I Want to Visit Boardwalk Empire!

Boardwalk Empire has sadly come to an end this past weekend and what a wild ride it has been. After 5 seasons, Terence Winter, Martin Scorscese, Tim Van Patten, and I assume, seeing as he is a producer as well, that Mark Wahlberg was consulted on this was well and they decided to end the show in the 5^th season with only 8 episodes. Which is down from its usual 12 and let me tell you it was disappointing to see that. Terrence Winter, Tim Van Patten, who are those people. Well Terence Winter wrote the phenomenal script for The Wolf of Wall Street and both individuals were involved with the phenomenal show The Sopranos.

For those of you who don’t know or what Boardwalk Empire is, let me give you much needed update because you have been missing out. Boardwalk Empire is a semi-fictional show containing some of the best and most famous gangsters of our time. Taking place during the beginning of prohibition and ending right near repeal, the show follows Enoch Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi, as the bootlegger of Atlantic City. From Bell Boy, to Deputy, to Sheriff, to, I believe, County Treasurer, Enoch (Nucky)Thompson fought his way through various gangs trying to push their way into Atlantic City. Mr. Thompson wasn’t the only non-fictional character depicted here. Al Capone, played by Stephen Graham, is a pivotal and important character, as is Lucky Luciano, played by Vincent Piazza, and Meyers Lanksy, played by Anatol Yusef, and Arnold Rothstein, played eerily well by Michael Stuhlberg. Eli Thompson, played by Shea Wigham, a HBO regular, is Nucky’s real life brother and depicted quite well and tragically. All of the aforementioned characters, are real, DUH, but this show depicts them in a light outside of the media. The viewer catches glimpses of their vulnerabilities like Rothstein’s inability to lose or Capone’s feelings towards his deaf son.

The show also contains a healthy dearth of fictional characters that really invest the character within the storyline such as Jimmy Darmody, played by Michael Pitt, who for the first few seasons is undoubtedly a phenomenal protagonist, Gillian Darmody, played by Gretchen Moll, who is the seriously disturbed mother of Jimmy, Nelson Van Alden, played by Michael Shannon, who deserves several Emmys for his role and plays a once crazed Christian Prohibition officer, Chalky White, played by Michael K. Williams, who is an incredibly versatile actor and plays the African American leader within Atlantic City and is my all-time favorite character from the show and Richard Harrow, played by Jack Huston, who plays a disfigured veteran from World war I, and is fantastic in it. This show, undoubtedly benefits from its fictional characters more then its nonfictional characters because the writers can shape and create a great history for these characters while constantly changing their morals without anyone worrying if the writers are staying true to the character.

This show is criminally underrated, mostly due to Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and True Detective. I think in its final season it attempts to make it up to the viewer for such little development for Enoch Thompson but the development that does occur would have been welcomed in the second or third season, which come in the form of flashbacks starring, Nolan Lyons as Young Enoch and who delivers, despite only having very little screen time, a brilliant performance.

If you like any of the aforementioned shows or movies included within this review, then check out Boardwalk Empire and stream it. It is absolutely without a doubt made for streaming and included a phenomenal cast with excellent writing and awesome cinematography especially in the last season. It ends with a great twist and makes me want to watch the entire show again. I hope and pray that this show will get some much needed attention come award season. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.