No. 55 Boardwalk Empire Season 5 (2014) 45 of 100

 

Season 5 of ‘Boardwalk Empire’ was truncated at 8 episodes so I’ll cover the whole thing here. Shannon bows out after 6 of them so it’s pretty much a half season anyway. I get the sense that the producers were told to wrap things up as quickly as possible and there seems an undue haste about the proceedings here. The narrative jumps forward 7 years to 1931, two years before the end of Prohibition. The changes in the booze landscape is reflected in the stories told in this series, most of which have an introspective feel. It’s clearly the end of days for the bootleggers, and for the series too, as the writers scramble to have effective endings for each of their well honed characters.

In the 7 years that have passed since season 4 most of the characters have found themselves in altered circumstances. Disappointingly Arnold Rothstein has died in the interim. I appreciate the writers are beholden to real world events and they couldn’t ignore Rothstein’s real life deal during their hiatus in 1928. It was a shame that we didn’t see his demise playing out, even in flashback and Michael Stuhlbarg definitely deserved better, given his excellent portrayal of the milk drinking gangster. I had a false memory of him being shot in a barber’s chair in the series but Wikipedia tells me that was Albert Anastasia in a different film!

A lot of this season involves flashbacks to Nucky’s childhood and eventual promotion to sheriff. I quite enjoyed bits of the backstory being filled in, but it was too detailed and took me away from the current events of the show. I did like the casting of young Nucky, who was played by ‘Young Maspeth’ off ‘Sleepy Hollow’. He has the Buscemi look and was ably assisted by Ian Hart playing Nucky’s Dad with some wife slapping malevolence.

In the current timeline we meet Gillian in the nut house where she was incarcerated after being exposed for her murderous schemes. She remains the arch manipulator in trying her charms on the lady governor and with the medics to no avail. Sadly her Southern charms have begun to fade and when we hast see her she’s full on ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’. There was some ret-conning of her character as we meet her as a youthful thief pursued by new Deputy Nucky. We learn that Nucky has to sell his soul to get ahead, to aid and assist the nonces in power and these actions haunted him for the rest of his days and dictated his character.

Time has also not been kind to Chalky who is on a chain gang due to all the murders and stuff. Of course he makes his escape and heads back to Harlem to gain revenge on Narcisse, but ends up making a deal with the Devil instead. It was quite a low key ending for him, but he kept his slow talking mumbling style to the end.

The Nucky storyline sees him lose control of Atlantic City in a poor bargain to keep his nephew Willie alive. He does however have other irons in the fire with a complicated stock swindle, aided by the always compliant Margaret, his likely route to maintaining his lifestyle. His Cuban rum scheme comes a cropper when the revolutionaries take over Havana and shoot Patricia Arquette – like Chalky she kept up the slow taking to the end!

What of Shannon you ask? Well, he’s not in the first episode or the last two but he does get some action in five in a row. He’s a bag man for the Capone mob in Chicago and has a couple of schemes where he owes Al $20k and has to rob his boss to get even. He’s also in trouble when an undercover Fed recognises his mug and it’s clear early on that he won’t see the end of the season.

I thought he was poorly served by the script which had him delivering a few clunkers, such as when he announces that he’ll no longer liver in fear before scuttling off when called by his overbearing wife, Sigrid. He has a fun double act with Eli, although I think the producers were struggling to find something for the latter to do. Like Chalky, Van Alden’s end was a bit of an anti-climax for an established character, but at least he went down fighting. There were no credits for the final episode but Shannon retained 3^rd billing in the penultimate episode.

The season ended with nearly all the fictitious principles meeting their end with the real-life characters like Capone, Luciano and Lansky getting to live out their days. I was sad to see Mickey disposed of casually – he deserved better and we’d already lost Harrow, Daredevil and Van Alden by the time the curtains came down.

Overall this was an excellent show with a lot of highlights and memorable characters. It did however tail off somewhat after Season 3 and, if it ended with Gyp Rossetti getting knifed on the beach it would have finished on a high.

As it was, I got the impression the writers struggled to keep everyone occupied, so there was a lot of recycling of the plots with new avenues, such as the Cuba angle, not adding much. I think Shannon’s star rose off the back of this series and by the end he had outgrown it. He was always the best thing in every episode he appeared in, and his maniacal and bungling character – with a twist of pure madness – was always a welcome break from the bootlegging and backstabbing.

When is Shannon-On? - 13.46 (Episode 2)

Outcome? Dead in Capone’s hotel suite (Episode 6)

Programme 3/5

Shannon Stars 3.5/5

Overall for Series 4/5

Overall for Shannon 4/5