It’s not like these shows were wholly disparate or anything, but now all of these characters feel united in the same storyline. Margaret stomping into his office is such a thrilling moment because it unites the two series and then pulls both characters over into Nucky’s show. Van Alden is the star of one of those shows, as are Margaret and Nucky, but when Van Alden drops in on either of the two others, it feels like a scene out of his show, the show where the vigilant (and just a little creepy) fed tracks down the cocky rum runners with only gumption and the grace of God on his side. As mentioned, until now, it’s felt like ‘Boardwalk Empire’ - good as it’s been - has been like a collection of smaller shows and scenes that don’t always add up to a bigger one. It’s hard to overstate just how exciting it is to see Margaret stride into the post office where Van Alden is setting up shop. (Also still hanging out there: Margaret doesn’t know that Nucky ordered her husband’s death, though she may have some hint that that was the case.) So when Nucky fails to do much to stop the beer deliveries happening at the garage right by Margaret’s house - and notice how her concern about this is motivated less from a personal stand on the issue and more because her kids could see (and it keeps her up at nights - she turns to Van Alden, one of those characters who’s been dancing around the periphery of the show. ![]() In another world, this would be the setup for some weird historical romantic comedy, but in this world, it’s a central conflict keeping Nucky and Margaret apart, even though they obviously want to hook up. ![]() Margaret and Nucky have a mutual infatuation, but Margaret is a member of the Temperance League, while Nucky’s the guy making sure the alcohol keeps flowing freely into Atlantic City. The question of what happens when Margaret realizes just how deeply the bad things her new crush is up to run has hung over the series since it started. Better, it’s found a way to tie those items together physically and not just through thematics: It’s done so through Margaret herself. But in Atlantic City, the show has found a way to tie together such disparate characters and story strands as Margaret Schroeder, the Temperance League, Van Alden and Nucky’s scheming. Sure, it’s still not immediately clear what Arnold Rothstein has to do with anything outside of being a charismatic villain (whom we drop in on this week in a ‘Here’s what’s up with Rothstein’ scene that doesn’t have an immediate reason to exist other than that fact), and Jimmy’s sojourn to Chicago feels like a completely different series - a good one, just not the same one that Nucky and pals are in back in Atlantic City. I wouldn’t say that my concerns have been wholly alleviated by ‘Nights in Ballygran,’ the show’s fifth episode, but it went a long way toward beginning the process of knitting these people together. And yet even I have wondered whether the story has one or two too many elements. ![]() But then I watched similarly structured shows - like ‘Deadwood’ and ‘The Wire’ - first-run rather than on DVD, so I remember the early frustration viewers had with that storytelling model as well. I assume all involved will slowly tug these strands of the storyline together in a way that pays off handsomely in the last three or four episodes. One of the bigger issues ‘Boardwalk Empire’ skeptics have had with the show is that there are something like six or seven storylines in any given episode, but they’re not really tied together by anything other than the historical fact of Prohibition and, well, that they’re all on the same show. This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |