BWW Recap: BOARDWALK EMPIRE: Different Dogs, Same Bone

Here we are again, back for the second episode of BOARDWALK EMPIRE's final season! The episode, entitled "The Good Listener", hit the ground running this week as we caught back up with that major ensemble of brilliant characters we've been missing.

The episode opened with a montage of Eddie Cantor singing, fish frying and other oddities, as abstract openings appear to be a theme this season. We pull out into the episode through the ear canal of Eli Thompson, who we find worse for wear, waking up from what appears to be a drunken stupor.

He's brought to be the ruckus below as he finds the feds raiding his operation; or should we say, Capone's operation. Here we get our first glimpse at the famous G-man Eliot Ness, the legendary prohibition agent we know for his involvement with bringing down Capone, which makes Eli's description of him as "some Boy Scout fed trying to make a name for himself," a chilling wink irony to what we know is eventually coming.

Eli and Van Alden (or I guess I should actually start calling him Mueller, as everyone else does) are brought to answer for the loss of the twenty grand in the raid, as it was in their territory. We're led into Capone's large suite as his new man, Mike D'angelo, enters to let him know about the raid. Capone appears now as the famous celebrity gangster we know him to be. A reporter follows him around, hounding him for answers to trivial questions, a room full of men laugh at every word he says, and a tailor tries to fit him for some new digs. Capone's celebrity is quite revolting actually. He has clearly let fame go to his head as he no longer appears to hold sight of what's important in his operation, nor does he really see anything that's going on around him for what it actually is.

"Would you ever do a picture yourself?" the reporter asks Capone.

"What for?" Capone replies. "I'm already famous!"

D'Angelo, another possible sign that Capone is going to blind to the goings on around him, appears to be a Fed later in the episode. Could he possibly be a mole for the FBI and assist Ness in bringing upon Capone's downfall?

Perhaps in one of the funnier scenes in the episode, Mueller and Eli are led into an elevator by D'Angelo after his chat with Capone, where he lets them know Capone wants his twenty grand that they owe him for the raid. After he leaves, Mueller lets Eli know this is all his fault, as he's slipping, and now Mueller is being blamed for his carelessness because he's in charge. Who'd have ever thought we'd see Eli working for Mueller? Hilarity then ensues when guests start to board the elevator: a worker boarding, whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again" in the midst of the Depression era, Mueller being forced to awkwardly pet the puppy of a rather rich, old patron, and Eli trying to avoid getting a face full of feathers from a decadently dressed woman's hat.

As they get out of the Elevator, Eli catches sight of Jake Guzik delivering money to Capone. (Remember Guzik, the guy who got beaten up by O'Banion's man and criticized for his body odor.) Eli hatches a plan.

In preparation for said plan, Van Alden (Mueller, sorry! This will take some getting used to) searches for his gun at home, when he is interrupted by his son Chester (well grown since last season!) who asks him why clouds float in the sky for his Science class in school. Mueller testily tells him to go ask his mother at first, but then tells him "because of the atmosphere". I didn't think I'd ever see Mueller helping his children with Science homework (if that can be called helping). Van Alden then goes upstairs to find Sigrid smoking. He angrily tells her it is an "un-ladylike habit" and when she asks him "when you will be home?" he explodes, correcting her English. He tells her he's trying to raise his children to speak proper English and so she ought to as well, pulling her smoke out of her mouth and putting it out before roughly exiting. Sigrid takes another cigaret out of spite. This is clearly isn't the same, loving yet dysfunctional couple we left in season four. There's a new hatred, a new animosity brewing between the two that I feel is stressed by Mueller's occupation as one of Capone's men. He's returning to that hostile, angry, volatile presence we knew him to be as Agent Van Alden.

When Eli and Mueller go out to secure the money they owe Capone, they have a rather telling conversation about their lives and the kind of men they are. Staking out Guzik's location, Mueller asks Eli how long he and his wife have been apart and if he still cares for her. Eli tells him of course he does and that all he ever thinks about is her and his children. Mueller then replies that he sometimes finds it "easier to despise someone than to love them."

Eli is broken and a mess of a man because he's been taken away from his family, the few people he's always vowed to love and protect. Mueller, living pretty well off with Sigrid and his children, festers baseless contempt and anger towards his wife while essentially having what Eli wishes he could have. While Eli falls apart because of his love for his wife and kids, Mueller recedes back to his former resentful, cruel self, as newfound despise for his wife grows.

The plan then of course doesn't go as easily as planned (does it ever?) as Eli ends up shooting two of Capone's men in the legs and then later killing them while Mueller runs away with him screaming "Why must it always be pandemonium?!"

A family based radio program acts as a transitional sequence as Eli cries in his disgusting apartment about it and his life. If one thing can be said for Eli, it's that he loves his family, maybe not Nucky so much, as he back stabs him every season it seems like, but he truly cares for his wife and children.

The program then carries us over to Gillian who we found earlier in the episode to be in a sanitarium. It's almost a perfect segue way as Gillian is also one the characters on this show who would do anything for her family (her family being Jimmy of course). Now, she too is alone, at the bottom of a hole, having lost everything.

We meet Gillian in this episode in the communal bathing room in the sanitarium and we get this rather horrifying scene of the women going mad because a radio program has been turned off. Gillian tries to remain calm as we see she's the odd "sane" one out in the bunch. We meet one of the heads of the sanitarium who rather suggestively lets Gillian know she will get what she wants in return for a certain favor, watching Gillian get out of the bath. In what appears to be one more instance of sexual mistreatment of Gillian, thank goodness ends up just being this woman wanting to have one of Gillians old dresses (a remnant of the life Gillian once knew). Gillian barters this off for some stationary, what for or who she's writing to, we do not know.

This scene had me scared to death that I would perhaps want to turn of BOARDWALK, as it seemed to put Gillian Darmody through more torment, sexual abuse and hardships, which she constantly faced through all of the other seasons. Luckily, turned that around. Gillian Darmody, perhaps the most interesting character on BOARDWALK, is not always the most sympathetic character and goodness knows she's done a lot of wrong in her life, but you can't exactly blame her for where she's wound up after being prostituted, abused, raped, objectfied and hurt since she was a young girl. Gillian is one of the most complex characters on the show and Gretchen Mol continues to shine, giving an all star performance every time she graces the screen. She gave a layered, tourdeforce performance in her two scenes this episode, continually proving why she's the best of the best on this show.

Speaking of people who Nucky's done wrong, we see Willie Thompson applying to work for United State attorney, Robert Hodge. Hodge tests his integrity with an exemplary scenario, but then dismisses Willie for his relation to Nucky. As he gets up to go, Willy tells hodge that he wants to put criminals, more specifically one's who split families apart, in jail. Willie clearly possesses a lot of hatred and anger towards Nucky for breaking up his family and taking his father away from him as he calls him his "father's brother" instead of uncle and that he hates the kind of man he knows Nucky to be, which is an ironic and interesting shift for Willie as he went to Nucky last season in his time of need over his own father, Eli. Willie possessed a lot of contempt for Eli after he returned from prison, but his relocation to Chicago informed some sort of rekindling of love for his father and contempt for Nucky (or perhaps it was last season when he saw Nucky hold a gun to his father's head). Could Willie be key to the downfall of Nucky Thompson and his bootlegging dynasty?

Nucky, who is back in the United States, but not in Atlantic City, spends time in New York this episode trying to secure his position in the legal distribution of alcohol in the United States once the repeal passes. In a meeting with members of the Mayflower Grain Corporation, Nucky finds he's no longer in control like he used to be. His future, thanks to the stock market crash, now comes into question as his financial stability isn't what it once was and his future now lies in the hands of these men who may not trust him. One man might, however, as he has similar plans, and as he shakes Nucky's hand to leave, we catch the name "Mr. Kennedy".

This episode brings up an important theme overarching the entirety of BOARDWALK EMPIRE; a theme of the old versus the new. Nucky shares lunch with Joe Torrio, who tells him to follow his lead and just take the hint and retire after Nucky points out that all the old gangsters - Rothstein, Masseria, Colosimo - are all dying out and now evident by the hits on Torrio and Nucky, they're being targeted too.

As the old slowly gets taken out, the new come banging, in the likes of Luciano, Lansky, Siegal, and Capone. Nucky's time, along with the original gangsters of the era, is coming to a close and now it's time for a new power and a new set of gangsters to be in charge. Change is inevitable and as Torrio says, you either get out while you still can or overstay your welcome and be taken out by the new.

Nucky can see this now. He sees the new is coming to wipe out the old, but his quest for legitimacy overtakes this as he wants this one last thing to feel secure enough to truly "retire" as Torrio calls it. This one last deal is all he needs and as he says, the trick is to stay alive long enough to cash out. Let's just see if he can with this powerful group of youngsters rising the ranks, ready to take out all who stand in their way.

The New York group of the "new" being of course Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lansky, who clearly couldn't stay apart for long! We see the've been tricking Salvatore Maranzano into thinking that they are no longer in cahoots in order to infiltrate his mob and bring him down. Charlie, along with Meyer and Benny Siegel (he's back!!) plot to take over with as little help as possible from Tonino Sandrelli (yes Gyp Rosetti's right hand man who ended up literally stabbing him in the back at the end of season three).

Tonino, who then meets with Nucky, seems to be a professional backstabber for a living as he rats out Lansky, Luciano and Siegel. Nucky tells him in return for the location of Meyer Lansky, he could work for someone he trusts, like Nucky. In quite satisfying (though quite long after) revenge, the waiter then mentions what a lovely girl Billie Kent was, motioning to a rather lovely caricature of her on the wall, a clear message to Tonino that the job offer is most definitely not on the table.

We next see Tonino in the final scene, dead on Lansky's steps with a knife in his back, an ear missing, and a postcard reading "Greetings Havana". Finally someone "backstabbed" Tonino, as he had done it twenty times over to everyone else before. Nucky is sending out a loud and clear message to the "new" wave of gangsters, while also perhaps doing them a great favor, as Tonino was a clear liability. We close the episode as we opened, through an ear canal, but this time, one of dead Tonino's missing ear into darkness.

A necessary mention as well of the more than enough flashbacks we had during this episode, which remain pleasant because of the brilliant performance by John Ellison Conlee as a younger Commodore, but seem somewhat tedious as we know all of this about Nucky's past already. We are shown the heartbreak and devastation the death of his sister left on him, the coldness of his father's alcoholism and abuse, all the while continually attempting to humanize the Commodore in return for some of our sympathy for him, which frankly, I cannot give.

Overall the episode was action packed and drama ridden, with heaps of wonderful characterization and overarching themes that remind us what this show is all about and what we so loved about it from the very beginning.

Question for the end of the episode: What does Nucky's silent and kick-ass bodyguard/personal hit man do with his every growing collection of ears?

Next week expect some Chalky, Margaret, Narcisse, more of the New York gang (!!!!!) and of course Nucky!

Episode 51 Preview

Photo Credit: HBO

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