The war for criminal control of Atlantic City is over and the winnah and
still champeen is Nucky Thompson. But he neither acts nor feels triumphalist at
the end of the season finale, Margate Sands. Btw, the title is drawn
from TS Eliot’s epic poem The Wasteland and that’s what AC feels like
when the guns are silenced. How’s
that for highbrow, y’all?
The primary theme of the episode is betrayal. There’s so much backstabbing
and double dealing going on that it seemed like a smoked-filled room at the 1924
Democratic Convention. That’s the one that went a record 123 ballots, and
produced a dark horse nominee, John W. Davis, who went on to be slaughtered by
Silent Cal in the general election. Of course, that’s in the future, Boardwalk
Empire-wise.
Reety alrighty, here are some scatter shot observations, hopefully a few
will hit the target:
Machiavelli Thompson: Nucky’s allies spill a lot of blood
but victory is really secured by playing the old bait and switch. Nucky devises
a brilliant scheme to get Arnold Rothstein’s help in convincing Masseria to
betray my main man, Gyp. Andrew Mellon’s inactive distillery is used as bait.
The trap is laid by Icky Mickey Doyle who pretends to betray Nucky to Rothstein
in the way that only a fake Irishman who is really Jewish can do. What that
means, I’ll never know, but I like the sound of it…
The greedy and conniving Rothstein swallows the bait hook, line and sinker. Sucker.
He cuts a deal with Nucky to take over the distillery by getting Masseria to
dump Gyp. This is, in turn, accomplished by Rothstein’s betrayal of his smack
dealing pal, Charlie Lucky. Masseria gets the heroin and a player to be named
later and Gyp gets got.
There’s yet another turn of the screw when Nucky betrays Arnie baby by
alerting the Feds that the latter is operating the Overholt distillery. Nucky
even gets the uber plutocratic Mellon to do his dirty work for him. The plan
was a thing of manipulative beauty, y’all.
Richard Channels Travis Bickle: The first time I watched
Richard’s balletic bordello bloodbath, I knew it reminded me of something. On
second viewing I realized that it was reminiscent of the finale of Taxi
Driver: an armed gunman shoots up a whorehouse to rescue someone. Scorsese
is one of the executive producers of BE,
and this was the most Marty-like episode evah.
I’m not really sure what will become of poor Richard. When he dropped Tommy
off at Julia’s pad, he was too ashamed to enter and track blood on the carpet.
I’m hoping that Richard will be back: Nucky could use a graceful gunslinger,
after all.
Continue reading “Boardwalk Empire Thread: Arrivederci, Gypster”
