Why the 'Boardwalk Empire' finale worked so well

The translation isn't perfect, but Aristotle's main point in a quote to which he's attributed is that poetry is often truer than history, for it captures the universal experience, while history is relegated to a particular time and place.


This is the theme “Boardwalk Empire” has flirted with since it debuted on HBO six years ago. A series that consistently dealt you style in addition to (and sometimes, I would argue in lieu of) substance, Terrence Winter's love song to the era that birthed organized crime in the United States consistently took license with the historical record to bring viewers an intensely personal drama.


Boardwalk struggled to recapture its central conflict after Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson killed his main threat, Jimmy Darmody, at the end of season 2. We were introduced to Bobby Canavale's brilliant Gyp Rosetti in season 3, then Jeffrey Wright's verbose and wily Valentin Narcisse in season 4, who quickly picked a fight with Michael Kenneth Williams' Chalky White. In the interim, Jack Huston's Richard Harrow tried and failed to establish a normal life for himself after putting that rifle in his mouth in season 2, Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon) bumbled his way through a stint in organized crime in Chicago and attracted the attention of Stephen Graham's Al Capone, while Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol) descended slowly into an opium-fueled madness that produced some of the series' finest (and creepiest) performances.


It was, to put it mildly, an oft-unfocused mess. While the backdrop of violence, sex and power-grabbing (fueled mostly by the brilliant performances of Vincent Piazza and Anatol Yusef as Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky, respectivey) always kept viewers glued to the screen, the series was billed as Nucky Thompson's rise and fall from power, a theme that seemed to die along with Jimmy in that rain-soaked construction pit.


Thankfully, season 5 successfully recaptured that spirit, introducing us to a younger Nucky as he developed into the “half-gangster” we say greasin' palms and griftin' so many years ago. And in the series finale, that story arc came full circle in a climax that brilliantly thumbed its nose at history and gave us the poetic end Nucky deserved, rather than the quiet death he received in real life.


Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the real life mogul that Nucky Thompson is based upon, lived to 85, dying of old age in Northfield, New Jersey, in 1968. Had the writers chosen to give their title character, who differed from the real Johnson in many ways, such an end, it would have been an affront to the decision to make him the source of his own fall from grace. The final moments of the series finale brilliantly blend the fatal pistol blasts from a young Tommy Darmody with the offer of Gillian to the commodore, Nucky's act of desperation for power that spawns all the events of the series. It's an ending that forms a perfect circle and the closure to Nucky's quest for power – and its convoluted telling – that only art, not life, could produce.

Change in the Sofa-Boardwalk Empire, Season 3 and Finale Review

Hmm.

One syllable to sum up my thoughts at the end of last night's third season finale of acclaimed HBO period piece "Boardwalk Empire." In many ways, the third season represented for me the kind of slow-burn, promise-fulfilling sprawling narrative that fulfilled the promise the original trailers and promotional materials established.

Still gives me goosebumps.

In that first episode, so expertly crafted by Martin Scorcese, Jimmy Darmody tells Nucky Thompson, in an oft-quoted line, "You can't be half a gangster. Not anymore."

It wasn't until Season 3, when Nucky's empire is threatened by an outside force rivaling any other in terms of TV villainy, that we were treated to what this statement truly meant. Nucky, after murdering Jimmy, has no qualms about getting his hands dirty. And he gets them very dirty before the season draws to a close.

Where'd you learn to shoot like that, Nucky?

Count me among the skeptics after Jimmy's death. I thought he was the rock the show needed. Young, troubled and ambitious, Jimmy represented an American spirit that lent a human element to the other senseless killing that took place on-screen.

But Season 3 overcame Jimmy's absence and the series ascended to new heights in terms of storytelling and drama this year. That's why the finale falling flat perturbed me so much.

Several narrative threads were resolved adequately. And the show finally made the full leap into allegory with Nucky's carnation falling to the boardwalk in the final scene. But the writers left several characters in the lurch, and relied too often upon violence to make a point. In a series that has increasingly impressed with its creativity and cleverness, last night's episode felt like a dud.

When the episode did it right, though, it nailed it. Nucky and Eli's conversation over the busted radiator was perhaps the most interesting and sincere scene in a season filled with dynamic onscreen banter. We see a relationship that was in tatters at the beginning of the season — remember Micky picking up Eli at the prison — coalesce into something lasting. "OK, brother," Eli says in the car after Rosetti is put down. It's a moment that typifies their relationship, and shows that Eli has earned back Nucky's trust. It was a major plot point left over from the inner turmoil in Nucky's outfit from last season, and to see it end in that way was powerful.

Another bright spot was drawing the Lasky/Luciano heroin partnership to a close, tying the failed business venture to the intrigue going on between Joe Masseria, Arnold Rothstein and Nucky. Anatol Yusef's (Lasky) face, as Luciano apologizes for screwing up the deal, is priceless. To see him unhinged, then draw it back in when Luciano loses it to Rothstein, solidifies his position as someone to watch in the coming seasons. Especially considering the real Laskey's long and profitable career in graft.

Laskey is not impressed.

And finally, the political and social intrigue that has categorized this season reached a head. Stephen Root made one final important appearance in a season during which he has shined, revealing Rothstein fell into Nucky's trap by accepting ownership of the Pennsylvanian distillery. When Nucky told Rothstein, after he forsook him, that he would not forget this, you knew it was going to come back to bite even the mighty New York kingpin. It was nice to see, after several episodes of being on the run, Nucky return to his position as, in the words of Eli, "the man with all the angles." We'll have to wait until next season to see how the federal inquiry (and the fact that Masseria's men lie dead in a field in New Jersey) will impact their relationship with Nucky.

The bold narrative statement made in the closing minutes of the episode was also noteworthy, though I'm not sure I can classify it as a strength or a weakness yet. Boardwalk Empire has danced the line between symbolism and historical accuracy in the past. Season 3 brought the issue to a head, blowing up half of the boardwalk and forcing Nucky Thompson toward a much higher profile gangster lifestyle than his real-life counterpart, Nucky Johnson. It reflects the dichotomy showrunner Terence Winter has stated between the "look and feel of the show, which is as accurate as he can make it, and the content of the show, which is fiction."

Because it's fiction, Winter had a strong possibility for catharsis, which was completely destroyed in this episode by the interference of both Gillian and Harrow. For all the fanboy praise of Capone and Harrow's violence (one IGN commenter called Harrow's shootout the greatest few minutes in the history of television), it didn't amount to anything. We knew the side lurked in Harrow. We saw it in previous episodes, and up-close-and-personal in Manny Horvitz's retribution earlier this season. And we've seen Capone kill violently before, including a particularly grisly barroom scene earlier this season.

How much is too much?

Harrow's killing spree also sets up the ignominious end for Gyp Rosetti. Not at the hands of Nucky, whose life has been utterly destroyed by Rosetti and his association with Masseria, but a two-bit thug who was peeing himself in a closet. And he kills Rosetti while he's peeing. So ends one of the most interesting TV villains. But even he isn't given the shortest shrift in an underwhelming finale.

That distinction rests with Gillian Darmody, Gretchen Mol has played the character to creepy perfection for three seasons now. It was pretty clear that she was headed for a poetic end. But Winter decides to kill her at the hand of Rosetti, as she attempts to take his life in a manner similar to her real estate plot earlier in the season, itself a perfect example of the layered complexity that all Boardwalk characters have assumed in several seasons of development.

We're treated a wonderful seduction scene in which we finally see some strong, illuminating character development between Gyp and Gillian and their mutual hatred of themselves. All to realize that it's all a sham, with Gillian clandestinely (and poorly, I might add—her reversal of attitudes in his office was worse than a poker tell that she'd made up her mind to kill him to "save" Tommy) plotting to off Rosetti.

Not only that, but Winter can't resist one final attempt to drum up sympathy for a psychopath who's abducted her son's child (that may or may not be her own...yeah, I went there. There's no way you can forget that scene from Season 2; it's burned on my retinas). As she lies there, dying, Nucky approaches her during a hallucination of the night the Commodore impregnated her, probably with Jimmy, and thanks him for coming to save her. Well done, Mr. Winter. Don't let us forget that there's not a single character we can universally hate on your entire show.

This wouldn't be too bad if the storytelling were nuanced to reflect this complexity. The finest episodes of Boardwalk (the pilot, last season's aforementioned "Under God's Power She Fluorishes," in which we learn waaaaaay more about Jimmy and Gillian then we ever wanted to know through flashbacks, and this season's flawless "A Man, A Plan..." where we learn of Margaret's pregnancy with Slater's child only after he shows up dead in a box in the Thompson's suite) play with time and space, and give us multiple avenues for interpretation. Not so in this straightforward, 60-minute episode.

It's called a flashback, Mr. Winter. You have done it before, quite successfully.

And it's not even that straightforward. There are holes aplenty. What's happened to Van Alden, arguably the most interesting Boardwalk character of all, after his apprehension? How did Nucky return to power so quickly? How is Margaret dealing with her grief, aside from her visit to the abortionist? How has Chalky's allegiances impacted his family, and the African-American community in New Jersey? And what of the fallout in Washington with Jess Smith dead at his own hand?

This questions are even less important than the overarching question of, where do we go now? The end of Season 2 set up the perfect transition with Nucky assuming the mantle of a true gangster. This is Nucky's story, through and through, and has been since the beginning. But last night, the subsidiary stories overshadowed Nucky's plight. His confrontation of Margaret seemed trite and uninteresting, given her erratic acceptance of some of Nucky's vile ways but shocked hatred when he blurted out his murderous musings after a concussion. She's been just as unfaithful as he, but now seems unwilling to lead a life of more lies and deceit, though she knows she'll be safe that way?

While the carnation falling was significant, it came nowhere near the emotional significance of seeing Nucky put a bullet in Jimmy's head, Jimmy talking him through it all the while. And while it may be unfair to hold up this finale to a pivotal moment in the series' development so far, suffice to say the clear direction the show had after that moment has been tarnished. How much of this becomes a Chicago or New York-centric story? O'Banion's waiting in the wings in Chicago, setting up imminent mass chaos leading to the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. And we know Rothstein (if history serves correctly) only has a few years left, too. With the news of Dennis Lahane joining Boardwalk's talented team of writers, it seems only likely the fanciful play with history will continue.

Spoiler alert: This didn't happen. Really.

The question after last night I'm left with, is do I care? Where does Nucky's next threat come from? And will it ever approach the brilliance or promise that Season 3 afforded, but could not deliver on?

Verdict: 2/5 stars