Boardwalk Empire on HBO (pt2)

I don't think it looks bad.

 

"I, for one, refuse to be ruled by fear."
"Husband!"
"Coming Dear!"

Ha! Fun Van Alden moment. I loved the whole dinner scene with Sigrid needling Nelson and then her reveal to everyone about Eli. She's always a trip, just with the way she talks.

I'm glad we're finally past "kid Nucky" flashacks. Too much time on that. The guy playing younger Nucky did a great job imitating Buscemi's voice and speech pattern.

 

And his mannerisms. There s a hint of someone, possibly Stan Laurel, in there!
Boy I'm going to miss this show when it's gone. Another wonderful episode. It's one of those series which I find totally immersive.

 

Everything was great about that performance except the prosthetic teeth!

 

Van Alden has some great quotes this season.

"Why Must It Always Be Pandemonium??"

 

I just love that

Spoiler

they're making the two former "upstanding" lawmen (Eli and Van Alden) be the two that potentially take down Capone for tax evasion.

They're certainly building this up to an epic ending. I'm so disappointed it's going away.

 

“Chester, that would sound better much further away.”

 

I've been puzzled by why the Gillian plotline has continued into this season. I'm guessing now we'll going to see Deputy Thompson making the arrangements for the Commodore to take in Gillian and seeing the anguish that probably accompanied it. But I don't know where it goes from there -- unless perhaps the objective is to simply drive the point home of yet another woman's life destroyed by Nucky. It seems like a lot of airtime to subtly make that point.

The only one who seems to have survived -- at least to some degree -- is Margaret (which, come to think of it, may be why her story line was continued as well).

 

The actor Marc Pickering owns them chompers (from Les Miz below)

 

That performance was so spot on that I initially thought it was Buscemi himself digitally de-aged

 

I like the way they've tricked me a couple of time so far with the Gillian scenes in the asylum - each time it's portrayed as if it's an up-market health spa or nice hotel. The 'guests' are reasonable and refined, until reality bites when one has an episode and you realise what an awful place it is. Lovely and clean & bright though!

 

I know mental health facilities in the past were out and out horror shows, but what in the world is that maniac doctor cutting out of women's stomachs to "remove the sickness".

 

Interesting! Anyway like jj it wouldn't have shocked me had it turned out that it was a "de-aged" SB. Fantastic mimicking of Nucky's speech/looks/mannerisms.

 

That was a hysterectomy scar.

 

I interpreted that to mean that even when the Commodore was much younger, he was a ruthless murderer, and young Nucky saw it. I interpreted it to mean that one of the Commodore's associates was going to leave his wife and run off with that woman, and that it was going to harm the Commodore's businesses, so the Commodore had her killed so that the Commodore would not be harmed or inconvenienced. I could be wrong, and there could be more to it, but that's what I took out of it. To me, the importance was that Nucky saw from the beginning that murder of innocents was part of working with the Commodore, but he did not stop and run away.

 

I didn't get that the Commodore had her killed, but maybe you're right. I didn't think we knew what happened, just that the guy killed her and kept ordering flowers to mask the scent and cover it up as long as he could. I thought it was just showing Nucky being around violence like that at an earl age. But I admit I haven't paid as close attention to details in those flashback scenes as I didn't care for them.

Okay, thanks. So he's just sterilizing the women.

 

My interpretation was that woman was killed by that guy as a crime of passion, and The Commodore had HIM killed so it wouldn't mess up the business in AC by turning off the tourists

 

Thank you all for the follow-ups regarding that mysterious and little discussed murder. I assumed the death of *cough* SPOILER-- the man who gave Enoch the bill meant that he was the same guy who was interfering with the Commodore's business in the police station scene. I hope it gets clarified as to whether it had anything to do with the murder of that girl in the room.

This last episode really hit the mark for me. I can't wait to see what happens with Chalky, Van Alden, Eli, the mystery homeless kid, Gillian, Narcisse (is he even still part of the show?), Charlie/ Mayer and of course Nucky. We're in for a wild ride.

The Gillian/ hysterectomy subplot seemed fairly straightforward to me. The doctor is a quack and thinks he can "cut" out the source of mental illness in his patients by any means necessary. I may be way off base though.

Still holding out for a Van Alden/Eli spin-off in the manner of Better Call Saul!

 

This is basically what I thought too.

 

But what does it have to do with Boardwalk Empire?

 

When has that ever stopped the writers and directors of this show before?

 

I don't know...everything usually seems to tie itself to Nucky in some way. And this probably will too. The central purpose of the Gillian subplot in this season can't be a commentary on the conditions of "sanatoriums" in the early-mid 20th century.

 

I imagine at some point the 1931 Gillian storyline will tie with a flashback of Nucky introducing a 13-year-old Gillian to the Commodore.

 

You don't say...

 

So I'm a day late...