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Boardwalk Empire


Quentin Taranbino

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  • 2 weeks later...

the st valentine's day massacre made national headlines and heralded a crackdown on gangster violence in the usa. 7 people died.

by my estimate there were 40+ murders in the season finale, the realism of season 1 has been heartily abandoned. in the first season you see the political system of atlantic city working with nucky having to walk a tightrope to keep everyone happy, the different racial groups, the media, business, gangsters and other politicians. in season 3 gyp walks into the hotel and casino and somehow assumes ownership of it blink.gif. this is is the usa in the 1920s not westeros.

I was reminded of this when I came across an article about gang violence in Chicago.

The Chicago Crime Commission estimates that since 1919 there were 1110 gangland murders in Chicago, broken down by decade as follows

1919-'29 546

'30-'39 271

'40-'49 73

'50-'59 49

'60-'69 69

'70-'79 64

'80-'89 31

'90-'99 7

2000-'05 1

During the 1920s there was one gangland murder a week in Chicago, falling to one every four months by the 1980s. One criticism you can make of gangster films and TV shows is that they inflate the number of murders - the Sopranos and the Godfather do this. There were probably 20-30 mafia murders in the USA in the 2000s yet the Sopranos portrayed something like 70 during roughly the same period and that was in a small sliver of the North American mafia.

There is a balance between realism and good drama though, it's a difficult one to get right.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Best line of Season 5?

Van Alden - Who built this house?

Wife - You did

VA - Who pays the bills ?

Wife - You do

VA - Who has a thousand dollars in his hand?

Wife - You do

VA - take off that nightgown

The only thing missing was the soundtrack from Shaft in the background.

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Boardwalk Empire is becoming my favourite TV show of all time. I could watch Stephen Graham, Michael Shannon or Michael Kenneth Williams cut their own toe nails and still find it enthralling.

I've been watching the 4th series on Sky Atlantic. It hasn't reached the fast paced action of the 3rd series yet but I'm still finding it thoroughly enjoyable. It's by far the my favourite series to watch just now since Breaking Bad finished.

Edited by YER SISTERS YER MAW
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Just watched the final episode of season 4 there. Warning: do not click on the below spoiler if you aren't up to date with US

I can't believe Richard is dead :( I'm so gutted. He was my favourite character

Luckily Van Alden is still kicking about and he now fills the void as my favourite, such a great great character and played perfectly by Michael Shannon

Is there a better show on TV that is still currently airing? Doubt it. Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones are so far ahead of the pack on everything else at the moment (in different ways)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pretty gutted that Richard's dead but could see it coming a mile off when he was saying goodbye at the railway station.
All in all I quite enjoyed this season but it's my least favourite so far and a bit of a let down compared to how amazing season 3 was. I found it to be a pretty slow burner up until the last two episodes but when it got going it was excellent.
Good to hear there will be a fifth season and it'll be interesting to see what they do next especially with Capone now being in charge at his end.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I see HBO have posted on Facebook that Season five will be the last..

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Too many shows in television these days have a great beginning and an endless middle, which leads to the show losing a lot of it's original quality simply by trying to keep it going. Already you can see the show is struggling with how to use Steve Buscemi, let alone fit in Kelly MacDonald and have instead brought in a lot of other supporting characters to the fore this season. Although the show is coming to an end, I'm very glad that the quality of the show will not be diluted by dragging it out longer than it needs to be.

Edited by the jambo-rocker
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This is not necessarily a bad thing. Too many shows in television these days have a great beginning and an endless middle, which leads to the show losing a lot of it's original quality simply by trying to keep it going. Already you can see the show is struggling with how to use Steve Buscemi, let alone fit in Kelly MacDonald and have instead brought in a lot of other supporting characters to the fore this season. Although the show is coming to an end, I'm very glad that the quality of the show will not be diluted by dragging it out longer than it needs to be.

I'd have to agree with you on all counts. They seemed to be running out of ideas with the last season and like you say, they were trying to cram characters in where there were no stories for them. One final season where it all comes to a head could be excellent, let's just hope it lives up to expectations.

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