HBO [US] Boardwalk Empire **Spoilers**

Soft Falling Rain

I liked how when Nucky looked to try and talk himself out of a perilous situation that

Tommy just pulled the trigger. The first Darmody that Nucky couldn't manipulate with words. That being said, I don't think Tommy came back to Atlantic City with the intention of murdering Nucky. He was genuine in trying to win Nucky's support but like his dad before him, Nucky wasn't capable of providing him what he needed.

Kirby

The more I think about it the more irritated I am by the forced time jump. We really missed out on a lot.

Clareman

Great scene with Capone and his son, I actually felt sorry for Capone in that scene.

Good finish to the show, ties off all the lose ends, everyone gets a finish/closure.

Diabhal Beag

It was really the only suitable end you could have for the show. As has been said before and will be said again it's a shame there was a lot of rushed stories and character deaths. Still liked the show a lot and there are enough string characters and moments to be able to recommend it.

Clareman

I don't know about whether it'd be a better show if they showed the other years, not sure what would be added from the years in Cuba for example. The story was always about Nucky, not the rise of organised crime.

Saying that, there's a great opening for a Boardwalk type show covering the rise of the mob.

_Kaiser_

They wrapped it up pretty well given the constraints .. strong finish for a mediocre seaon IMO.

It was pretty obvious alright that the kid was Tommy and that Nucky was going to be shot once he turned up again

Capone and his son was another highlight as mentioned above and the establishment of the Commission

Still, for me season 3 - and the legend that was Gyp Rosetti - was the best of this show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJT3xZ9C5Ew

Soft Falling Rain

I've meaning to say over the past few weeks that the Bugsy character was really irritating. You'd have to wonder what the hell Lansky and Luciano saw in, what at least the show portrayed as, an unbelievable weak link. Historical fact prevented the audience from getting satisfaction there.

_Kaiser_

Post-finale interview with Terence Winter here

FloatingVoter

Soft Falling Rain wrote: »

I've meaning to say over the past few weeks that the Bugsy character was really irritating. You'd have to wonder what the hell Lansky and Luciano saw in, what at least the show portrayed as, an unbelievable weak link. Historical fact prevented the audience from getting satisfaction there.

Watch the Warren Beatty movie to see that particular tale to its conclusion.

larchielads

So sad its over bugger all good left to watch on tv:(

Disappointing ending altogether, but I don't think I was ever going to be happy once they cancelled. 8 episodes was never going to be enough given how they it started.

Chocolate Lions

Excellent conclusion to an excellent show. By the end of the ep. it was clear he was a dead man walking. Wonderfully done.
I always really liked Gillian and Jimmy, they were brilliant characters and both screwed by Nucky - neither had much of a chance. However messed up Gillian made Jimmy by the end, it was rooted in Nucky's actions.

The last few episodes were really great and while I would have loved more from the show it has ended well. It was an entirely natural conclusion.

AnLonDubh

I very much enjoyed the last two episodes, Luciano was played excellently by Piazza, you very much saw the future of organised crime emerging, dangerous businessmen rather than gangster bootleggers. Just as we saw the gangster overtake the corrupt glad-handing politician in season 2.

Overall, I felt that there was a bit of tension between the Mobster and New Jersey sides of the story in seasons 3,4,5. As people have said earlier in the thread, it is of course about Nucky and not American gangsters in general. However I felt that after season 2 the Atlantic city stuff was boring (Gillian, Eli, e.t.c.) and the mobster side far better scripted and acted (Rosetti, Rothstein, Masseria, e.t.c.) so given that it was about Nucky, I feel it would have been better if it had concentrated on him in that context, rather than wasting hours on Margaret and Gillian.

As for the final episode, I'm probably a bit silly on this, but I found Tommy Darmody's reappearance and his murder of Nucky a bit forced. It was good that it wasn't revenge for Jimmy, but still I found it a bit anti-climactic. We only really saw Tommy before as a polite kid playing with die-cast trains and he didn't really seem to remember or like Gillian in season four. I would have rathered if Nucky had got off free or if a Darmody was going to do him in, have it be Gillian, at least we knew her. Although I could be missing something; this is perhaps a bit dumb, but I'm not clear on why Tommy killed him. (Or really I suspect it was because he thought Nucky could give him the good life and shot him out of frustration when he was "let down", but for me this is a bit of an uninteresting motive for the death of the main character.)

Clareman

In essence, Nucky would be a no-one without Gillian, he was just fired but given the option to get promoted if he gave over a girl he barely knew. Considering he was just after having a fight with his father and losing an unborn child he was in a messed up place, have the results of his betrayal of Gillian come back to finish him was really the only way for him to go.

Strange that the only person to get through all and come out better was Margaret.

Falthyron

It had to happen. The story needed to come full circle and this is made abundantly clear with Nucky making his deal with the devil.

ncmc

That was superb. There was really only one way it could end, it couldn't have ended with Nucky walking into the sunset $2 million the richer. God there was no happy endings, Gillian still stuck in the asylum and despite Richard Harrow's best attempts to save him, Tommy ended up turning to crime. The only ones who ended up on top were Margaret and Eli.

P.Walnuts

Great show, great ending...slightly tarnished by the shortened last season but overall quality tv. Some of the most memorable characters in recent history...Richard, Gyp, Van Alden even Narcisse.

Will miss it

leggo

Aw man. That scene with Al and his son had me from nought to an absolute mess in seconds. That story was one of the most powerful and real in Boardwalk's tenure, what a perfect way for him to go out before the razzmatazz outside the court.

I liked the Tommy twist. Sad to see him turn out like that, though. But it kinda makes sense when you think back to Richard's series 3 quote about Jimmy being a soldier and dying in battle. Maybe I'm reading more into it than is there, but I'd like to think it adds to the full circle element of the show.

Will miss it. And will definitely need to re-watch it all at a later date.

Tipsy McSwagger

ncmc wrote: »

That was superb. There was really only one way it could end, it couldn't have ended with Nucky walking into the sunset $2 million the richer. God there was no happy endings, Gillian still stuck in the asylum and despite Richard Harrow's best attempts to save him, Tommy ended up turning to crime. The only ones who ended up on top were Margaret and Eli.

Eli has nothing left except a few thousand dollars.

ixoy

Very happy with the ending and I thought they did a neat job tying up the back story with the present (and the actor playing young Nucky was scarily accurate).
Other plot lines were well wrapped up. Like others, one of the best scenes was Capone saying goodbye to his son. For all the people who claimed the performance was OTT it was very clear that the Capone in the media was always just that: a performance. Excellent acting by Mr. Graham.

ncmc wrote: »

The only ones who ended up on top were Margaret and Eli.

Lucky Luciano didn't do too badly either seeing as how be began being the top of the biggest crime syndicate in US history.

Shane St.

Happy with the ending. ALso love the song playing out over the credits.

squonk

Ah in fairness though it was a bit of a shíte ending. No more than Van Alden, a great character like Narcisse ended up getting gunned down incredibly easily in the end. Narcisse was pretty clued in. It struck me as hard to believe he'd be got to that easily really.

The Gillian story went nowhere. She stayed in the asylum and it only served for some lame symbolism to juxtapose Nucky's promise "I will always take care of you" to his current day "This is it. No more. I'm going away".

Margaret did well for herself but how much hurt have we had to go through just to get to that revelation?

I'd have preferred to see Nucky survive. Having the kid off him out of the blue was lame and forced I thought. It doesn't matter that it was Jimmy's kid. The fact that I followed 5 seasons of this only to see Nucky give his empire away like it was a 2c bag of sweets last week and now getting wacked randomly is pretty poor.

I think they didn't really know how to end it so just threw in a bunch of pointless deaths and then had the main protagonist get wacked in some random faux symbolic act. I didn't feel it was good enough.

On the other hand, the scene between Capone and his son was something else, especially married with the 'public' Capone on the courthouse steps.

I'm left wondering now what the point was of hanging on for 5 seasons of this show with the way it wrapped up.

ricero

So since its all over who would you all rank as your favourite character ? Mine would be harrow followed closely by nucky and van alden

Backstreet Moyes

ricero wrote: »

So since its all over who would you all rank as your favourite character ? Mine would be harrow followed closely by nucky and van alden

Van Alden in the iron scene is one of my favorite scenes of all time he was my fav.

Backstreet Moyes

Also i didn't really pick it up was it Nucky's missus only thought she was pregnant?

Also was there some meaning to Nucky getting led into the tent by that woman? I thought he was going to be ambushed but nothing happened.

Clareman

squonk wrote: »

Ah in fairness though it was a bit of a shíte ending. No more than Van Alden, a great character like Narcisse ended up getting gunned down incredibly easily in the end. Narcisse was pretty clued in. It struck me as hard to believe he'd be got to that easily really.

Agreed, bunch of guys just push through a crowd outside of a church and kill a major player in the underworld, especially after the attack on the brothel, this was a very weak ending.

squonk wrote: »

The Gillian story went nowhere. She stayed in the asylum and it only served for some lame symbolism to juxtapose Nucky's promise "I will always take care of you" to his current day "This is it. No more. I'm going away".

I don't know about this, she started as nothing, this series showed where she came from (under the boardwalk) to the asylum. The burtality of the surgery that was carried out on her showed that both her body and mind were taken away from her. Tommy saying that he didn't know if she loved him or not showed the difficult relationship. This was the woman who was top of the pile in season 1 to prostituting herself to being in a asylum, real journey here.

squonk wrote: »

Margaret did well for herself but how much hurt have we had to go through just to get to that revelation?

She goes from being a beaten wife to a Wall Street guru, I don't think there's many fans of Margaret out there.

squonk wrote: »

I'd have preferred to see Nucky survive. Having the kid off him out of the blue was lame and forced I thought. It doesn't matter that it was Jimmy's kid. The fact that I followed 5 seasons of this only to see Nucky give his empire away like it was a 2c bag of sweets last week and now getting wacked randomly is pretty poor.

The whole thing of empires rising and falling I think was very good, he knew he was beaten and there was no other option but to try to get out.

squonk wrote: »

I think they didn't really know how to end it so just threw in a bunch of pointless deaths and then had the main protagonist get wacked in some random faux symbolic act. I didn't feel it was good enough.

Having him killed by his main "adversary's" son was very apt I thought, besides Eli coming out of the shadows to take over the Empire, I don't know who else would have been a decent person to kill him, maybe Gillian in the asylum I was thinking.

squonk wrote: »

On the other hand, the scene between Capone and his son was something else, especially married with the 'public' Capone on the courthouse steps.

Great scene that, coupled with him trying to make his capos feel better as well gave him a bit of depth of character, would have prefered a bit more details in the Capone bit, this and Narcisse/Chalky storylines were just too rushed.

squonk wrote: »

I'm left wondering now what the point was of hanging on for 5 seasons of this show with the way it wrapped up.

See someone grow and empire, come out of the shadows of someone, to being on top, to trying to grow, to the last few episodes where he was on his own. Good show, which could have been great in my opinion.

Clareman

Nuts102 wrote: »

Also i didn't really pick it up was it Nucky's missus only thought she was pregnant?

I took it she had a miscarriage, hence all the bloodey clothes on the floor. There was a scene in an earlier series with Nucky at her and their son's grave.

Nuts102 wrote: »

Also was there some meaning to Nucky getting led into the tent by that woman? I thought he was going to be ambushed but nothing happened.

Ii thought that was just showing how the Boardwalk was changing, when he got there first he was sweeping it and they were worried about the shoreline or something, now he has someone showing him the future (TV) and saying that they won't be there. He was all about leaving a legacy of some kind, in the end he left nothing.

ncmc

I think Squonk makes some good points and I think it comes down to A) it being cancelled rather than coming to a natural conclusion and there only being 8 episodes rather than 13. There were some stories started in previous series, eg Narcisse being answerable to the fbi and the fbi angle in general that didn't get fleshed out, possibly due to time constraints. I felt Chalky, Van Alden and Doyle were killed off way to quickly and it felt like their stories went nowhere as a result.

Favourite characters for me, Gyp the mad b*stard, Capone, Van Alden and Rothstein.

Did anyone feel like Steve Buschemi was possibly miscast as Nucky? He never really held the the strong gravity you expect of someone that powerful. Too meek perhaps. I'd usually suspend my disbelief but it is something that I felt throughout the entire show.

Soft Falling Rain

ricero wrote: »

So since its all over who would you all rank as your favourite character ? Mine would be harrow followed closely by nucky and van alden

Harrow for me but it's hard to say. It's truly an ensemble where Capone, Van Alden, Harrow, Jimmy and Chalky killed it at different times as support players at different times.

Buscemi was a strong and worthy lead for the first 2 seasons but his character suffered from a lack of certainty and purpose in the storytelling in the 3rd and 4th. I felt he bounced back as a strong lead this season and I don't think it's a coincidence that that coincided with Nucky being restored as the true focus of the storytelling.

Cork boy 55

ricero wrote: »

... favourite character ?

Van Alden without a doubt made the show

P.Walnuts

Actually just realised the biggest problem I had with the last season was Mickey Doyle's cheap and pointless death, he deserved better.

Nuts102

Nuts102 wrote: »

Van Alden in the iron scene is one of my favorite scenes of all time he was my fav.

Ye, that was great, honourable mention to Harrows killing spree in season 3 but my favourite scene in the whole thing was the meeting at Nuckys on New Years eve in the basement where he informs everybody he will be dealing with Rothstein exclusively, so funny . Well actually maybe not my favourite but very entertaining

iMuse

At the end of season 4, Wasn't narcisse set up as an informant for the FBI? Not one mention of it in the final season though

P.Walnuts

iMuse wrote: »

At the end of season 4, Wasn't narcisse set up as an informant for the FBI? Not one mention of it in the final season though

Have to think that was shot when they thought they were getting at least a full final season

Jimmy Iovine

I really like these videos, especially the one of van Alden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPBRsfLvZBU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVAxTP-GLlM

spitfireIRL

Deleted User wrote: »

Ye, that was great, honourable mention to Harrows killing spree in season 3 but my favourite scene in the whole thing was the meeting at Nuckys on New Years eve in the basement where he informs everybody he will be dealing with Rothstein exclusively, so funny . Well actually maybe not my favourite but very entertaining

EVERYBODY GOT GUNS!

Chocolate Lions

iMuse wrote: »

At the end of season 4, Wasn't narcisse set up as an informant for the FBI? Not one mention of it in the final season though

A lot of people were. He was a puppet master. It falls in line with historical narrative so it was at least some flavour of the time, hardly something to complain about.
Who knows that it wouldn't have gone elsewhere though. Would you have wanted time given to it? I think the best route was taken to the shows conclusion tbh.

leggo

Deleted User wrote: »

Ye, that was great, honourable mention to Harrows killing spree in season 3 but my favourite scene in the whole thing was the meeting at Nuckys on New Years eve in the basement where he informs everybody he will be dealing with Rothstein exclusively, so funny . Well actually maybe not my favourite but very entertaining

The beginning of the end for Nucky, in hindsight (at least in the world of this show). Had he not gotten over-confident in his spot then as kingpin, it may not have led to the likes of Luciano and Lansky growing agitated and more ambitious as a result. They were all happy families back then, happy to suck it up because Nucky had all the cards. He, unfortunately for himself, realised this too and tried to make his life easier at a price.

Chalky and Harrow were both fantastically complex and fleshed out characters, but Rosetti is one of the most enthralling presences I've ever seen on television. He'd have to be my favourite. Though Capone was fantastically played too, and they did a great job bringing Luciano full circle. Gah, why do I have to pick?!?!

BMMachine

fave characters:
Meyer Lanksy - most deserving of the gangsters. always kept calm and always played his cards right. when he did get too greedy, he learned fast and was able to get out of it. made the right friends and rose far above his 'station'

Al Capone - played perfectly. from psycho to showman within a second and so naturally too. knew he couldnt reel himself in, remember the implications with his son when he let off a blank beside Jimmy. very complex

Van Alden - probably the best performance by an actor on the show imo. absolutely rich background and a lot of strings to his bow. probably deserved better in the end but that was part of the character, the suddenness of how things happen to him.

Harrow - amazing and really shows how a series can grow a character. he was meant to be killed off in series 2 but grew to be integral to so many peoples lives. best story imo

BMMachine

BMMachine wrote: »

fave characters:
Meyer Lanksy - most deserving of the gangsters. always kept calm and always played his cards right. when he did get too greedy, he learned fast and was able to get out of it. made the right friends and rose far above his 'station'

Al Capone - played perfectly. from psycho to showman within a second and so naturally too. knew he couldnt reel himself in, remember the implications with his son when he let off a blank beside Jimmy. very complex

Van Alden - probably the best performance by an actor on the show imo. absolutely rich background and a lot of strings to his bow. probably deserved better in the end but that was part of the character, the suddenness of how things happen to him.

Harrow - amazing and really shows how a series can grow a character. he was meant to be killed off in series 2 but grew to be integral to so many peoples lives. best story imo

I thought lansky was like a bugsy Malone character, not the best. I thought
lucky was better.

I agree with the others entirely though, I though jim darmody was brilliant too. My favourites would be chalky white, van alden, nucky and I loved Rothstein, I thought he was superb!!

Did anyone like ely??? I thought he was a very tragic figure, I liked him
You could see him dead in months having drank all the money and gambled the rest.

I'm sure gonna miss them dancers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr.Prodston

My favourite character easily is Richard Harrow. I absolutely loved his story, and threw in a few badass moments too. Hands down it's Harrow.

Van Alden comes 2nd. Almost every scene was interesting or perversely hilarious. That man had a temper :pac:

Im no dunsky but that tent with the girl from the future and the whole TV thing threw me or went over me. What was that about??? The one on the boardwalk?

im all ears...

Shane St.

rusty cole wrote: »

Im no dunsky but that tent with the girl from the future and the whole TV thing threw me or went over me. What was that about??? The one on the boardwalk?

im all ears...

It was explained in one of them inside the episode features on the boardwalk youtube page. Was just to illustrate that his time has gone now. They're moving into a new age

squonk

The tent thing was why I ended up disappointed. For me, when I saw it, I immediately felt that it was a pointer towards Nucky's future. Here he was with a big bag of money and, while I thought it was a little contrived, it said to me that he'd get out of there OK and I thought it signaled that he'd continue to invest and be successful or end up getting involved in technology in some way. Then the next minute he gets shot. Rather silly IMHO.

Shane St.

Shane St. wrote: »

It was explained in one of them inside the episode features on the boardwalk youtube page. Was just to illustrate that his time has gone now. They're moving into a new age

ah collio thanks:)

Diabhal Beag

Just hit me there that Richard did so much for Tommy to keep him on the straight and narrow and look where we are

Tristram

Diabhal Beag wrote: »

Just hit me there that Richard did so much for Tommy to keep him on the straight and narrow and look where we are

I found that sad alright. Surprised Tommy had any contact with Gillian considering her conviction and incarceration.

FloatingVoter

Lucky and Lansky weren't explained clearly enough to someone who didn't know the mob history. The show read best if you went straight for wikipedia when they appeared on the scene c. season 2. Lansky was not Lucky's sidekick. If anything, he was the brains behind the mob. Lucky was junior partner with the required Sicilian connections. Bugsy was portrayed accurately as a loudmouth with grand visions. They were childhood pals who clanned together to beat up the bullies on their street. Literally. Then one street became the next and next thing you know - the world seems so small.
Nucky could have walked away a la Joe Kennedy with some bent stock market dealings or died. A coin was flipped and the fictional character died.
If it makes anyone feel better, there is a directors cut in my head where Nucky makes it to Cuba, invests in real estate and dies happily before Castro spoils the party.

Cork boy 55

Best female character

Boardwalk Empire - Billy Kent's Cinema Audition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnV3YQeSoNs