Boardwalk Empire kicked off season three with each main character celebrating the arrival of 1923 and reflecting on what the future has in store. Nucky’s shocking murder in the season two finale of his protégé, Jimmy Darmody, reverberated throughout the first three episodes, with Jimmy’s mother and the Tin Man trying their best to move on and Nucky hallucinating a young Jimmy. Margaret continued walking her fine line between trophy wife and feminist with her efforts to create a woman’s clinic at a Catholic hospital. The season also introduced a new rival for Nucky – Gyp Rosetti – who so far seems to be wild enough (lighting a sheriff on fire) and quirky enough (having an obsessive compulsion over the simple meaning of words) to be a great antagonist for the show. The New Year’s, future-minded motif also serves as a welcome metaphor for the show itself – will season three mark Boardwalk Empire’s final emergence from the Soprano’s shadow?
Not quite, but Boardwalk is still the class act it’s always been. Episode four, “Blue Bell Boy,” began with a typically extraneous sex scene between Owen Slater and Katy (as I was watching in my dorm’s lounge I was once again reminded of the occasional awkwardness that arises from watching HBO in public places, like the time the woman next to me on a plane tried to get me in trouble for watching porn when it was actually True Blood. Ah well, shit happens.) Anyways, the episode gained direction when Owen received a call from Nucky to help him track down Roland Smith, the wheelman involved in a disastrous warehouse theft.
Things took a turn for the worse when the duo found Roland at his house just as a corrupt group of Prohibition officers decided to raid it. That confined the uneasy trio to the house’s basement for most of the episode in a claustrophobic sequence that reminds you of how awesome the show's atmospherics are. The trio hid out day and night as the Probies scoured the entire house (except for the convenient basement corner in which the three hid) and Roland even showed signs of becoming a Jimmy-type protégé. The street-smart 15-year-old proved to have ample charm, such as when he bummed a cigarette from Nucky so he could finally “find out what all the fuss is about” and fearlessness the fear-obsessed Nucky even seemed to admire. Once the Probies left, however, Roland admitted to being 19 and continued his playful mockery of Nucky.
The aftermath of which reinforced the fact that one does not simply fuck with Nucky Thompson anymore. Any intrigue surrounding Roland’s character’s expansion, however, was brutally squashed as Nucky strengthened his hardened, trust-no-one disposition, shooting Roland in the head point-blank. Boardwalk is at its best when it delves into its characters’ psychology (Nucky feeling remorse for killing Jimmy, Roland trying to mentally one-up Nucky) with phenomenal spouts of violence, and this scene was no exception.
On Margaret’s front, “Blue Bell Boy” had fun exposing traditional values regarding the female body. Using her quick wit and sharp intelligence (I absolutely adore Margaret, as you will probably tell), she tricked the old-line main doctor into gaining a tentative blessing from the local Catholic bishop to go ahead with a new woman’s clinic at the hospital in which she invested Nucky’s money. Crusading as she always does for “the children,” Margaret inwardly rolled her eyes at the nurse who claimed “vagina” and “pregnant” were too explicit for their manuals and practically keeled over upon reading about Kotex. She also got closer to the young, like-minded Dr. Mason (as Nucky is having an affair with a New York actress) and it remains to be seen where that will go.
In Chicago, the episode made a curious statement about anti-bullying (Boardwalk often doesn’t have much to say about deep issues, for better or worse). Al Capone both tried to teach his deaf son how to stand up to bullies in the schoolyard and beat up a South Side gangster who made fun of Capone’s friend for being fat and smelly (Again, not the deepest). Failing to make his son much of a fighter, Capone connected with him through playing the violin, a pretty cute scene.
Meanwhile, Gyp Rosetti proved to be a formidable foe in his mutually beneficial partnership with Probies to bring down Nucky’s business. At this point owning Tabor Heights, a town along the only route from Atlantic City to New York, Rosetti ambushed Nucky’s delivery to Arnold Rothstein in an off-camera shoot-out that focused on the anguished, helpless face of the Nucky’s ostracized, disgraced brother, Eli. Having lost his credibility with Nucky after trying to have him killed in season two, Eli tried in vain to warn the others about the ambush. But Nucky chose Eli over Jimmy, and the episode’s final scene – Eli telling Nucky everything he saw – hints that the two could reconcile after all.
Bottom line: “Blue Bell Boy” was a solid episode that continued the slow boil to what will inevitably be a gigantic showdown between Nucky and Rosetti.
Quotes:
“Allowing you to simply go to jail is the last gift I’ll ever give you.” – Nucky
“Go buy a personality.” Nucky
Nun: This is rather felicitous language isn’t it?
Margaret: Vagina.
Dr. Mason: It is a medical term.
Nun: I’ve never liked the sound of it.
Dr. Mason: I’ve never liked Brussel sprouts, but I don’t deny they exist.