>tfw rewatching boardwalk empire
Fuck, why did it have to end,bros? Is BE literally the height of television, never to be surpassed again?
No. It was great but it had some serious problems, and the time skip for the last season was complete and utter bullshit.
>>64223077
you're right, but fuck if the first and second seasons weren't amazing
I just want another comfy period drama with massive production values
>>64222996
I struggle to get through it. I always get into season 3 then stall out.
Kind of like the second half of Rome S1.
>>64222996
Pretty much anon; the writing was excellent, the production values through the roof, the attention to historic detail amazing. I miss the /tv/ bants after each EZTV torrent came out.
It also got me inspired enough to learn Fashion Design so I can make some cool menswear....Season 8 is definitely my favourite in terms of the tailoring.
Funnily enough, when I was an extra on an American production "The making of the mob", the costume I wore one of Van Aldens from 1st season, had Michael Shannons nametag in it...thats when I knew I was living the dream.
>>64223684
damn, that sounds pretty awesome
I completely agree with the attention to detail and especially the costumes, probably one of the best aspects of the show
> 2 good seasons
>>64223111
>I just want another comfy period drama with massive production values
try The Knick, unless the subject matter doesn't appeal to you.
One of HBO's best. Sure, some seasons were better than others, but same with The Wire (also 5 seasons) and The Sopranos.
My only complaint was that the last season/ending felt rushed. Felt like the show could have gone on longer.
Nelson Van Alden a best
>>64224429
Also forgot to add, Boardwalk had an incredible range of interesting and captivating characters, more so than I've seen in any T.V. series to this day.
>>64222996
SHOULDNT HAVE KILLED
>>64224349
>BARNEY GOOGLE WITH THE GOO GOO GOOGLEY EYES BARNEY GOOGLE BET HIS HORSE WOULD WIN THE PRIZE WHEN THE HORSES RAN THAT DAY SPARK PLUG RAN THE OTHER WAY BARNEY GOOGLE WITH THE GOO GOO GOOGLEY EYES
What did he mean by this?
>>64223077
rip micky
>>64222996
Been doing a rewatch of this withmy gf, who's watching it for the first time. We just finished the third episode of the final season.
It's always a depressing, autistic mindgame I play with myself in figuring out how I'd cover 1925-1931 in imaginary seasons that will never come to fruition. The Chicago Outfit v North Side Gang that culminates with the St Valentine's Day Massacre (obviously carried out by Eli and Van Alden), the Castellammarese War that shows Luciano and Lansky hatching a plan to take over, Luciano's ambush that leaves him scarred, the Atlantic City Conference, Rothstein's death, the beginning of the Great Depression. Narcisse battling out with Stephanie St Clair for control of Harlem that begins with Narcisse kidnapped (like Casper Holstein was) and ends with St Clair being imprisoned. We could have Chalky be involved in a highway robbery gang which leads to him being in chains. So many possibilities.
Maybe with enough pressure, Howard Korder (who became the most powerful writer on the show after Terence Winter emotionally checked out) could write a series of books that covers that gap. I dunno. It's hard to let go of a show that had so much potential.
Both HBO and Winter royally fucked the series. HBO gave up any faith it had when it failed to beat Breaking Bad in the ratings and Winter wanted to start production on Vinyl without passing the buck on to Korder.
>>64225682
By all accounts, there should have been two full seasons in between Seasons 4 and 5. It could have been one long bloody glorious mess. All the violence from Chicago, NYC and AC spilling together. They could have gotten real creative with AR's death, have Nucky mastermind it, or set it up with Luciano/Lansky in some big scheme to get AR out of the way and get all his money in the process.
Season 5 could have ended with AR's death, Season 6 either opens up with or has the St. Valentine's massacre go down in the middle and ends with the AC Conference. Give the Castellmarese War time to boil over.
>>64224128
Thanks man! The show has come to mean alot to me, always have nothing but love for the gangster bros out there that can appreciate boardwalk.
>>64224349
I think it was definitely a risque move; doing what they did effectively shifted the chemistry of the entire show to something more villain-of-the-season, but I still love how each season sort of deals with different aspects of the zeitgiest; the roaring crime boom brought on by prohibition in S1, the Harding Scandal in S2, North v West Side Chicago in S3, Harlem renaissance in S4...and the 5th...for all it's shortness had a great sense of impending doom for Nuck as the moustache Petes all got put in the ground and the Depression hit. Theres definitely a lack of consistency though...I wish they had tied all the seasons together into one huge arc, but thats hard with all the timeskips. I really wanted to see the Castallamerese war :/
>>64224505
Absolutely, I don't get why people critique it for being boring when the characters are so varied and colorful. Maybe it's just all the period lingo that gives it this air of stuffy formality, but it's anything but.
>>64224559
Barney Goo Goo was the name of a bogtrotting sausage he had shat out that day and he took it so personally he wrote a song.
>>64224429
The final season was definitely rushed. I thought the flashbacks were pretty good though, as was the finale itself. The problem was that the first six episodes took place immediately following the preceding episode, yet the seventh begins with a montage that spans months within seconds.
The timeskip jumped almost double the length of time we'd spent with the characters already - we spent four years getting to know the characters, then approximately seven years were skipped and most characters were left in the same place we left them. Nucky remained in the bootlegging business, yet his heart wasn't in it anymore, just like the end of S4. Van Alden was THE lackey to Capone at the end of S4 but suddenly he's still just a collection man. Eli's just running a warehouse. Chalky is just randomly in chains but still grieving like he was at the end of S4. Margaret's still in the stockbrokering agency.
The only thing that really changed is Luciano and Lansky became more cocksure behind the scenes, and something managed to kick Narcisse out of the Onyx Club and back to Harlem with Mickey taking over.
Oh, and it pissed me off that Narcisse's dealings with Hoover weren't not even mentioned in S5.
I remember watching and quite enjoying it until Jimmy gets his.
Then I had a huge gap of not watching, then I watched the season after that with Gyp? and it was just decent.
I think there have been more but I haven't watched them or cared to watch them.
>>64225682
>>64225752
These are both great ideas...what could of been huh. Sometimes I think about it and suddenly this urge to whack Terence Winter comes over me...but I guess we just have to be grateful for what we have, which is still pretty mint.
YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE
I remember having a chat with some anon here a while back about what seasons could cover what. It all started getting a bit much when you realise that there's so much in that timeskip that SHOULD be covered in the show that would develop the characters, yet the show would have to end up running ten seasons to fit it all in, and I really don't think you could have it going that long and staying fresh.
You also have to remember, it's all well and good to cover these big historical moments, but it's still Nucky's show. What's he doing this entire time will Capone is fighting the North Side Gang and Luciano is flirting with Masseria and Maranzano?
Then you have problems such as a season covering a potential war between Narcisse and St Clair in Harlem, which would be too similar in parts to the S4 storyline. And having Capone's entire storyline be a six-year long war would just drag, and then Luciano would be embroiled in a war too... it'd just become stale after a while.
>>64225820
Jimmy getting it in the end was the best way for his arc to end. He was the ultimate original gangster and he went out that way and everything he said about Nucky there ended up being right. There was something so haunting, coldly brilliant about that scene. It was like right out of The Public Enemy. It was just so hardboiled noir, in every sense.
Though I won't lie, there is a part of me that wonders what the show would have been like had Jimmy brought Richard along and they got the jump on Nuck and the boys. Would have been a much shorter show for sure. Rosetti and Narcisse never would have made it out of the episodes they were introduced in.
>>64225906
>tfw I might be that guy you had a chat with
We talked extensively about hypothetical seasons. About plot lines for Rothstein, the AC Conference. Tons of other stuff too. I think I saved the bulk of what we talked about. You were from Aus or New Zealand, iirc?
>>64225909
I think you misinterpreted me because of poor wording.. I didn't mean "I enjoyed it THEN jimmy got his and this has ruined it"
I meant I enjoyed it all, it's just that jimmies death and the end of that season was just the last I watched for some time.
>>64225789
>I wish they had tied all the seasons together into one huge arc, but thats hard with all the timeskips.
It's also really hard when one of the actors that you planned to have the whole show revolve around ends up becoming so unbearable you need to fire them, which forces you to scrap your show plan and start from essentially scratch.
From Season 3 on the show just floundered to find itself again and the timeskips just helped give more easy points to build scripts from until they got to the point they just didn't want to keep going anymore and wrapped it up as best they could.
>>64225948
Correct m80.
>>64225906
>but it's still Nucky's show
That was what drew me into it in the first place. We know all about, and romanticize the whole gang wars and next wave of gangsters, but the people on the edges who started the bootlegging scene never got touched much.
It was cool to see how things would slowly change hands, but it was to focus on a city that never got attention, and from a political side of things without so much violence and notoriety.
Once things started falling apart is when they started falling back on the gangsters and events everyone knows about and the show lost its soul a bit.
>>64222996
It's time to come home, Richard.
>>64225986
Yes I see that now. You didn't stop watching because Jimmy got it, you just didn't watch the next season, and then got back into it later.
>>64226026
cheers then
>>64226104
I've always found the guys lurking in smoke filled back rooms to be infinity more interesting than the guys on the front line. The sinister shady shit that went down, the under table hand shakes, the booze that flooded the streets brought in by generally upstanding men as far as the public was concerned. The show was much more interesting when Nucky was a shady politician, which incidentally is the first two seasons.
>>64226000
I was always curious about this; Winter and co. all say that is BS but I wonder whether they were just trying to protect the guys image. Pitt does kind of seem like a self-obsessed wierdo that only does gangster roles or indy shit like "I Origins" now...but at least he can add influencing a generation of tumblrcore undercut hairstyles to his credit.
Wasn't he supposedly a mad druggo who kept forgetting his lines? Theres this one scene with him and Waxy Gordon and apparently he was so bad with his lines he did them after and sure enough; the two actors are never in the same frame for the scene.
>>64226214
After season 2 it felt like an infinite power creep where they had to keep making up shit to keep Nucky down, but it always felt contrived and not as well explained. Notably the whole highway deal crossing seasons that basically saps all his money away in the break, but he still seems to be the same guy with more standing that never gets played with much.
Between everything behind the scenes falling apart, and the reality of how the time period went on I guess it was only a matter of time, but at least those first two seasons felt perfect. Quite enjoyed 3, and parts of 4/5, but it never felt shady enough for me and forced him to become the centre of attention instead of the puppet master he seemed so much better at.
>>64222996
Back to reddit
>>64226379
edgy
Went to shit when Jimmy died senpai. The writing was pretty good throughout the problem was the whole thing had no direction. Still though. Great feels, production and action throughout.
Richard being unable to put down his dog gets to me. And his death. Fuck. Even though he was pointless. Where's my Richard feel.
Season 5 was pretty solid at some parts too. Except for forced endings of certain characters.
>>64226349
I wish someone would have just come out and said what exactly was the reason he got written out. Not doing so is the respectable thing to avoid ruining careers all around completely, but a part of me wishes they acted more like playground children and just came out. All the rumours have a hint of, for lack of a better word truth, but I only go so far as to accept that he just wasn't fitting with the cast and crew anymore. Be it drugs, being an egotistical shit, or some other nonsense we'll probably never know.
What I do know is he was central to the overall show's end goal, and it royally fucked the creative mojo and drive of the showrunners who basically spiraled the show into a grave. Such a shame, but it did have a good run and didn't end "early".
>>64226428
>forced endings
don't wanna be that guy, but how exactly did you expect certain gangsters to wind up on a show about gangsters, where most of those gangsters where just blown away in the seasons leading up to this.
>>64226536
Not the guy you replied to, but l kinda agree with him. Not that the deaths came out of nowhere or anythi g, but pretty much every character's arc felt unfininushed because of the time jump. Especially Chalky and Narcisse.
Not to mention the way Nucky went out. That was a load of shit.
>>64226647
I thought the end of Nucky's arc waspure pottery
The time junk was kinda fucked. The show was just too short, even before that last hatchet job of a season. Felt like in 3 and 4 there just wasn't enough screen time for all the characters, they were just trying to juggle too much.
>>64226428
Richard's ending wasn't forced at all though.
He fucks up because he's nervous. He's nervous because he literally can't bring himself to kill anymore. He became "whole" again so to speak even though that sounds lulz cheesy I'm sure
>>64226536
I was specifically referring to Chalky, Naricese and Capone. I mean, there's no happy ending there anyways but it just felt all shoved in because of the 8 episodes and their desire to tie everything up. All very abrupt. I liked the concept of Narcisse being a rat too which didn't really go anywhere. Not sure how I feel about Gillian, haven't rewatched the show yet.
Nucky's was alright I guess. It's definitely bad pottery but theirs some sculpting going on there.
The time jump and 8 episodes fucked up shit a ton. I felt they were in a good place at S4 to move the show away from Nucky and focus more on Capone and Luciano/that Jew. Oh well.
Still a great show, just bitching.
>>64226907
and I guess Van Alden's was pretty fucking weird too looking back at it.
>>64226863
Richard's was great, saddest character of the show I think. Someone post the feel of him.
>>64226907
Well in all fairness to Capone, c'mon
>>64226907
>I felt they were in a good place at S4 to move the show away from Nucky and focus more on Capone and Luciano/that Jew.
I think that's a good reason why the show got hacked up the way it did in 5. It lost the focus on Atlantic City and Nucky to float off into typical gangster territory. Wouldn't doubt if they said fuck it and wrote a quick final season to cut their losses as they'd failed to maintain the show's whole point by the end of S4.
>>64227004
>It lost the focus on Atlantic City and Nucky
Kind of comes back to the fact that Nucky is just boring. He's nothing without his relationship with Jimmy. All the cool shit I think of after Jimmy isn't Nucky. It's Gyp, Rothstein, Owen, Narcise, Harrow..
Eli was a well written character and that FBI agent fight was GOAT. Same with the kid's relationship with Nucky. But Nucky is boring as fuck himself.
Best parts of S5 were the flashbacks for sure.
>they'd failed to maintain the show's whole point by the end of S4.
Was it the creators who killed it or the network? I can't remember. I remember shit ratings. I can't think of any shows who have veered like that but I'm sure it's possible.
>>64227200
Personally I felt Nucky was pretty cool early on, and the focus was perfect. Once Jimmy left the power vacuum just made him blander as the focus shifted to everyone else. That said I still felt season 3 was great, and 4 had its moments. I definitely enjoyed the flash backs in 5 as it got back to the core of the show in a new way that didn't have to contend as much with the husk that Nucky had become.
>Was it the creators who killed it or the network?
Basically everyone killed it. Jimmy getting written out to avoid set drama in later seasons, writers having no clue what to do after that, and HBO being ratings whores all kind of combined to slowly kill it. By S5 it was pretty much obvious they were writing the season just to end it because all the people running it, from suits to show runners, just weren't into it anymore. They just gave it enough episodes to wrap it up and call it a show.
>>64222996
First two seasons were good but they didn't know what to do with it after. S4 was pure ass.
