Tonight’s Boardwalk Empire featured its usual dosage of class, violence, and sex, with one true standout scene that reflected how good the show can be when it reaches its full potential.
“You’d Be Surprised” opened with an even-for-Boardwalk-a-bit-too-much sex scene involving a prostitute choking Gyp Rosetti with a belt. We knew Rosetti was crazy, but blacking out to the point of death, complete with a blurred vision point-of-view shot, fully confirmed that he is batshit crazy.
From there the episode dealt with Nucky and his uneasy alliance with Arnold Rothstein. Neither could agree about what to do with Rosetti; Nucky wanted him “offed” while Rothstein was reluctant because of his business dealings with Rosetti’s boss. The scene ended in a shouting match between the two, and a later scene in Tabor Heights showing Rothstein and Luciano seemingly reach an agreement with Rosetti to buy his alcohol, not Nucky’s, gave the impression that Boardwalk was once again going to leave Nucky alone and friendless.
More on that later.
Margaret continued her valiant struggle to teach women about their bodies, despite enormous opposition from the Catholic hospital. She even resorted to teaching her fledgling class’s lessons by herself when Dr. Mason was unavailable, and openly defied the heinous nun watching over her lessons in asking the women if they would like to change their meeting time. As their lessons were at night, many women were unable to attend because they had to attend to their families, a fact that no doubt influenced the asinine nun in her decision to hold the lessons at night. Margaret, always the tough cookie, struck back in her trademark classy style.
She even showed great restraint in finding out about Nucky’s affair with Billy. Seeing Nucky at Madame Jeunet’s dress-shop, after he already told her he’d be out of town, proved to be even more awkward when she saw that he was buying a dress for Billy. Always the class act, she gave Billy a flier for her clinic and simply left. Later at home, Nucky apologized for “demonstrating bad form,” not even acknowledging the affair, which prompted Margaret to call him out on his superficial attraction to damsels in distress. At this, he told her she might want to start thinking practically, i.e. if she keeps being a nosy bitch he’ll kick her and her children out, and reminded us viewers that sometimes he can be quite the asshole.
Nelson van Alden continued to display no self-control as his honest attempts at escaping his past was thwarted due to one angry customer. Van Alden has become increasingly consumed by paranoia regarding whether anyone in Cicero knows his true identity, and beat to death a Probie to whom he sold a false iron. His wife simply told him that he does what he does because he was framed by bad men for bad deeds, and coupled with his self-righteous brand of religious zealotry we can only imagine what other wild things we’ll see him do this season. Finally getting the “florist” to repay him by disposing of the man’s body, all us history nerds can see where this sure-to-go-south relationship will end up (Cicero is where Al Capone ran his criminal empire).
Gillian, meanwhile, is pushed further and further to the brink of an emotional breakdown at the thought of having to declare her son dead. She even goes so far as to write a letter to him begging him to come home, and time is running out as her whorehouse, currently under Jimmy’s name, cannot be formally given over to her until he’s formally “dead.”
Back on the Nucky front, we continue to assume Rothstein and Luciano’s betrayal until a truly startling scene that was simply astounding. For the second time we’re treating to Gyp’s belt fetish, when all of a sudden, gunshots erupt across his house. In a darkly humorous way, he cannot reach his gun in time on a count of strangling himself, and before he knows it his unidentified assailants reach him. Using the prostitute as a shield, he manages to stay alive, and proceeds to shoot every one of the intruders. Completely nude and bloodied in a scene very much reminiscent of Game of Thrones’ season one finale, that reminds that sometimes nudity can serve true artistic excellence, Rosetti walks down the hallway with a look of pure and total rage, and the wrath we know he will wreck upon those responsible is enough to make me unable to wait for next week.
Turns out it was Nucky and Rothstein collaborating all along. While watching one of Billy’s rehearsals, Nucky is seen to be extremely distraught at the news that only four were killed in Tabor Heights, and that none of them were Rosetti.
Who knows where this rivalry, now an all-out-war, will go from here.