Wait a minute, didn’t I just spend last week talking about how excited I was to be back to only having one show to blog on Sunday nights? Well, yes, I did, but it’s hard to resist taking a weekly look at a show with the kind of pedigree that “Boardwalk Empire” has, especially when its creators aren’t afraid to send out advance screeners of its episodes. Granted, that may change once the show has gotten on its feet, but as it stands right now, I’m in a position where I can watch at least the first six episodes in advance, thereby leaving me only “Mad Men” to actually blog on Sunday nights.
Let’s get started, shall we?
Meet Enoch Thompson, known to his friends…and, indeed, some of his enemies…as Nucky. Described by HBO’s website as “equal parts corrupt politician and gangster (and equally comfortable in either role),” Thompson is the much beloved treasurer of Atlantic City, New Jersey. And why wouldn’t they love him? He’s the kind of guy who promises everything to everyone, even if it involves telling complete lies to make them happy. Indeed, when we first see him, he’s lecturing before the Women’s Temperance League, praising the beginning of prohibition…and, minutes later, he’s having dinner with the mayor, the city council, and several key law enforcement officials – one of whom is his own brother – and telling them how he’s found a way to keep Atlantic City “as wet as a mermaid’s twat.” I’m sure that joke would’ve gone over like gangbusters amongst the suffragettes.
Speaking of the suffragettes, during his speech, two faces stand out in the crowd…or, rather, one in the crowd and one on the outskirts.
First, there’s a young lady in the audience who’s eying Nucky quite intently. That’s Margaret Schroeder. She’s a good Irish girl who’s married with two children and a third on the way, but her husband’s going to be out of a job come the end of tourist season, and she was so affected by Nucky’s speech about how he and his family once had to eat wharf rats to survive (a tale which was either heavily embellished or, more likely, completely fabricated) that she later decides to venture forth to Nucky’s office and ask if she can find work for his husband when the time comes. He agrees, hands her a wad of cash to get her family through the hard times in the interim, and provides her with a ride home. The end result: her husband gets pissed, takes the money, knocks her around, and goes off to gamble at Nucky’s establishment, ostensibly just to rub it in his face. In turn, Nucky rubs his face into a table. Repeatedly. So what does the guy do in response? He heads home and beats his wife to the point that she loses the baby. As soon as word gets back to Nucky, he has the bastard killed…and, frankly, it’s hard to imagine anyone mourning the son of a bitch.
Now, let’s get back to that Women’s Temperance League meeting, so we can address the identity of the young lad hovering in the shadows.
Meet Jimmy Darmody. He’s been part of Nucky’s inner circle for many moons, and after fighting for his country in World War I, he’s now back at Nucky’s side. Once he was a boy, but now he is a man…and he’s looking to be acknowledged as such. Unsurprisingly, it’s hard for Nucky and his guys to see him that way. Jimmy’s tensions rise to the surface when he and Nucky visit a bootlegging operation in the basement of a local funeral home. After Jimmy takes a swig of some formaldehyde-laced liquor, fists and bullets start flying, with one of the latter going through the basement ceiling and straight into a funeral. (I laughed really hard at that, by the way. And after I realized that the bullet hadn’t actually hit anyone, I laughed even harder.) Upon exiting the premises, Jimmy and Nucky finally have it out, with Nucky breaking out his wad of bills and Jimmy dismissing it, saying that he doesn’t want money, he wants an opportunity. After being picked up by the revenuers, though, Jimmy decides to make his own opportunity, teaming with some of Johnny Torrio’s boys – one of whom is a young up-and-comer by the name of…wait for it…Al Capone – to step in and swipe a shipment of Canadian Club intended for Nucky. Later, Jimmy meets up with an understandably pissed-off Nucky, and Nucky is left dumbfounded by the cajones of his former protege, who informs him that he “can’t be half a gangster anymore,” then gives him his cut.
Now that we’ve looked into the lives of these three main characters, let’s discuss “Boardwalk Empire” as a whole. Not unlike what “Mad Men” did for the late ’50s and early ’60s, this series is dropping us into the 1920s and leaving our jaws on the floor with the way they’ve reproduced the era. I mean, just look at that Atlantic City Boardwalk on the eve of Prohibition, with a New Orleans styled funeral for John Barleycorn (complete with the band in blackface), couples holding their baby and toting their alcohol in the baby’s carriage. Babette’s is a work of art, too, for that matter, as are the various stores that we see as the characters stroll down the street, including the place that sells baby incubators…which, of course, confirms what we suspected during Nucky’s initial meeting with Margaret: that he once lost a child. (We’d already discovered that he’d lost his wife to consumption.)
We get glimpses at lots of other interesting characters during the course of tonight’s premiere: Agent Nelson Van Alden, who’s keeping a close eye both on Nucky as well as Jimmy, even trying to sway the latter into his camp; Commodore Louis Kaestner, the man who ruled Atlantic City before ceding the throne to Nucky; Arnold Rothstein and Lucky Luciano, who try to start some shit with Nucky by winning so big in his casino that he can’t afford to pay them everything they’ve won; Lucy Danzinger, Nucky’s girlfriend, who – based on her comments during coitus – may grow up to be Dale Evans; and Mickey Doyle, the bootlegger who gets Jimmy to take that swip of formaldehyde-laced liquor. And who was that African-American gentleman sitting in Nucky’s office when Margaret first came to see him? Oh, don’t worry: we’ll get to him soon enough.
As with any good Scorsese production, we get a nice killshot to the back of the head before the end of the proceedings, giving us a good idea what kind of violence we can likely expect to see in “Boardwalk Empire” in future weeks. I don’t know about you guys, but I was sucked into the show almost instantly, in no small part because of Steve Buscemi. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been a fan of his work for years, but it’s great to see him in the lead role for a change. He’s perfect for it, too: Nucky’s a guy who’s got a lot of power but isn’t necessarily the most intimidating fish in the pond. I’m not entirely sure about Michael Pitt’s performance as Jimmy, though. Here’s a guy who’s convinced he’s already going to hell and therefore figures it doesn’t matter what he does anymore, but he still looks like a tousled-hair kid to me. If he wasn’t holding a gun, I wouldn’t find him the least bit intimidating…but, then, maybe that’s the point.
Can’t wait for Episode 2.
