is going to manifest itself in this show, rather Boardwalk Empire is beginning to turn into something of an extravagant soap opera, with more sex and violence. I’m not saying it’s bad, the show is a cut above the rest in terms of script, acting and art direction on a bad day, but the plot is meandering along while the story continues to pander the needs of its characters more than us.

‘Home’ concludes the drama surrounding the attack on Pearl, by introducing a disturbing new allegiance for Jimmy. Pearl was Jimmy’s whore/girlfriend from earlier in the season, who ended up getting her face sliced in two after he and Al Capone fudged a deal with some tavern owner in another mobster’s territory, killing herself in ‘Nights in Ballygran’. This episode begins with the guy responsible – Liam – being tracked to a diner where he eats lunch most days. You can already tell how this is gonna turn out, but for some reason it takes nearly the full fifty minutes to get to that point.

Along the way to the death of Pearl-slasher, we have to endure a long winded introduction to Richard Harrow, an unfortunate veteran who has suffered severe facial scarring during the war, and must use a face mask in order to hide the half of his face that... well, isn’t there anymore. Jimmy and Richard meet at a military hospital after Jimmy began suffering pain from the war injury in his leg. The two get to talking, with Richard revealed to be a soft-spoken and brutally honest former sharp shooter with a serious issue connecting with people; though that is understandable. While a character with facial scarring is a difficult one to pitch to audiences, here he is presented with sympathy and realism, even down to the disfiguring injuries.

With Jimmy now aware of Liam’s favourite restaurant, he meets him there one day. Jimmy intimidates the mobster the best way he knows how; a war story. The story is one of suffering and torment, with some unlucky German soldier getting shot and left to die in a tangled mess of barbed wire, being tortured by his agonising death yet refusing to let himself be killed. One thing Michael Pitt has going for him is his acting ability, with his deliveries always pitch perfect in their abrasive, passive-aggressive way. Liam is obviously disconcerted, promising to leave Chicago and never return. This appears to satiate Jeremy, and he goes to leave. The second he’s through the door there is the sound of glass breaking and a jug shatters on a waiter’s tray. The camera reveals the corpse of Liam, a bloody bullet hole just under his eye, reminiscent of a tale Richard told Jimmy in the hospital. The next shot was entirely unnecessary, and completely over-the-top; we zoom through the hole in the diner’s window, over the street and into the opposite building, showing us that it was Harrow, without a doubt. Really? You let everything else go unsaid and you have to obvious about what was already obvious? And that had to have been computer animated, that would’ve been expensive! Ug.

Nucky’s father Ethan Thompson is a goddamn prick. I don’t know why protagonists need such definitive parental issues. Look at Jimmy and his absolutely crazy mother! No, Ethan is abusive, cruel and selfish, so are we supposed to be sympathetic when he takes a nasty fall early in the episode? Probably not, it was his own fault anyway. That’s what you get for having so many cats. The fall puts the old guy in the hospital, leading Nucky and Eli to decide that their family home needs to go. Nucky gives the home to some politician on his payroll; Fleming. However, after a dreary encounter with his father once the house has been fixed up, he gets a can of petrol and sets the entire place ablaze, gifting Fleming a wad of cash and telling him to find a better place. I don’t know what the significance of all this will be, but it might have something to do with Teddy watching from the car as this all goes on.

Other stuff happened too you know; Lucky Luciano and a friend tried to turn Chalky White away from Nucky, attempting to coerce him with $10,000 into selling directly to them, cutting a middle man out of the equation. Chalky’s no dumdum though, and he throws the money in Mr. Meyer Lansky’s face. The two of them then head over to the D’Alessio brothers and Mickey Doyle, offering them a part of their liquor business, as long as they provide the right amount of money. As subtly as a snake swallowing a baby, Lucky Luciano suggests robbing Nucky’s casino and splitting half and half between Rothstein and them.

Angela is now a lesbian, apparently, getting down and dirty with the photographer’s wife. This is an interesting twist, though whether or not it will have any real significance down the track is anyone’s guess. There is a lot in this show I just can’t be bothered going into, because there is a lot of inconsequential information that is fed to us. Oh, if you’re wondering about Margaret, don’t. Nothing happens to her, but she’s around.

So it’s beginning to look like Boardwalk Empire isn’t going anywhere, and boy is that annoying. There’s nothing really going for it in these last few episodes and to be perfectly honest, this characterisation shit’s gotten tedious. I hope this show can pick up something and run with it, get a single thread thing going and get me re-invested in the story, because terrific actors and sets and general prettiness is great for a while, but in the end I need to an epic tale to keep me hooked, and it looks like Boardwalk Empire COULD give me one if they took the time for it.