Michael "Omar" Kenneth "Little" Williams, Steve Buscemi, and ehhhhh Michael Pitt in Martin Scorsese's BOARDWALK EMPIRE

ya - good ep. loved the "the only winning move is not to play" part.

Yeah, this show has been on such a good run this season, not sure why the reception seems to be so muted.

A combination of backlash against/not living up to the hype of the first season probably.

I thought the beach scene between Jimmy and his wife was spectacular. Also like that her lesbian dalliance from last season wasn't a one-off "Marissa on The O.C." deal.

also: it has to compete with zombies.

Yeah, but the zombie show is terrible now. Its easy to tell which one of those Sunday night shows wins out for us, we always watch Empire as it airs and now have two eps of Walking Dead just sitting on the DVR.

I DVR Walking Dead, Hell on Wheels, and the 11pm Boardwalk Empire and watch the NFL-delayed Amazing Race live. I find that leaving Boardwalk for the end of the night gives me the most satisfaction. I am also aware that I watch way too much television on Sunday nights.

How is Hell on Wheels? Thought about giving that a shot, but we would up getting way too caught up in the first three seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.

i agree. but *zombies* seems to automatically grab certain numbers no matter how awful the writing may be.

xpost

Thats true, just so disappointing to me how badly they've fumbled a show with such great promise.

a little OT - but thursday are the same as sundays with me - where I watch one right away and wait until i have time for the other. (Always Sunny... being what I watch immediately and Community waits until later) (ya ya, i know how much Community is loved here and i still like it plenty) (def way more than Walking Dead)

I'm not sure about Hell on Wheels just yet. It's got enough promise that I'm happy to give it at least half a season. xposts

Back to BE: I think this ep dealt with the violent tendencies complained about up thread. Some great character stuff as well as probably the most exciting bit of political maneuvering. I'm guessing Nucky is going to start selling guns to the Irish?

Prohibition and the surplus of Thompson sub machine guns were the two major factors accounting for the rise of organized crime in the 20's and 30's. Notice how mostly you only see pistols, shotguns and rifles involved (with the exception of a Gatling gun) in the series so far? Fire power is about to get amped real quick, I imagine.

So what did everyone make of the pretty batshit last few eps? (BTW, HBO seems to be on a bit of an incest tip now what with this and GoT)

Finale was amazing.

I liked the episode giving us Jimmy's totally insane backstory a bit more than the finale (I think I'm just a sucker for backstory in anything other than Lost?) but yeah that stretch run made me feel like I hadn't wasted my time watching this show in the first place.

The episode immediately preceding the finale, should have been the finale.

I think Nucky and Rothstein arranged their phone call timing so that Luciano and Lansky would overhear -- so that when they learn of what happens they will wonder if they are also susceptible

S1 and 2 are ondemand atm, so I finally dived into this properly. Totally addicted. Took me a few eps but once Richard Harrow showed up I was all in. Goddamn he is really a mesmerizing character, and actor.

(I've almost finished S1)

Harrow pulled me through the first season. Two is genuinely really good.

yea s1 is a chore @ times imo, 2 has a lot of stellar stuff in it

God yeah those first 5 or so episodes of S1 were pretty light on the intrigue

Shouldn't we be getting some more of this soon?

Ah yes we are, on the 16th.

No interest in this, felt the two season arc as 'jimmy's story' should have been left tbh.

this was pretty bad

it just seemed like a soap opera with occasional violence where a lot of actors who had been good in other things went to be awful. and the plotting of the seasonal arcs was a total mess, e.g. five minutes of the lucy'n'nelson show every week totally failing to have any impact on the plot at all, i guess they went 'well, they're contracted'

Idk, I hate it when everything ties into plot too neatly too, extraneous detail done well adds depth where slavish devotion to plot often diminishes

my impression was that as of the end of the first series the plan was to have nelson go full vigilante, completely off-the-rails, and then they switched priorities and couldn't really do much with him

oh, why did jimmy suddenly start acting suicidally dense halfway through the season, that's the bit i didn't understand

i guess it was supposed to be for ~PSYCHOLOGICAL~ reasons. frankly anyone who ever wrote for tv should have every bone in both hands crushed w/ repeated blows using an early-90s IBM word processor

'your father' 'WHICH ONE' shits

Nice set of interviews with Terence Winter at the AV Club

(Warning:contains spoilers obv)

http://www.avclub.com/articles/boardwalk-empire-creator-terence-winter-on-raising,84239/

http://www.avclub.com/features/the-walkthrough/

Finished S2 on Saturday. Was kinda bummed about the Darmody ending, I knew it would happen but it's still a bummer. Was realllllly hoping he'd at least off his Mom...ugh at that whole family arrangement. I've had a crush on Michael Pitt since Dawson's Creek, I thought he did a great job as Darmody.

What will become of Harrow?

Rothstein definitely one of my favorite characters, he was so mesmerizing! I quite like the Meyer Lansky character as well. He lived til he was 83 irl --- if the fictional version of him is anythign to go by, you can kind of tell how. He always seems to figure out a way to be on the right side of things.

Also whoa at that last scene with Margaret and the deed. That girl's got some balls on her. <3

i guess it was supposed to be for ~PSYCHOLOGICAL~ reasons. frankly anyone who ever wrote for tv should have every bone in both hands crushed w/ repeated blows using an early-90s IBM word processor

― thomp, Saturday, September 1, 2012 6:42 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark

nice.

just caught up on season 2 of this after being pretty indifferent about the first season. still feel like this could be great with a few tweaks

apparently the third season's totally booting paz de la huerta, which can only really be a step in the right direction

what did people think of s03e01 then? i really enjoyed it. didn't have the painfully slow start of the last two seasons. i'd forgotten that it actually got very good at the end of the last season. very well-paced opening episode.

this was the best opening by leaps and bounds. continuation of how good the end of last season was for sure, although i'm pretty bummed william forsythe won't be joining the main cast

Yeah, as much as I liked the end of last season, I was still expecting to watch this episode and shrug, but I really enjoyed it.

I read a suggestion that Harrow killed that guy on Darmody's mom's orders, but I figured he did it for himself.

yeah that was really good! Margaret's dress for the party was STUNNING.

Is it bad that I kinda wish Harrow would just cut to the chase and kill crepey Ma Darmody? The stuff with him and Jimmy's kid just makes me so sad. And what's the timespan between last episode and this one?...seems like a pretty short timeframe to turn the Darmody house into whatever fancy whorehouse she's got going now.

Van Alden was kinda great, I'm glad they're giving Shannon such a long arc with this character. Hope he gets tied up with those Chicago types soon.

I doubt Harrow did it on Ma Darmody's orders. That's surely something they would have shown if so.

This was a great season opener, I really hope they can keep this momentum up all season. Also, insta-crush on Nucky's new mistress, she's gorgeous.

Season 2 started at the beginning of 1921. This starts at the end of 1922, so there's at least a year and a bit between the end of last season and this one.

And what's the timespan between last episode and this one?...seems like a pretty short timeframe to turn the Darmody house into whatever fancy whorehouse she's got going now.

it's been like a year and a half

xpost

oh right - duh, I should've remembered that.

but still

can we kill off Ma Darmody? She's a nasty piece of work

I'm afraid if they kill her off, Harrow will have no place to go. I was really caught up in how much he misses Angela.

van alden's baby sure didn't look older than 6-8 months to me.

I gotta say, Doyle has really grown on me. I was actually happy to see him this time around.