Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  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 th...

  This season ended up, as most have so far, with some stories resolved and others just hatching. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the three previous seasons and I got the impression that the writers had painted themselves into a corner somewhat. Nucky keeps doing his deals and looking somewhat constipated, whilst once again his brother Eli plots against him. I think they are going for a Kane and Abel dynamic here but it doesn’t make sense that a savvy business man like Nucky would allow himself to be betrayed once again. To be fair Eli was motivated by helping his son who was being threatened with the jail, quite correctly, by FBI man Knox. Nucky seems a bit asleep at the wheel having been enchanted by the busty Patricia Arquette who is now running his Florida interests. Nucky is keen to get out but keeps getting drawn back in due to his many commitments and previous actions. The main thread throughout the season concerns Chalky and Narcisse. Chalky now runs the main nightclu...

  Season 4 of Boardwalk Empire has a more cinematic feel and it’s environs expand south to Florida, where Nucky looks to seal a land deal which will enable him to import his booze with impunity. With Margaret out of the picture, apart from a fleeting appearance in Episode 6, a new love interest in the shape of backwater bar manager Patricia Arquette comes into Nucky’s life. With a few main characters departing from last season, they are replaced with Ron Livingston’s hapless businessman who falls into the orbit of the manipulative Gillian, and Jeffrey Wright’s enigmatic preacher Narcisse who is a foil for Chalky. There is also a storyline for one of Eli’s kids who clearly has inherited the family’s traits for recklessness and misfortune, when he needs Nucky’s help after poisoning a room-mate when his prank goes wrong. Most of the plot thread are somewhat light with Nucky’s especially being somewhat derivative. He is again batting politicians and making shady deals. I guess...

  Season 3 of Boardwalk Empire starts 18 months after Season 2 ended. All the characters have moved on as you’d expect, with Nucky still without his land that the ever problematic Margaret has gifted to the church. He has other problems too in the shape of Bobby Carnivale’s terrifying Gyp Rosetti who we meet as he rewards a helpful motorist who foolishly offers the incendiary Italian some of his oil. Soon Gyp has control of the road between New Jersey and New York and there are plenty of violent scenes as he maintains control and beats off all comers. Shannon’s Van Arlen is now set up as George Mueller and has married his Scandinavian nanny and has had a child by her. Thankfully she is as nutty as he is and when they aren’t having hot naked sex they are clubbing to death house guests. Takes all sorts, I guess. Mueller has a job selling steam irons door to door and is giving it his best. His corrupt boss and asshole co-workers make it difficult for him to make a living, and...

  The second half of this season is better than the first and it clears the board (walk) for new characters and events in the next batch of episodes. Shannon’s Van Arlen is sinking deeper into the mire as his wife files for divorce, somewhat understandably, and Nucky starts to get his claws into the hapless prohibition agent. The noose is tightening on Nucky as his rivals move in, so Van Arlen is soon blackmailed into spying on his new boss. A lady federal prosecutor has set up shop in Van Arlen’s office and she’s keen to take Nucky down. Van Arlen’s dossier on her target is a great help but unbeknownst to her our man is on the take. He is still walking the thin line between good and bad and he turns down a lucrative sting offer from Mickey, but it’s not clear if he’s still on the right side of the law or that he has a good eye for an unreliable partner. On the home front he is living a meagre existence with his baby daughter Abigail and his sing-song voiced Scandinavian n...

  Season two kicks off with episode recaps at the start of each outing, which can be helpful given the number of characters has ballooned. This season the main new character is Daredevil himself Charlie Cox, who at first is a bodyguard of an IRA fundraiser and who then hangs around as a kind of houseman for Nucky, who gets to sleep with Katy the maid. Mrs Schroeder has an eye for his diddle-de-dee charms too, but if memory serves that doesn’t end well. A few months have passed for Shannon’s agent Van Arlen who now runs a double life as a married prohibition officer and as ‘George Mueller’ who rents a run down apartment with his pregnant girlfriend. He wrestles with his religion and the hesitation we saw last season is quickly lost as he starts pinching impounded cash to keep paying the mother of his soon to be born child, who also happens to be Nucky’s ex-girlfriend. The series itself rumbles on well but there is a bit of repetition as the various gangster factions vie for...

  The second half of season one really ratchets up the violence and our investment in the characters, not least Shannon’s Agent Van Arlen. The twelve episodes form a neat arc that could exist as a stand alone mini series if nothing else was to follow. All of the plots reach a resolution of sorts, and although some futures are left uncertain, everyone got some redemption or development at least. In the first episode a booze shipment is hijacked and that action resonates throughout the series, as revenge is meted out and consequences felt. I don’t know if a second series was commissioned as the first ended, as the stories aren’t left hanging, but we are intrigued to see where the characters end up next. The main focus of the show is the relationships between Nucky and Margaret who have an on and off and then on again romance. We also get his henchman Jimmy who has mummy and daddy issues as well as PTSD from his time in the trenches. The characters are all placed in a wid...

  My memory of Boardwalk Empire was that Shannon had a bit part to begin with that was expanded upon later, once he had established himself. The truth is he gets fourth billing in the titles and appears in the first episode, and is missing only in the fourth in this first tranche. If you have not seen the show you really should. I watched it all when first broadcast and I still enjoyed this first part of a planned full re-watch. I’d forgotten that Martin Scorsese directed the first episode and there are plenty of name directors appearing throughout the run including some who worked on ‘The Sopranos’. The show opens in Atlantic City in 1930 with the Volstead Act, which brings in prohibition, due to begin the next day. The main focus of the series is Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve Buscemi) whom we first meet addressing a meeting of the Temperance League. He talks about the evils of booze before having a swig from his hip flask in the car park and heading off to a big party. ...