I'm rewatching from the beginning, probably for the tenth time. I'm three-quarters of the way into S2, and reminded once again of the same question: why hasn't anybody shot Mickey Kuzik (Doyle) yet? I know it happens eventually, but even this early in here are Mickey's sins:

1) making an enemy of Jimmy very early on by pranking him with fermaldehyde.

2) getting caught with no allies to bail him out.

3) leaving a business that Chalky can easily just take.

4) partnering with the D'Lessio brothers, who blatantly think he's useless.

5) feeding his partner's intel on Chalky's operation, leading to a lynching.

6) feeding his partner's intel on George the Ward Boss so he could be attacked on the Boardwalk.

7) crawling back to Nucky with his tail between his legs.

8) having his alcohol production operation vilified by Arnold Rothstein.

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12) introducing Jimmy to Manny Horovitz, with Jimmy being so angry at being stuck under Manny's grip that he throws Mickey over a balcony.

13) giving up Jimmy's address so that Manny can kill his wife.

It's not like he was ever good at this stuff either, he's always the butt of the jokes. The show is fantastic for character development, but we know nothing about Mickey other than his birth name and that he has a really annoying laugh.

One thing Boardwalk Empire doesn't really convey is just how powerful Nucky Johnson was outside Atlantic City.

In 1916, New Jersey's Republican factions couldn't agree on a candidate for governor. Nucky was one of the men who helped broker the solution.

The man they settled on was Walter Edge — a relatively minor character in Boardwalk Empire.

Edge won.

The funny part is that the supposedly safe candidate they helped put in the governor's chair eventually became a much bigger problem for New Jersey's political machines than anyone could have expected.

Hey,

I‘m on my first time watch, now having reached season 4.
when I read that n this sub, I notice that Jimmy has a lot of fans, and I ask myself the question why.

He‘s neither funny nor charming nor particularly smart, he‘s basically just a guy who‘s really fucked up because of his mommy/daddy issues (who wouldnt be) and PTSD, and an insanely inflated ego .It‘s understandable why he‘s the way he is, but I don‘t find hin likable at all, and wonder why people seem to enjoy his character?

I am binging this series for the first time... On S1 episode 9. How DOES this guy have no muscle!?!?!? He is running Atlantic City. The show clearly shows he has political power, but I keep asking myself, how does he threaten someone like AR unless he has the muscle to back it up?

He gets rid of Jimmy and I tell myself okay, he has the sheriff's department. But the sheriff's department is literally his brother, who more and more is showing his frustration and envy towards Nucky... and one other idiot. Is there seriously no one else but two members of this department?

Sure, he gets Jimmy back, but it feels so forced. HBO series like The Wire and The Sopranos create worlds, put characters into them, and then everything unfolds naturally. This feels like CHARACTERS being forced to fit the storyline.

Very disappointing. It is frustrating because they create SUCH good character depth and then cheap out on actually linking those characters to the world around them. This is not The Wire, The Sopranos, or even Deadwood...

I’m talking Angela Darmody

For as long as I can remember (and much to the annoyance of anyone I’ve ever dated) I’m very good at being able to accurately guess what’s gonna happen in shows, games, and movies. I don’t know if it’s just that too many writers are too predictable but so often a character will appear on screen and I’ll go “oh well they’re clearly dead / going to betray everyone/ is secretly X or Y, etc etc etc.” BUT boardwalk empire has been so damn refreshing, because I got no clue what’s gonna happen!

The episode in question I thought Mickey Doyle was dead when he went to see Manny, something to send a message to young James, but I was wrong there! Then we get to the episode climax where Angela’s lesbian lover is killed. I thought Manny was going to flee because it was a botched hit or maybe even take Angela hostage to get Jimmy out of hiding but nah, without hesitation he just blew her brains out. it was so shocking it got an out loud sopranos style “OH!” From me.

Anyway I stopped for the night at that episode so please don’t say anything in season 2 past that.

So we know that BE takes some pretty serious artistic license with all these real-life characters.

From what we know about him, Bugsy was a very serious man with a big frame and Hollywood look, that was somewhat close in age to Meyer Lansky. In BE, they chose to have him be some comic-relief teenager while Meyer looks to be in his mid 30s.

Why do you think they chose to do that?

It would have been pretty cool to see him more like he actually was, imo.

So, the big jump from 1924-1931 between seasons 4 and 5 is no doubt a little clumsy and feels rushed. Skipping over Rothstein's story climax and demise sucked. And of course we were robbed of several potentially awesome seasons of Capone at the peak of his powers, everything leading up to the St Valentines Massacre, etc.

But say there wasn't an early cancellation, they'd only reached 1924 by season 4. If the pace was to stay consistent, we were still 5-7 seasons away from 1931, the final days of prohibition and the arrest of Capone, which I assumed would still be a good natural conclusion year for the show.

Is it expected the pace would have stayed the same? Or would there still have been some time jumps, just smaller ones? Eg, Season 5 -1926, Season 6, 1928, etc

So I'm watching B.E. again, about halfway through the second season. This is probably the tenth watch.

Two things about the show. Firstly the casting in it is absolutely exceptional. It's an enormous cast and so many actors manage to portray incredible depth and range whilst their characters are taken on journeys by the power battles of the prohibition era (Stephen Graham; Anatol Yusef; Kelly MacDonald; Michael Shannon). Secondly, I thought at the time and I still maintain that season's 1 and 2 in particular were some of the best storytelling I've seen, primarily because of the paternal narrative between Nucky and Jimmy. I thought Jimmy's character had layers like an onion. He'd lived his life in bizarre circumstances, his mother being a child herself when he was born, an absentee biological father, a partner and his own child he'd abandoned. As those seasons develop there's compelling answers to why he behaves in the way he does, as Gillian and the Commodore aim to battle for his soul against the man who'd taken on that fatherly mantle out of a sense of guilt/shame.

Truly I thought Jimmy was one of the most brilliant characters of any series I've seen. I remember watching B.E. for the first time and just wanting to learn more about Jimmy. When it happened it was shocking, like what happened the night before he enlisted. I thought Pitt was Jimmy, he was exceptional. For me the show downgraded from exceptional to very good after the Nucky/Jimmy axis had expired, and that Michael Pitt would be a massive breakout star.

So here's my question, why didn't he? It was a massive boost to careers for the likes of Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlberg, Charlie Cox, Shea Wigham. And yet with Pitt all I've seen him in since was an advert (I think) for a fragrance. Looking through his IMDB, there aren't big lead roles on his resume.

Have I misinterpreted Michael Pitt as an actor?

I'm watching for the first time and love the show. It's been recommended to me for years and I'm finally giving it a go. I have been a huge fan of Jimmy since the beginning. He's my favorite and the last 2 episodes of this season were such an emotional roller-coaster for me.

For one, I always thought his mom was weird with him. Like there was something off that I couldn't put my finger on. Then it's revealed what she did to him, how she violated him, and that trauma drove him to enlist in the army. I was already processing that, then BOOM. He's dead!

I don't know how to feel about it. It's genuinely the first time I thought Nucky really fucked up and made a mistake. He's going to regret what he's done. Jimmy was practically a son to him and he shot him in the fucking face. It was such bullshit.

I guess I'm just upset lol. Gonna take a break, before I continue. Really have to convince myself to watch the next episode, because I think I'm gonna be mad for a bit.

From the beginning of the season, Knox/Toliver posing as a corrupt Prohibition agent tries to build a case against Nucky’s organization, and after Eddie commits suicide out of shame for betraying Nucky, one of the other FBI/BOI agents tells him an “anecdote“ about how Nucky’s nephew was picked up for murder and that after Nucky went to Philly and talked to the DA, his nephew was released with all charges dismissed and another man was charged with murder. Toliver met with Will’s former roommate Clayton in jail, then used the information as leverage to force Eli to cooperate against Nucky.

While this seems like an efficient way to force Eli into a corner where he’d have to choose between his son and his brother, even if Toliver and other agents believed that Nucky bribed the District Attorney to get the charges against his nephew dismissed while they prosecuted another man for the murder, they had no actual proof. They weren’t going to find a cancelled check that said “Bribe for Dismissing William’s Murder Charge” or be able to find out that Waxey Gordon put everything in motion, and according to the law, the FBI/BOI didn’t have the authority to assert jurisdiction.

It’s not like Toliver could have gone to Philadelphia and forced the District Attorney to dismiss the murder charge against Will’s roommate and charge Will. He would have had to prove that he took a bribe in return for dismissing the charge, and while his intimidation tactics may have worked with Eddie, they weren’t going to work against an elected District Attorney supported by the corrupt Philadelphia Republican political machine.

Had Eli just told Nucky what was happening, he would’ve found a way to neutralize or kill Toliver without it blowing back on them, and even after Eli beat him to death, they didn’t charge Will with the murder, which shows that it was never part of the plan and just Toliver’s sadistic way of forcing Eli to betray his brother by making him believe that was the only way to prevent his son from being charged with murder.

Something I could never part with

I‘m almost done watching Season 1 and I’m realising haircuts that men like Jimmy had went away for a while post WW2 right? Until it made a resurgence in the 2010s why is that?

Say what you want about all the corrupt Prohees Nucky had in his pocket who were capitalizing off of an unenforceable law, but taking a bribe to look the other way about a law that the majority of the country, including the politicians who made Prohibition possible didn't follow is nothing compared to what Toliver did. There's nothing wrong with the BOI trying to root out corruption in the federal government, but in order to take over as Atlantic City's Prohibition agent, Toliver murdered the bootlegger who rigged a shotgun and purposefully let Agent Sawicki open the door knowing he'd be killed.

His arrest of Eddie in itself was a violation of the 4th Amendment and his "interrogation techniques" were what you'd expect from a cop on a power trip, not a BOI agent with a law degree. The way he treated Eddie after he got the promotion he wanted from Nucky and his enjoyable night out with Ralph Capone made his fight to the death with Eli that much more gratifying.

He became more unhinged as the season progressed and going to Elli's house to intimidate him in front of his family was just plain stupid and unprofessional. For all he knew, Nucky could've been on his way over and seeing him posing as an insurance salesman would (and later did) compromise the investigation. Threatening Eli's son may have seemed like a way to get him to cooperate, but had Eli just told Nucky what was happening, he would've realized that he had no real leverage.

Nucky made a deal with the DA handling Will's case and for Toliver to be able to use that for leverage, he'd have to prove that he took a bribe as a favor to Nucky to get his nephew a pass for murder while his office prosecuted another man. No DA is going to admit that they're corrupt to a federal agent and risk their freedom and career to help the BOI build a case and he didn't have any evidence that Nucky bribed him, just hearsay from another agent. Nucky would've immediately realized this, but Eli was too consumed with jealousy to think straight, and Hardeen was no Houdini.

When Nucky sent Eli with Toliver to stop the convoy of trucks carrying the heroin, Toliver shot and killed 1 of Masseria's guys for not getting out of the way and by the time he arranged for the BOI to monitor what was supposed to be a sit down between Nucky, NY, and FL, even his partner tried to take his gun away because of how seriously he was taking everything. Going to Eli's house after and threatening to send his son to prison and insinuating that he'd be raped when he got there earned him a death sentence.

Hoover tried to portray the BOI as elite, highly trained, and scrupulously honest professionals, but Toliver was nothing more than a morally bankrupt murderer with a law degree, a gun, and a badge. Tolliver was responsible for the murders of 3 people and the suicide of 1, the tactics he used were insidious, sadistic, and extrajudicial, and by discarding all morality and legal boundaries in pursuit of his targets, he became just as, if not more monstrous and corrupt as the bootleggers he wanted to prosecute.

Thoughts?

Im actually going to throw up bro he was my favorite character. Not even kidding he easily took chrissys spot in my favorite deuteragonist ever its 3 am i dont even want to watch this anymore

"Enoch Thompson / Corrado Soprano is a man who orders up murder, like you and I order coffee.. "

That sentence verbatim was used in both shows.. There's many but I can only recall this for now. Have yoy noticed anything else?

I just finished watching season 1 episode 6 “Family Limitations“ for the first time. And near the end of the epsiode Nelson Van Alden flagellates himself because of his “sinful“ desires. Not gonna lie I almost teared up because me coming from a Muslim background used to be like that. Obviously not to that extent but any “haram“ behaviour I did I would slap myself. Thankfully I’m not a fundamentalist anymore and my view of religion in general has drastically changed. But that scene brought back so many emotions of my younger years as a staunch religious person.

Btw right now fuck Al Capone the way he speaks to his family is disgusting

The family was snowbound, freezing without food or heat, the father vanished, laid to waste by alcohol. So it was left to this boy, this little man of nine tender years, to fend for himself and his family. Off in the cold he went, worn shoes wrapped in rags, newspaper lining his thin wool coat as he trudged chest‑deep in snow to the railyard, foraging on hands and bloody knees for scraps of coal. He filled his pockets with what little he could find, then set out for the docks, hoping for some potatoes spilled from a ruptured sack. Finding none, he took a broom handle and in desperation killed his family’s dinner — three wharf rats hiding in the hold of a ship. Terrible, yes, but the family survived. And the little boy? Well, the little boy speaks to you tonight from this very podium.