Boardwalk Empire - HBO

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Postby Fullscreen » Wed Oct 23, 2013 1:29 pm

Eli reverting to a drunken boor / Willy morphing into proto Jimmy is basically the thing I was hoping wouldn't happen.
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Postby Parnelio » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:28 pm

yeah willy certainly looks well on his way to going full darmody
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Postby SNC » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:31 pm

Is this awesome? I'm just starting episode 1
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Postby Parnelio » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:35 pm

i'd recommend it if you really liked the sopranos

it's just way more desolate than the sopranos, as crime/life in the 20s prolly was
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Postby Fullscreen » Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:01 pm

Also way more cartoonish than the Sopranos. Guaranteed tits n' murder every single episode whether it's called for or not, though it's certainly capable of taking itself seriously when it counts. So y'know, for what it's worth.
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Postby Merciel » Thu Oct 24, 2013 9:42 am

Parnelio wrote:it's just way more desolate than the sopranos, as crime/life in the 20s prolly was


Really, you think so? Not to make this YET ANOTHER "random other show vs. the Sopranos" comparison thread, but I found the Sopranos to be infinitely more desolate. I just felt so much more grinding misery with all the characters in that world.

BE is more cartoonish for sure, but that's a big part of its charm for me.
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Postby schmuck » Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:53 am

Merciel wrote:
Hoxha wrote:there's five more episodes, not three.


Oh, that's a relief. I saw somewhere that there were only 10 this season, but I'm glad to be wrong about that one!


Late on this but, this is what HBO says:
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Postby surly » Thu Oct 24, 2013 11:36 am

wikipedia says 12, with the last one directed by tim van patten
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Postby surly » Thu Oct 24, 2013 11:37 am

also the second to last episode title suggests it will take place in a shitty baltimore suburb
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Postby Parnelio » Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:06 pm

well sopranos takes the gangster genre and brings it to this domestic, depressive, post-industrial, and yes desolate, contemporary setting.

im thinking out loud here but a friend once said the sopranos were more carnivalesque than the wire, which is prolly a way of saying the sopranos are less interested in verisimilitude.

now that I think of it, BE is also pretty carnivalesque (prolly much more so with the 20s roarin). I guess the bleakness is historical, which is def perspectival.
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Postby Self Destructive Zone » Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:47 pm

Merciel wrote:
Parnelio wrote:it's just way more desolate than the sopranos, as crime/life in the 20s prolly was


Really, you think so? Not to make this YET ANOTHER "random other show vs. the Sopranos" comparison thread, but I found the Sopranos to be infinitely more desolate. I just felt so much more grinding misery with all the characters in that world.

BE is more cartoonish for sure, but that's a big part of its charm for me.



Yeah the sopranos was really in your face with the fact that these are violent knuckle dragging morons who commit vile acts and aren't cool, and boardwalk does that but also wants you to think that Capone and AR and Lucky really were cool guys.
Also the sopranos was much more character driven, and boardwalk tends to have tighter season narratives. Basically don't look for sopranos or you'll be disappointed. Watch it for the suits and gorgeous scenery and tits and violence and be pleasantly surprised when it occasionally transcends those things to become something more
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Postby Merciel » Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:25 pm

Self Destructive Zone wrote:Yeah the sopranos was really in your face with the fact that these are violent knuckle dragging morons who commit vile acts and aren't cool, and boardwalk does that but also wants you to think that Capone and AR and Lucky really were cool guys.


And they are!

But yeah that's a good point that I overlooked (even though for me it should have been obvious): there are no competent people in The Sopranos. They're all fucking idiots. They're all in crime because they can't do anything else, they're too violent and impulsive and stupid.

Whereas in BE it makes sense that intelligent and competent people would get involved, because of racism shutting off other opportunities (and, to a lesser degree, anti-immigrant/anti-Semitic prejudices pushing the Italian and Jewish gangsters into that lifestyle) and the sheer amount of money available in bootlegging. It's a much more sensible career decision in that world. And you get much more sensible people, which is why I love a whole lot of BE characters and just wanted to drop a hydrogen bomb on the world of The Sopranos by about season 5.
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Postby Feech La Manna » Sun Oct 27, 2013 9:03 pm

holy fucking shit, great episode

Tim Van Patten is so fucking good at this
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Postby Merciel » Sun Oct 27, 2013 10:51 pm

Hell of a last scene for Dunn, although I have to agree with the AV Club commenters that a knife in the back is surprisingly cliche for this show.

He really sold those agonized death throes, though.
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Postby Feech La Manna » Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:01 pm

Eh, the scene right before Dunn arrived where Daughter sings to Chalky was so pretty that I can forgive any cliches afterwards. And the shots through the doorway, good grief that was gorgeous.

Really I'm just happy the Willie thing went in a completely different direction, and I have no idea which way Eli went, which is nice.
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Postby CoolRanch » Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:24 am

trope wrote:No love for Dr Narcisse? He's such a good villain, he's cartoonish even by this show's standards.


he is tooo cartoonish for me
really liked Dunn though. so creepy. sad to see him go.


feel like this show has a much wider narrative than sopranos did, with the # of characters and the timeline, so they don't compare very easily
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Postby Self Destructive Zone » Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:18 am

This show is really not like the sopranos
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Postby Self Destructive Zone » Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:21 am

I like dr. Narcisse because off the face he made when the white mayor said amen it the funeral. I also really like gyp after the Easter episode last season so maybe I'm just a sucker for a good cartoon villain
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Postby lefthandshake » Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:29 am

"The symbolism was lost on them." Okay, if that's what you need to tell yourself about your crappy play.

I was half-expecting Daughter to hit Dunn over the head with a frying pan, but a literal backstabbing is okay too I guess.

Doyle was enjoying that cane so much and jealous-ass Nucky should give it back.
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Postby The Munificent Motherwell » Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:50 am

I think my favorite line was Eli's deadpan "I don't get your sense of humor." :lol:
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Postby belgavin » Mon Oct 28, 2013 8:04 am

this shot was somethin else

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Postby Merciel » Mon Oct 28, 2013 10:17 am

lefthandshake wrote:"The symbolism was lost on them."


I loved that whole scene. The faces in the crowd were just fucking fantastic. I don't know where HBO gets its bit characters but they're the best.

It made Narcisse cross over into hilarious Bond villain territory for me, because yes of course his play is a narcissistic valentine to himself. And of course he doesn't understand why his work sucks and nobody likes it, because he doesn't actually have any human empathy at all.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Willie developments but I do agree that it's nice not knowing where Eli's allegiances ultimately fall or what choice he made. (I'd like to think he picked Nucky because Willie is so annoying and stupid that, as much as I am not the world's biggest Nucky fan, I'd still see him as the better option.)
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Postby sevenarts » Mon Oct 28, 2013 11:43 am

I'm just happy that something finally happened in Chalky's story, other than that same damn shot they keep repeating of Daughter singing and Chalky staring intensely at her as the camera tracks around his head - they repeated it AGAIN in this episode, and even the little twist of revealing his wife sitting next to him wasn't enough to make it less boring. Hopefully that's done with now: the showdown between Chalky and Narcisse was amazing, just staring each other down over the burning heroin. Daughter stabbing Dunn in the back was really predictable (well, I figured she'd just shoot him with Chalky's dropped gun) but at least this plot finally broke out of the stasis that had been dragging these characters down all season long. I was afraid they were going to drag this status quo out for even longer, I'm glad they shook things up and pointed the way to the Chalky/Narcisse confrontation.

I'm also loving Patricia Arquette and I hope that her character isn't going to get fridged by the end of the season. She's just fun to watch even though she hasn't done much, her interactions with Mickey were a delight - of course these two brash personalities hit it off.

Really missing Chicago these last few weeks, but it was probably necessary to kick some of these AC plots into high gear.
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Postby Feech La Manna » Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:05 pm

My only gripe is that the background patter during the initial Chalky/Narcisse staredown was kinda hammy ("WHAT HE DOING THERE?", "STAND BACK, LADIES") but that scene was absolutely beautiful. TVP is a fucking god. Get him a feature already.
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Postby Feech La Manna » Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:07 pm

It would be kinda hard to swallow Eli selling out his own kid for Nucky but who knows what happened in the heat of that moment.
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Postby Spoilt Victorian Child » Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:09 pm

I can't even remember what Michael Shannon looks like at this point.
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Postby Feech La Manna » Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:11 pm

next week looks pretty Shannon-intensive

at this point I'm pretty used to Van Alden and Harrow being AWOL for chunks of the season but it does make us appreciate them even more when they're there
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Postby Merciel » Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:01 pm

Feech La Manna wrote:It would be kinda hard to swallow Eli selling out his own kid for Nucky but who knows what happened in the heat of that moment.


I'm not saying I think it's likely, just that it would be nice.

What I think is actually more likely is that Eli made the bargain with Fake Agent Knox and will eventually reveal it to Nucky and/or Willie (or maybe Nucky via Willie) when his conscience gets the better of him, and then the lot of them will somehow plot Fake Agent Knox's doom.

Also I loved the anecdote about Rothstein losing $100K and then ordering cheesecake. Yes. Of course.
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Postby Viola Swamp » Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:28 pm

the same song was playing in the eli/knox restaurant scene that willy was singalonging at home

i'm with merciel on the hope, can only really see it happening tho if eli's decided willy is lost to him/nucky's boy now
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Postby lefthandshake » Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:23 pm

sevenarts wrote:they repeated it AGAIN in this episode, and even the little twist of revealing his wife sitting next to him wasn't enough to make it less boring.


See, I liked this shot. At first I was like "not this again" but then when they showed his wife looking at him with that "what the fuck are you doing" expression, it really worked for me as a parallel to my own frustration with Chalky's character this season.

And yeah, the AR cheesecake story was so great.

Gonna miss Dunn's barbershop throne room. I loved the visual of those dingy tin walls.
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