Falling Behind

I've gotten a bit slack lately. Whether it be my frequent trips away from home or the fact I've suddenly developed a life - totally overrated, by the way - I've completely and unavoidably fallen behind.

I'm near obsessive compulsive, by the most head-on way to deal with that condition is to totally fuck up my intricate and important systems for doing anything. In the case of this blog, that means I have to do something I swore I'd never do: skip a few episodes. I haven't quite decided what will be dealt with and what won't be, I do know that anything I watch this week will not be reviewed in depth for this site, with a few exceptions.

The episodes I will not be detailing are (I'll update this list as it grows):

'Two Hats' - Homeland, Season Two, Episode Nine
Simply put, I did actually enjoy this episode quite a lot. It was intense and emotional. The rekindling of Mike and Jess' affair was a long awaited development that was deftly handled and suitably resonant, yet understated. Meanwhile, the eventual apprehending of Roya Hammad was well-worth the wait, even if it did rob us of a major terrorist event.
Score: 8.5

Episodes I will be reviewing despite watching in my anti-work period include the Boardwalk Empire finale, simply because it is the big finish for the season, and anything I watch that is Fringe-related, because this thirteen-episode season is essentially the show's much longer finish.

'The Milkmaid's Lot' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Nine

'Where's My Funny Hat? The Milkmaid's Lot' - 9.0

Groin-grabbingly transcendent

What is particularly fun about this terrific children's tale of a sadistic and sociopathic gangster's longing hunt for a particularly audacious head dress is Nucky's fall from grace, to be clichéd. The Nucky Thompson we know: in control, sly, focused and witty, the master of a double life; is broken following a concussion suffered in the explosion of Babette's as well as the loss of his current love, Billy Kent.

Billy Kent represented Nucky's complete lack of awareness and cohesion, as throughout the episode his worst moments are signified by a dream-like flashback to the peroxide-haired flapper standing amidst sinking ashes, as her surviving lover's mind only hears the whining of acute tinnitus. It's powerful stuff, but also a bit of a cliché in itself, although it is used to full and worthwhile effect. Sometimes it is just unavoidable to use a cliché, but when it works it works, so who cares?

To be honest, Nucky's verbal and mental slips came thick and fast and I absolutely adored it. I'm certainly not saying I enjoyed his apparent dementia, but I found the massive contrast between this post-trauma version of the character with the normal, strong Nucky was so intense that it couldn't have failed. We have never seen the man this down-and-out, and it was marvellous. Has Steve Buscemi won any awards for this role yet, because sometimes I feel like they should just give him the big Emmy statue that stands behind the hosts. Probably split it with Claire Danes... 

Let's try and compile a list of Nucky's brain farts: (in no particular order)

• ·         Tried to get his doctor to call Eddie over, except he was actually looking for Eli
• ·         Thought he said 'Eli'
• ·         Wants to know why there isn't a pony for Emily's birthday party, after telling Owen and Margaret not to buy one last week.
• ·         Mistakes Chalky White (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?) for a servant
• ·         Goes absolutely over the top after Gyp calls up to mock the loss of Billy
• ·         Has to be held back by Eli, whom he fails to recognise.
• ·         Doesn't understand why there's a party in his suite when he walks in on Emily's birthday.
• ·         Calls Margaret 'Mabel' - My personal favourite
• ·         Asks if Emily's ridden her pony
• ·         Gives her like half the birthday cake after he tears it apart. 
• ·         Gets confused by Margaret and starts talking about the explosion.
• ·         Collapses.
• ·         He asks Margaret if she found her missing earring, as in Billy's from last episode.
• ·         Returns it to her once he finds it in the bathroom, to her confusion. 

This last event leads to Margaret - who I think is feeling a tad guilty after seemingly agreeing to run away with Owen - coming clean about his current condition by informing him about the earrings' real owner's demise. With this now burnt into his mind, Nucky finally recalls the death of Billy in a brilliantly beautiful flashback, and he is able to regain a large part of his composure before strutting out to call his fellow gangsters to arms against the Gyp Rosetti and Joe Masseria threat.

I was equally impressed by the complete brush off his business partners gave him, essentially damning our hero to dying alone. Surely now would be the time to remember 'Sunday Best', in which Rosetti made an oath to Masseria to kill every single one of the other big league masters. We'll come to that later, and that will bring Torrio, Rothstein and the other guys back into the war. Rosetti just has to fuck up by attacking one of them.

What did you think of Gyp Rosetti's hat? I liked its outlandish and completely-off-his-rocker aesthetic. I'm sure captain's hats or whatever the fuck that was will be an amazing fashion trend that will sweep the universe over the next few years. His plan to get the Tabor Heights people on his side was a bit weird, it seemed to be like an expensive way of achieving something he could have done with fear. Didn't he immolate the last sheriff and beat this one? You'd think the residents of this sleepy coastal town would have cottoned onto the sheer intimidating force that is Gyp Rosetti.

And Margaret and Owen? Who cares? I'd rather see Margaret with Nucky, Owen is an entirely uninteresting character now that we've gotten to know him, and he's annoyingly soft-spoken for a known killer. Similarly, I've come to dislike Richard Harrow's story because it seems largely irrelevant and boring. We go from Nucky having to organise a war while suffering from a concussion to a guy with a burnt facing getting some lip action. Also, nice standards girl. I get that you are noble because you are willing to look past his imperfections and see the beautiful man within, but we all have limits. I like my prospective partners to have at least 90% of their face NOT made of plastic or metal or something artificial. Also, preferably I like most of the face to still be present. It may be asking a lot, but I'm happy to have high standards.

Before I bow out for the night, let's discuss two scenes. First, my 'that-poor-actor' scene of the night goes to the poor child actor playing young Tommy, who walks in on his favourite whore engaging in less-than-vanilla sex with her current customer. It was a rotating shot that went from the two going at it doggy-style to the boy coming in through the door, the man's arse still gyrating in the adjacent mirror. Unless there was an annoying level of CGI, they just put the kid in the middle of a very unfriendly scene. I don't know how I feel about that.

Second, my favourite moment, and that would have to go to another so-far-unmentioned brain fart, as Nucky asks Margaret to stay with him will he conducts his business with Eli and Owen. The poor woman has to sit there while he loudly exclaims wonderful images such as 'I'll wear that fucking dago's guts as a neck tie', giving Margaret a nice cold dip in the waters of Nucky's gangster life. It was probably a deciding moment for the woman, who shortly after tells Owen they are hightailing it out of Atlantic City as soon as possible.

TADAH!!! Funny hat dance! No, not really, but I could never put anything past Gyp Rosetti, and that's why he's such a fun character to see on screen. Gods be good he'll pipe up for the final few episodes before taking a wondrous and memorable bow out. Anyone with me? 

'The Pony' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Eight

'The Pony' - 8.5

How awesome is this?!

To say we just entered season three's climax would be an understatement. The murder of Jimmy Darmody aside, the explosion and thus destruction of series-long hang-out Babettes is one of this show's more audacious and dramatic manoeuvres, only furthered by the fact it clearly - well, hopefully - takes out a seemingly important recurring character. 'The Pony' looks to be the last hoorah for new girl-on-the-block Meg Chambers Steedle, who's role as flapper-girl Billy Kent comes to a fiery end. 

I definitely didn't have an issue with Kent, and considering she was an obstacle for Nucky and Margaret's relationship, I probably liked her. Relatively. In fact, her character is one of only a few that deserves to have great amounts of exposition devoted to them, an exclusive list that includes largely unexplored characters like Owen Sleater, Gaston Means and Gyp Rosetti, all of whom appear tonight. Anyway, Kent actually gets a nice focus in the lead up to her death, with 'The Pony' doing what shock-death episodes do best; making them seem important so we don't expect them to die, as well as building up as much sympathy as possible.

It does that perfectly. Really, by episode's explosive end I had come to respect Billy as strong, outspoken and occasionally hilarious, with her stand-out scenes being her terrific audition for her first motion picture and her handling of Nucky's violent introduction to her possible co-star. Together the scenes didn't just prove the character as successful, but also made Steedle out to be damn good in the role. She is almost the perfect flapper girl, as seen during her audition where she acts out a silent movie-scenario with comedic grace and 1920's slapstick. Very nice.

There was something very majestic about her eventual loss, as hers is the last face we get a good look at before the building explodes out across the boardwalk, with Nucky's perception of sight and sound being focussed onto only her; the voices of Rothstein, Baxter and Luciano being reduced to static murmurs, before flames erupt from within Babettes and everything happens. It was filmed and composed largely without originality, as from the second we see the group walking together and the dialogue is in that pre-catastrophic state of pointlessness I could tell hell was about to break loose. Nonetheless, when it does actually happen it was spectacular and highly devastating.

It will come as no surprise that the bombing was a result of - probably - Gyp Rosetti, as he's alerted to the meeting by none other than Gillian Darmody, who is bitter after receiving a visit from her son's killer. I think I've said it before so far this season, but I don't think Gillian's going to make it out alive, as she's already done the sort of acts that earned Jimmy a bullet in the brain. I'd be sad to see Gretchen Mol out, but at the same time her character has served a brilliant tenure on the show and is pretty much dead weight without Jimmy. 

I appreciated the fleshing out of Van Alden's Norwegian wife, who establishes herself as something of a criminal thinker as she prepares to go into the liquor business for her and her husband's livelihood. At first the character was almost a racist joke, but I've decided I don't mind her. She's a bit of fun. 

Van Alden, or Mueller or whatever, also has some fun tonight when he goes absolutely INSANE at his place of occupation. After running through a few mocking jokes while doing a practice sales pitch, an unlucky colleague of Nelson's gets one of these fancy irons pressed against his face and left moaning and groaning on the floor as the former Prohibition agent goes schizo throwing papers about and breaking office equipment. It was both cringe worthy and hilarious, and not many other actors on this show can manage that, though I have to wonder if the writers are going to explore the consequences of his assault or not. 

There was actual plot tonight as well, as Nucky manages to avoid being arrested again by getting the secretary for something-or-other to arrest George Remus instead. I guess we won't get to see anymore of the third-person-speaking whacko. No big loss there.

So, yeah. That was a pretty fantastic ride for everyone involved, and I will definitely be sad to see Billy Kent lost from this show, though I am happy to see that she got to go out with an extra special bang that should have repercussions for the remainder of the season, if not the entire show. Though I shed not a tear, I still feel the pain. 

'Sunday Best' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Seven

'Sunday Best' - 6.5

We are just so... Nineteen twenties-y. 

Happy Easter everyone, apparently. That's right, back in the nineteen twenties they did the entire Easter Sunday ritual, just like us, with a pleasant family lunch or dinner and an egg hunt, even if it is for money. At points 'Sunday Best' actually felt like filler, namely the scenes featuring Nucky and Margaret spending the evening at Eli and June's house or Richard Harrow at the veterans' lunch,  as other than a few character and relationship points nothing was really raised or modified. Especially not when compared with the Gyp Rosetti storyline or whatever went down at Gillian's house. 

I think Gillian's rendezvous with her Jimmy-lookalike is a good place to start, as it managed to be a strange mix of the episode's best and worst parts. First of all, it was horrendously creepy. Gillian is a complete nutcase, definitely suffering from the grief of her son's loss, while also having to actually admit to herself that he is dead. To do that, for some bizarre psychological reason she decides she has to dose her lover with heroin then drown him in the bath. Seriously, after only two episodes with us the surrogate son/incestuous affair is killed. Nonetheless, his presence was felt, even if he was there just to make Gillian Darmody out to be bonkers. She even tells the poor lad that Jimmy was actually her husband instead of her son. 

Luckily for us, once she's done the deed and made it look like an overdose she sits down on Richard Harrow's bed and finally realises the truth for herself; Jimmy's dead, and he's not coming back. This storyline was both disconcerting and fascinating, though my biggest issue stemmed from the drowning of the lad; it was just so dramatic! Yeah, conflict and murder and death are always good twists and stuff, but I just didn't really believe it, did Gillian have to be so extreme about it? I don't think there are that many nutcases so close to each other anywhere in the world. Maybe Boardwalk Empire is reaching its expiration date if they have to resort to such manipulative and outlandish tactics to keep us invested.

While she has her day of sex and homicide, her assistant Richard Harrow takes Tommy to his Easter lunch, which takes place at that father and daughter pair we met in the last episode. Have to say though; did anyone give a shit? Yeah, Harrow is a fantastic character who inspires pity and respect, managing to be both a tragic victim and an amoral killer. But love? Once again, I'm wondering if the show is reaching a point where it's run out of ideas, because that is such an obvious direction to take the character that it is absolutely uninteresting. I do believe it more than I believe Gillian's murder of Roger, but at least THAT was endlessly fascinating. Harrow and Julia is just boring.

Similarly, Margaret and Nucky spend Easter Sunday engaging in family play with Eli and his family. There were the odd points in this story that were a bit alright, namely Margaret admits to June that she is not happy with the state of her marriage, and that Nucky has a mistress in New York. Of course June tells her husband once it's all over, though I don't know if this will have any significance at all. There was also a kind of reconciliation between the brothers, but this was after Eli practically asked Nucky to shoot him because he's 'tired of waiting'. This must have been an admirable act in Nucky's eyes, as he offers his brother the position of partner in Doyle's warehouse.

There was also implications of remaining affection between Nucky and his wife, as she comes to discover that he is a proficient juggler and entertainer. When he offers to teach her how to juggle though, she simply tells him that it's 'too late', with the double entendre being about as explicit as Gretchen Mol's tits earlier in the episode. To be honest, I'm conflicted about putting these two back together, as they were a terrific couple and are one of the few evenly matched pairs on the show, but I also don't want the show to go back on their developments simply because another option is better.

I follow Steve Buscemi on Twitter, and I knew from there just how funny the man is (seriously folks, @TheRealBuscemi, follow that shit) but his brief comic display during his family talent show was quite hilarious. He may have some of the best comic timing that I've seen in a long time, as well as a plain, old funny voice. Great stuff. Also, he can clearly really juggle, which is also impressive.

Finally, Gyp Rosetti also does some stuff. Good stuff, in Italian. Just as hilariously as Nucky's egg routine, Gyp actually beats up a priest in a church after calling God 'fucking sick' and then goes about stealing all the collection money. Later he approaches Joe Masseria with the money and is able to appropriate a bit of support in his quest to 'kill them all', as in Rothstein and Nucky. Terrific! And now a mob guy with actual power is in on the action as well, so hopefully we will see an old-fashioned mob war erupt along the Eastern seaboard. Honestly though, does Masseria believe he can defeat two of the most powerful criminals in America? 

If 'Sunday Best' taught me anything, it's that Easter Sunday is not a day for action, except for the reflective, dramatic murder of Roger by Gillian, though that just bordered on scarring. After last episode's absence it was good to see Gyp Rosetti back on the scene and making a few power plays to reassert his dominance and take his revenge. With only five episodes left we have to start seeing the action ramp up as we head towards the finale. What will happen? Who'll fall in the crossfire? My guesses; Gillian's just gotten too insane, I think the writers are moving to cut her out, and put her more in the middle of the action. Run or the other. If Margaret isn't with Nucky then they are going to have to go to bizarre measures to keep her involved, so it might just be easier to kill her off. I'm getting kind of bored of Richard Harrow, as he hasn't really changed that much since joining the show two years ago, but I wouldn't put his odds low. I think he'll do fine. Eli and Mickey Doyle would both be expendable, probably the former less so than the latter, though I doubt Eli's gonna get bumped off first. Billy Kent, even though she didn't appear tonight, is in definite danger, especially now that more and more people are becoming aware of her fling with Nucky, and she also gets between him and Margaret. I for one wouldn't care if she got tapped on the shoulder.

We will see though, it might end up like the first season which kind of shrugged as it finished, and no one important might die. I hope not though, there's been a few snooze fests this year and I want to see all this exposition lead to something worthwhile. 

'Ging Gang Goolie' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Six

'Ging Gang Goolie' - 6.5

'I want incest you so bad'

Did anyone else get 'Ging Gang Goolie' stuck in their head after the scene at the Boy Scout function? It's an awful, awful song but it's just permanently engrained in my mind, and is sadly about the only thing that remains from the as-such entitled instalment of Boardwalk Empire.

Now, admittedly, it is always difficult to justify a negative review of Boardwalk Empire. It looks damn good, the acting is superb, blah blah blah intelligent, blah blah. The show, like Game of Thrones or Buffy the Vampire Slayer can almost be considered objectively good - of course I could say your mileage may vary, but I hold fast to the belief that for any of these three shows, if you don't like them then you're kidding yourself and/or don't watch enough television to appreciate actual quality. Too much of ‘the Vampire Diaries’, perhaps, that you've forgotten what makes a TV series different or interesting.

Maybe the focus on Margaret and Nucky's relationship was a mistake, as well as the absence of the most interesting character right now, Gyp Rosetti, who is obviously recovering from the attempt on his life last episode. Nucky gets put in jail and fined $5, all because his former ally Attorney General Harry Daugherty needed a temporary scapegoat, and wanted to teach our protagonist a lesson. I know we've met Daugherty, but I am not overly familiar with him. I couldn't remember his name when he first showed up tonight, and in the end he has little effect on the proceedings other than inspiring his enemy to take Remus (the guy who says his own name a lot) down, and possibly Daugherty himself. I don't know.

At least Gillian got a sex scene in, although it was with a man who looks an awful lot like her son. I often feel a bit sorry for Gretchen Mol, as even though she plays the role with strength and ability, she still portrays a thoroughly unlikeable and strange woman, who has an incestuous fixation on her own (deceased) son. There is a depressing factor here in that he's dead and such, but it's still creepy and I wish she'd stop it. 

Did anyone understand what was going on with this gypsy/vagrant lurking near Margaret's house? I hear that he starts a fire early on, but 'gypsy', as Teddy calls it, is terribly close to 'Gyp', and he does say that the gypsy lived somewhere else and has only just come to town. It's eerie and suspenseful, but doesn't lead anywhere but to Margaret and Owen Sleater hooking up in the greenhouse. 

You know who I like? Gaston Means. His actor, Stephen Root, plays him as confident and with a degree of cheesy flamboyancy, and it is all appreciated. Means is hilarious no matter what he's saying or doing, and even though he should be subordinate he still owns his superiors with seemingly helpful quips that are equally belittling. He's fantastic, and just as good to watch as Gyp Rosetti, if for different reasons. His presence tonight was entertaining, as always, and the prospect of him joining up with Nucky to take down his own boss is an exciting prospect. Means for President!

'Ging Gang Goolie' was nowhere near as memorable as the song it's named after, and in reality was just as evasive as the show always gets. I can see that Boardwalk Empire is a complex show, but maybe twelve episodes is too many. They end up introducing all these unnecessary and uneventful side plots that it later feels it needs to resolve. I reckon there are easily two episodes worth of scenes that could be removed to make the show breezier and simpler. Yes, of course intelligent is good, but I can't always follow this show and it's starting to really piss me off. I'm just waiting for someone to pull out a gun and shoot everybody, then I'll be happy. 

'You'd Be Surprised' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Five

'You'd Be Surprised' - 6.0

I sincerely wish he was singing 'Nathan' by Azealia Banks right now. Chalky and Purnsley would loooove that. 

Other than the an explosive massacre towards its conclusion, 'You'd Be Surprised' was largely an uneventful and dragging affair, featuring Nucky dealing with his romantic relationships, Margaret setting up her health clinic and Gillian facing money problems at the whore house. As usual though, the less action packed moments are still held together by the typical acting standard and the impeccable aesthetics of Boardwalk Empire.

Gyp Rosetti is getting stranger and stranger with every passing episode, though I'm not quite sure that he needed to be THIS bizarre, appearing in the first scene violently masturbating while a woman strangles him with a belt. Erotic asphyxiation is kind of different I guess, but it feels like the show's tacked it on to make Rosetti more perverse and unlikeable, even though he's just pretty awesome. Ok, I was admittedly a bit phased by this sudden foible, but on the whole it has little effect on the character itself, rather it points a finger at the integrity of the writers. Was this just to shock us? Probably. 

Rothstein and Nucky are at odds over the massacre that saw out 'Blue Bell Boy', as once again it has left Rothstein devoid of the liquor that he was promised. It's a bit unfortunate for Nucky, who has lost a whole convoy of men, trucks and alcohol, but now his biggest contributor is threatening to pull the plug. Michael Stuhlbarg and Steve Buscemi actually looked to be having a hilariously fun time digging into each other's characters, with the two kingpins pretty much regressing to childish name calling and yelling, while Owen Sleater and Lucky Luciano wait awkwardly in the adjacent room. We don't hear much of what goes on, but we know it doesn't sound good, even if it almost amusingly over-the-top.

Back at home, things aren't much better for Nucky when Margaret comes across him and his new girl, Billie, while they are out dress shopping at Madame Jeunet's. Margaret had been handing out flyers for her women's health clinic which has been somewhat floundering now that it's started, and she had come to Jeunet to ask her to give out the flyers from the store, only for the French woman to try and shoo her out in the most polite - but least subtle - way possible. It's all in vain though, because Nucky comes strolling out holding a prospective garment for Billie, who then follows him into Margaret's view wearing only her - quite unrevealing - underwear. I'd expected Nucky's current wife to say some brilliant quip that she's so known for making, but in the end she just offered her husband's new girl one of her flyers and implies she'll be too busy committing adultery to attend. A bit of a wasted opportunity if you ask me.

Over in Van Alden land, he's receiving cryptic communications from that prohi who let him off last week. In a scene as unintentionally farcical as Rothstein and Nucky's shouting match, the agent arrives in his home, causing both of the Muellers to worry that the jig is up. Nelson forces Sigrid to leave the room as he prepares to face the music, only for the agent to merely chastise him for selling a faulty iron a few weeks prior, explaining exactly how the two had met before. A second later, Sigrid rams him over the head a few times, much to Van Alden's shock and to our amusement. Nelson and Sigrid then decide the only way out is to finish the job, with the poor guy being suffocated by Nelson's handkerchief while Sigrid dutifully holds his legs down. Next thing we know, Van Alden's gone back to the florist who offered him a gangster job, for help disposing of the body. Was it me, or was this whole thing oddly comical? I mean, it's Van Alden, who was always too disturbingly bizarre to be taken without a grain of salt, but he and his wife barely batted an eyelid while suffocating that man. Weird? Just a little.

I honestly didn't care about Gillian's financial problems at her new brothel, so at first I was curious as to why exactly we had to go into them so much. Turns out that Mrs. Darmody seems to legitimately believe that her son has simply run off somewhere, and she writes him at one point to beg him to return to her. It is a really quite depressing moment, and a testament to the often under-used Gretchen Mol, who's only appeared in three of the five episodes so far. 

Let's be honest here; did anyone understand what the hell was going on with that tribunal thing? I got that 'Melon' was the secretary for the bureau of Internal Revenue, but what were they talking about? Somehow Harry Daugherty got mentioned, a name I'm sure I've heard before but can't quite place, and his name set off alarm bells for Gaston Means, aka the crazy guy who hid from the people he was collecting money from. Means reports to some guy I've definitely seen before, but I don't really think who he is matters. Rather, the fact that Means gives him some useful advice; making a high-profile arrest is the only way out of facing the committee under suspicion of corruption; will surely be important later. Who will get arrested?

In the night's most who-gives-a-fuck storyline, Margaret warns Nucky that Billie Kent doesn't need 'rescuing', and is therefore not the type of girl he'll stay with. He deflects this, but it becomes apparent throughout the episode that he's trying to help her anyway, as her stage show is failing pretty badly. Nucky believes it is because of a badly cast male lead in the show, titled 'The Naughty Virgin' in a humorously awful attempt at subtlety - and knowingly so. Anyway, he tries to convince Eddie Cantor to take the role, finally giving Stephen DeRosa a chance to stretch out the marvelous adaption of the famous performer, and do something other than sing and joke. Cantor can't take the job due to contractual obligations to another show, but Nucky sends in Chalky White and Mr. Dunn Purnsley to his home to catch a show, providing the most wonderfully awkward spectacle I've ever seen, as Cantor attempts to satisfy the two men with one of his trademark songs only to have them stare blankly at him in complete silence. Once again, it was just that slightest bit funny, which is maybe the theme tonight. In the end, Cantor gives up and tells the two that he'll do Billie's show. He doesn't take it with glee however, and when he prepares to take the stage with her he turns to her and asks her if she's aware of Lucy Danziger, which of course she isn't. In a line as cruel as the one I wish Margaret made earlier, he warns her that 'the next one won't know a thing about you either'.

The best scene of the night belonged to Gyp Rosetti, who is rudely interrupted while enjoying another oxygen-depraved (ha! see what I did there?) tryst when that annoying kid who works for Meyer Lansky bursts in and takes out a whole bunch of his men, before breaking into the bedroom and taking a few shots at Gyp himself. Gyp's a nice guy though, so he uses his trick to block the shots, killing her while he struggles to undo the belt from the bed before grabbing his gun and returning fire. He's too late though, and the shooter escapes while he walks through the carnage entirely - and I mean entirely - naked, with all of himself on display. Very brave, Bobbie Cannavale, full nudity isn't particularly common on television, especially while completely coated in blood and surrounded by dead bodies.

The scene after shows that Nucky and Rothstein had handled their tiff, and that he'd organised the shooting in an attempt to take out Gyp Rosetti - duh. Anyway, at least we know these two aren't at odds so much anymore, I don't mind Rothstein.

So, other than that penultimate montage of fetishist sex and a four-fatality-filled-shoot-out, the whole episode was a little dull. The strange additions of awkward humour either flew over my head or completely threw me off, so I'd have to ask that they not pull that creepy weird shit again, because I was slowly considering backing away from the television. Luckily the episode ended before it got that far, but maybe not next time. Boardwalk Empire isn't the place for hilarity, it's supposed to be more like an epic prohibition-drama. There isn't that much room for comedy, especially farcical or just awkward situations. They're just... a bit much. Other than the violent or the bizarre, the majority of 'You'd Be Surprised' was just uninteresting. I'm not sure why we had so much build-up to Van Alden having to kill the prohi, he could have just showed up at his house. Likewise, why did Nucky have to try and reason with Cantor first? Couldn't he have just sent Chalky and Purnsley over in the first place? Also, why was Gillian's short, pointedly sentimental storyline split up the way it was, it could have been only one scene. 

I guess in the end, 'You'd be Surprised' did what the title said it would, and I was at the very least bewildered by the shooting at Tabor Heights, but there was so much dead weight just hanging around - in character and scene senses - that I just want this season to pick things up and get into it, which it surely will now that Rosetti should be on the warpath. 

'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.

'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. 

'Spaghetti & Coffee' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode Two

'Spaghetti & Coffee' - 6.0

Boardwalk Empire has already entered that period of wavering activity as the story continues to add layer upon layer of complex plot points and meaningless data that I find both intriguing and over-bearing. Sure, there isn't exactly a horde of new characters, but in the year we missed allegiances, relationships and connections have began, been modified or destroyed, and to be honest I'm already beginning to have trouble keeping track.

Mr. Rosetti is of course the important character we know the very least about. Entirely insane and irrational, the apparently small-time mobster is still fuming over Nucky's decision to cut him out of the operation in favour of only supplying liquor to Arnold Rothstein. Tonight he facilitates a plan to halt the first delivery in Tabor Heights, the very same town near which he murdered that random good Samaritan last episode. It's devilishly simplistic, as the convey of liquor needs to stop there to refuel along the way, since it has the last petrol bowser until Stratton Island. Rosetti discovers that Mickey Doyle and his crew have bought off the Sheriff so that they can make their way through the town without any problems, so after meeting the officer in a local diner he somehow convinces him to turn the tables on Nucky's operation. When they come through, they find the bowsers locked and of no use, as Rosetti reveals himself in the darkness, approaching the men, before presenting dozens of other armed men at his disposal, forcing the convoy to make a u-turn and head back to Atlantic City.

In New York City, Attorney General Harry Daugherty has set up some sort of protection fund, forcing many powerful figures to pay him money to avoid... something. Anyway, his middle man in charge of physically collecting the cash is a Mr. Gaston Bullock Means, a paranoid but well-spoken and intelligent individual, who empties a fish bowl to act as the drop point, while hiding behind a door with a hole drilled through it so he can see what is going on. When Nucky arrives to pay a whopping $40,000, he is insulted by this lack of sincerity, and cajoles Means into letting him into the room and breaking this anonymity. I've watched the scene a few times and I'm still not entirely sure about what they are really talking about, but I enjoyed Stephen Root's almost excited portrayal of the wise-and-therefore-paranoid middle man. As he and Nucky discuss whatever-the-fuck, they get a brief peep show from Mr. Remus, the weirder, third-person only guy who pops up for little reason other than to say his own name as often as he can. Remus delivers his money to the fish bowl then leaves, followed closely by Nucky.

Nucky's other reason for visiting the Big Apple (was it known as that then?) is to visit resident and lover Billie Kent, who lives in a Rothstein-owned apartment building with a leaky radiator. Over the course of the episode, Nucky begins to worry that Kent is not being entirely faithful due to her interactions with another man at a dinner they attend, as well as the occasional call that Nucky isn't allowed to ask about. This concern is not helped by Rothstein himself, who is smart enough to connect the couple when Nucky inquires about the radiator issue in her building. Nucky never actually confronts her, rather he admits to her that all he wishes for is to hang up his bowtie and have his empire run itself, making him free to spend his life with her, and her alone. This makes her oddly uncomfortable, and last we see them they'd engaged in a period of pointed silence.

Back in Atlantic City, Margaret continues to fuss relentlessly over the doctor's comments at the hospital last episode. She visits the unfortunate woman who suffered the violent miscarriage right in front of her, receiving a cold and irritated reaction despite her only wanted to learn more about the woman's circumstances. Her later conversation with the whiny doctor was quite well-scripted, as the longer it went, the more wound up and infuriated Margaret became, as the man did little other than question how effective she could be at bringing about change at the hospital. Eventually she stormed out of his office, before turning on her heel, barging back in and going on a long and beautifully handled tirade about how much she does want to help and how tired she is of his insinuations about her wealth and motivations. The day refuses to get much better for her, and when she arrives home she discovers that Nucky has turned down an invitation to a ceremony in which he was supposed to receive an award from the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, she ignores his refusal and tells her maid to prepare his suit.

In what will probably be big news, Eli Thompson was released from jail early in the episode. Eli's imprisonment almost necessitated a jump forward, in retrospect, as it means we don't have to wait an entire year before seeing Nucky's pathetic and beaten down brother again. However, it seems our favourite foil has grown while in the can, becoming a much angrier and less irrational human being. Shea Whigham's actually done fantastically in contrasting the original version of his character with the one who walks out of the prison door to find his brother had sent Mickey Doyle to pick him up. It would piss me off royally if someone sent that clown to pick me up, and it certainly takes its toll on Eli. However, while the last Eli would have thrown a tantrum, this one is fairly blasé about the development, though he gets worked up when Doyle asks him to work under his employ, which means lending a helping hand on the deliveries for Nucky.

We get a few pleasant establishing scenes of Eli with his family, though I have to question what relevance they will have to the greater story here, though I'm thinking that perhaps William Thompson may serve an important purpose later. We meet Will when he holds back from really embracing his father, instead offering a genial handshake, displaying his rough hands and establishing him as the family member who earned the bread while the patriarch was away. Later, Eli tries to make amends by presenting his son with a present meant to be given to him two birthdays prior, only to be largely brushed off as Will heads to work. I'm not sure where this relationship is going, or if it was simply a factor designed to motivate Eli to start trying to earn some serious money again, either way it honestly wasn't that interesting.

Lastly we have Chalky, who is visited by Samuel Crawford, his daughter's suitor last seen in 'What Does The Bee Do' last season. In a scene as typically enthralling as all of Chalky's, Samuel asks for Maybelle's hand, only for her father to request the doctor-in-training perform a brief examination of him. When he diagnoses Chalky with an easily remediable deficiency he's largely impressed, and openly and gracefully admits him into the family. 

It's not that simple of course, this is television, as Maybelle worries that she does not truly love Samuel, and that the boy is far too boring for a girl like her. She wants someone more like her father, a thought that clearly pains Chalky, who orders her to accept the proposal, if only to acknowledge the hard work of her mother. Later on, Maybelle drags Sam off to a sleazy jazz-club for a drink and to watch the band, where he pesters her about her feelings towards him until he's interrupted by some dancers. When he confronts them, the male pulls a knife and does a quick slash of the boy's cheek, just as Dunn Purnsley runs in and beats the attacker to the ground. Chalky follows in a second later and asks Samuel to escort his distraught daughter home, only for him to disobey so that he can assist his beaten assailant. 

Boardwalk Empire is insistent on providing complex and well-rounded characters, almost to a fault. Yes, it is always good to have realistic people populating shows, but it can be exhausting to have to remember that many real-sounding characters in that dense an environment. In fact, I'd posit there are no weak personalities in this show at all, even Lucy Danziger grew into her clingy and hypersexual gold-digger persona. Damn.

There's honestly quite a lot to love about this world, but the writers and directors appear to assume that because they can start and end strong, the middle will be of the same quality. It is nearly impossible to have a show have every episode be consistently amazing, but Boardwalk Empire seems to thrive on the belief that theirs will be, simply because their best episodes are undoubtedly some of THE best episodes of any show, ever. Yeah, whatever, it looks great, it sounds great, the acting's great, blah blah blah great great great, but this episode in the end offered little new or advanced, and presented the same perfect universe and tone that this show has fallen in love with. One thing you might take away from Boardwalk Empire is this; perfection gets surprisingly dull after a while. Perhaps this really has turned into a really long film rather than a series, and perhaps that film should have ended a couple of hours ago.  

'Resolution' - Boardwalk Empire, Season Three

Boardwalk Empire

Season Three

Episode One

'Resolution' - 9.5

After last season's giant ending almost shat on top of the first season finale, Boardwalk Empire has gone in the best direction it could have; forward. Far forward. Rather than continuing directly from where we left off, we are treated to a jump a full year or so into the future.

The very first thing that I noticed was that many of the main cast who were featured in the credits are no longer present. Michael Pitt is the most obvious absence, though I do feel the loss of Aleksa Palladino. Paz de la Huerta will surely leave a very curvy and wet hole in the show, while Dabney Coleman I probably won't even notice. He didn't actually appear particularly often.

Interestingly, in our first scene we get an introduction to a new player in this game; Gyp Rosetti, a Sicilian up and coming gangster. He does make a hell of a first impression, suffering a flat tire in Tabor Heights, New Jersey and then fucking shit up. A man and his dog who've come across the convoy on the side of the road ask him if he'd like to have some '3-in-1', which Rosetti doesn't understand. Dog-man makes a grave error when he tells Rosetti that it is oil, 'what else would it be'. After giving the tires a dab, the gangster follows the man back to his car, before whamming him over the head with what I think is a tire-iron, before beating him to death right there on the road and claiming the dog as his own.

Rosetti reminds me of Lucky Luciano, who threatened a doctor who was treating his STD early in the first season, except unlike Rothstein's protégé, this new guy doesn't have to answer to anyone.

So how has Nucky changed since murdering Jimmy? Well, as his former protégé told him in the very first episode, he can't be half a gangster. In Nucky's first scene, he, Mickey Doyle, Owen Sleater and Manny Horvitz are interrogating a thief who had stolen from Mickey's warehouse. Nucky spends a while telling the robber that he was only doing his job by stealing, and that it was Doyle's fault when he went to the toilet and left the warehouse unguarded. When the relieved prisoner happily reveals his mystery accomplice's identity, Nucky smiles, tells Munya to untie him, before adding 'Oh, but before you do, put a bullet in his fucking head'. I love this show, and I love the idea of a hardcore Nucky.

It is New Years Eve, with 1923 only a couple of hours away. Margaret prepares her home to accommodate her husband's party, which is being decorated in an extravagant Egyptian theme. Gillian Darmody, who has now claimed Tommy as her son and has opened a brothel in the Commodore's old home, prepares the whores for the drunken louts about to come into the establishment. Van Alden, who now goes by the name George Mueller, is working as an iron salesman - as in clothes irons, not the metal - and is trying to earn himself a few more sales before the New Years so he can win a big prize as his company's best pitcher.

The best thing about a jump forward is that it's like starting all over again. We get to meet these characters for a second time, discovering how they've changed in the year that we've missed and what's gone on in their lives.

One of the events from last episode that I was eager to learn the repercussions of was Margaret's donation of the land Nucky wanted to the church. The ramifications of this act take a while to come through, but they become incredibly apparent after the party.

Margaret and Nucky have donated a large amount of money to the paediatric centre of the local hospital, but when Margaret visits the new wing she witnesses a woman having a violent miscarriage right in front of her. When she asks a doctor about it, she's berated for paying for paediatric care but not pre-natal education, which could have saved this woman's child. She later inquires about pre-natal care with the director of the hospital when he arrives at the party, but she is berated once again when the man believes that he's being insulted. Luckily Nucky comes and defuses the situation, but once everyone's left he digs into his wife for embarrassing him, blaming the entire situation on her gifting of the land to charity. It becomes clear that Nucky and Margaret are no longer together, with the two putting up a facade for the public and around the children, but constantly getting into each other's throats behind closed doors. Nucky even has a new chick, Mr. Kent, who was a singer at the New Year's Party.

Mr. Rosetti is also present at the party, looking to score five hundred cases of rum from Nucky. Sadly for him that arrangement will never be, as Nucky is changing his tactics and is now selling only to A.R Rothstein, who then redistributes the merchandise himself at an inflated price. Rosetti is definitely not happy about this new deal, and comes within a hair's width of threatening Nucky, a no doubt fatal choice that he thankfully doesn't make. He does however shout a lot and give his dog to Margaret (?).

Looks like Van Alden is moving towards becoming a gangster, as he is offered a job by some lesser criminal in a florist. Or something. I think I've lost the plot a little, the point is that he saved the gangster/florist from being beaten on by Al Capone, and flongster asks him if he wants a less salesperson-y role than he has now. Alden, or Mueller or whatever, at first appears to say no, but then he gets back to his headquarters to find he's lost the competition because of some bad information. Ouch. He'll be back in no time surely.

And yes, we do lose one recurring character tonight, with Richard Harrow finally avenging the murder of Angela Darmody. It wasn't too surprising, and though Munya is kind of cool, he didn't look like he'd have much to do now that he's Nucky's personal assassin-for-hire (redundant, I know). Anyway, he opens his front door to go out and kill some guy, when who should be standing there but angry burnt-face guy, who lifts up his shotgun and BOOM! No more face for you Mr. Horvitz. Ha!

Boardwalk Empire looks and feels as good as it always has, and the acting is never flawed or abrasive. In terms of story, the plot of this season is already building to be a bit edgier and more shocking than the last, with Rosetti being a very intriguingly insane antagonist, and I'm really looking forward to watching Nucky squirm under a man who wages war without strategy. I often win chess by just doing whatever, and you end up beating people who always try to counter your moves simply because you don't do what they expected. Hopefully the same practice can work here - not that I don't like Nucky, I just think some more change would be well appreciated.