Boardwalk Empire Season 5

[Guest John Hancock]

That's the twist ending, every dead character comes back and takes over.

 

There's a completely baseless, but weirdly wide-spread rumour that they're going to do a Bugsy Siegal spin-off about the founding of Las Vegas. I really hope that's true, because, as you said, the actor who plays him is great.

[King 277]

Man that would be great, you have me all excited now :lol

[Guest John Hancock]

It's one of those cruel rumours that's come out of now where, and now everyone believes it out of wishful thinking, including myself.

[King 277]

You never know though HBO do like their mob dramas and they don't have any currently when Boardwalk ends.

[Guest Dazzberry]

Is this show worth spending the time to catch up on I mean it looks good but i'm so far behind

[Guest John Hancock]

The entire thing ends in two hours, so there's probably not much time to catch up.

 

It's worth watching from the start though.

 

 

EDIT: Well, that's it then. Got to say, very disappointing ending to the main storyline. If you don't know exactly what happens at the end, you haven't been watching. Capone got a killer send-off though, that's all that matters. Still, very underwhelmed with the final payoff when you compare it to the heartbreak of season 4, the cowboy madness that ended season 3, the "holy shit, they actually did it" of season 2 or... however season 1 ended, I don't remember. But I don't see this season finale sticking with me like Nucky shooting Jimmy, and the flash back to the trenches, or Richard Harrow waking up in heaven or whatever that was.

 

EDIT II: So the initial disappointment's worn off. It was a good episode, a very good episode. I just wanted a bit more out of that very last scene, and that's tainted the rest of it. Someone explained to me a nuance in the very ending which actually makes it a thousand times better. So, yeah, a good episode, which pales in comparison to a great season, which pales in comparison to an amazing show.

 

Edited October 27, 2014 by John Hancock

[King 277]

So it has ended and it was a slight disappointment.The start of the Mafia was a great storyline and that finished well, the Capone stuff was great but the Nucky stuff was rather dull and boring to be honest.

 

I don't think you can put Boardwalk Empire up there with the elite shows mainly over the last season, well that's the way I see it.The last season could have been so much better.

[Guest John Hancock]

Yeah, the last season was by far the worst. I'd still put it up there though. I think, at it's best, it was an easier watch than Deadwood, more likeable and charming than the Sopranos, more... erm... nah, The Wire's still the best show ever. But, personal taste, I'd put it up there. Just a real shame about the last season and the final pay off.

[King 277]

Shows are defined by their last season, while everyone moans about how The Sopranos ended the last season as a whole was epic.

[Guest John Hancock]

You know, you could make an unfeasibly long triple-bill of the rise, fall and aftermath of the Mafia by watching Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos and The Wire, back to back, in that order.

[King 277]

That some serious tv porn right there.

[Guest John Hancock]

And, by my calculations, it would only take you one week if you did nothing other than watch T.V. for 24 hours a day without sleeping (seriously, it's actually amazingly close to being dead on seven days).

[King 277]

Looking back now though it's really strange to me that the first 4 seasons were so good but this season just fell so short, and to think of all the possible storylines they could have done.

[Guest John Hancock]

I presume there was so supposed to be at least one other season, probably set in the late 1920s, but HBO pulled the plug and they shat themselves. Things like Arnold Rothstein becoming a gambling addict in season four, that was so obviously meant to end him getting shot for gambling debts, but then they just completely gloss over that in season five. Then you've got the big Mafia meeting in New Jersey, where Al Capone gets to do fun stuff like smashing up hotel rooms, and people are anti-semitic to Meyer Lansky and things that happened in real life that just seemed so perfect for the show, but they happened in the late 20s, so they got left out. And that's not even mentioning the fact Murder Inc., a group basically born entirely to be Boardwalk Empire characters, are in season five, but we never really get to learn about them, because there isn't time, they just pop up and anonymously kill people and then vanish. We never saw Al Capone become scarface, or, talking of facial scars, we never got to see Luciano get lucky. We never got to see the Castellammarese War, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, just so much stuff that happened in 28/29-ish that was obviously meant to be there that had to be cut out.

 

I also think the flashbacks were a flop. Until Gillian turned up, they were totally pointless. I like the final payoff with them, Nucky "dying" on the boardwalk twice, first his soul, then his body, and the revelation that his first crime was probably his worst, I thought that was a cool little thing, but did we really need to spend like half of every episode watching him picking up f*cking hats, talking to his boring wife with his ludicrous fake teeth when we could have been hanging out with coked up, trouserless, Al Capone, or travelling the east coast with Murder Inc., or... wait... why the f*ck did Eli and Van Alden rob Al Capone at the beginning? That went absolutely no where! Although it was probably all worth it just to hear Van Alden yelling "Must it always be pandemonium?".

 

One compliment is that I thought almost everyone got a great send off. As much of a let down as it was storyline-wise, I thought Nucky dying thinking of his first crime was really cool, Van Alden blowing his cover in a "oh f*ck this" suicide-by-gangster was heroic, Chalky White burned Narcisse alive with "Ain't no one free" and then took a bullet for his new daughter, Micky Doyle just didn't know when to shut up, those Hebrew devils descended upon upon Narcisse whilst he was at a church. I'm glad, in a season when so many major characters died that they didn't make any of the major ones too cheap and easy.

Edited November 2, 2014 by John Hancock