Boardwalk Empire Season 5 Thread - Series Finale - Eldorado

[mcraptor]

Gonna pour some 40 out for my dude Rich

Not to surprised he died though like someone mentioned already his story was pretty much brought to a close now that Gillian is in jail and Tommy and his wife are in Wisconsin. That ending scene was just beautiful.

So happy Narcisse made it to next season though, can already tell Hoover is gonna be so much more worse than Knox.

Eli and Knox fight was just epic. Really surprised Mickey made it

 

[teamjordan79]

Harrow was a goner as soon as they showed that he was going to have a happy ending. No one seems to be allowed to have a happy ending on this show.

Slater - was going to run off with Margaret, ends up dead in a crate
Gillian - finally free of all her baggage, fell in love, arrested and charged with murder
Harrow - has the family he finally longs for, about to reconnect with his sister, caught a slug to the abdomen


Sidenote: I'm sure it's dumb luck but with JFK's assassination anniversary being the other day, that whole sniper Harrow scene gave me an eerie vibe. Then him calmly walking out of the club gave off the Oswald walking out of the book depository vibe.

dat mutual feel

 

[mvplikekobe24]

Even though he crossed Nuck again I wanted to see Eli live...was also hoping he'd go ham on knox, which he obviously did...but damn Richard has been one of my fav characters since his first episode in the hospital with Jimmy. Even though he was a pro, his hand might've cramped up because of that dude in his sisters barn who stomped his hand

 

[johnnym215]

Even though he crossed Nuck again I wanted to see Eli live...was also hoping he'd go ham on knox, which he obviously did...but damn Richard has been one of my fav characters since his first episode in the hospital with Jimmy. Even though he was a pro, his hand might've cramped up because of that dude in his sisters barn who stomped his hand

True...but that should have shown him throughout the show holding his injured hand a lot which they didnt. I think Willie will become top dog there seeing as he learned from his uncle and dad. I think chalky being the new oscar means he will run his own operations solo - not trusting AC anymore - but definitely finishing off narcisses before his run with the show stops. Why they showed daughter singing somewhere threw me off - i dont see her story going further unless narcisse and chalky are still around to give it some meaning. Do you guys think that torrio hit was al capones work?

 

[nydunkhead]

Even though he crossed Nuck again I wanted to see Eli live...was also hoping he'd go ham on knox, which he obviously did...but damn Richard has been one of my fav characters since his first episode in the hospital with Jimmy. Even though he was a pro, his hand might've cramped up because of that dude in his sisters barn who stomped his hand

View media item 668214

 

[blade br0wn]

Good to see that Jimmy made an appearance in the season finale

Sad to see Harrow go, man...

Looking back, you figure that it had to happen eventually. He lost that killer instinct, which was the flaw that ultimately got him killed... Should've known when he couldn't come to grips with killing the dog. I like how the writers wrote him off. Tragic, yet poetic like some of you stated earlier...

Sad to see Maybelle go too... despite her lack of screen time, I thought she did a good job each time on screen.

@ Chalky tellin' Narcisse that Maitland had that "sweet jelly"...

That last song sang by Daughter Maitland was a nice way to end the season as well...

DAMN! R.i.p to Harrow the Gawd, hope you and Jimmy kickin it in the afterlife.

Eli's ground and pound on Knox was though

Reminded me of when Chris Partlow beat down Michael's step-pops on the 4th season of 'The Wire'

Those who think Nuck and Narcisse are still working together bc of the club are wrong IMO. The ONYX club is done. There was a murder there. No one is going back.

Chalky looks like he's ready to be full time gangster now. Perhaps they make the DMV area a part of the show now. If Florida to AC/NY is still in effect, Chalky could play a part.

Eli got off cause they pinned the murder on Narcisse.

Nucky bout it.

I'm hoping they'll add Baltimore as a new setting for BE. I think that'll be a nice addition...

I know that Narcisse is based off of Casper Holstein, but I wonder how far the writers plan on keeping him around. If they follow history, then Narcisse will play into some events and well known gangsters in Chicago. I'll wait to see how it all plays out...

Nuck is really the Tom Brady of it all... Dude just finds ways to win. Like, you know that he's gonna prevail, but HOW he does so proves to be exciting at the end of each and every season. Props to BE for that and for another exciting and well-constructed season...

 

[cronicmolemolereturns]

Capone did not have Torio shot. Great episode.. Hoover really was a character and his fixation on 'destorying' Garvey and other black prominant figures was ten times that level.. in the end how he sonned Narcisse and got him to call him 'sir'

 

[Nike Jordan]

A.V. Club interview with Terence Winter.

[h1]  [/h1]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

[h1]Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter talks about his show’s shocking finale[/h1]
By Todd VanDerWerff

Nov 25, 2013 • 12AM

Warning: The complete fourth season of Boardwalk Empire is discussed in detail below. There are spoilers aplenty.

The fourth season of Boardwalk Empire was the ’20s-set mob series’ most sprawling yet, though the show never stretched too far or brought in too many elements. The show’s many main settings—Atlantic City, New York, and Chicago—all had fascinating plotlines of their own, with a war between Atlantic City’s Chalky White and Harlem’s Dr. Valentin Narcisse dominating the season. Although there was still plenty of room to showcase the rise of Al Capone and Nucky’s attempts to expand his operation to Tampa, Florida. The show’s fourth season finale made so many changes to the show’s status quo—including killing off one popular character and sending another to entirely different city to escape the watchful eye of the FBI—that the series has set itself up nicely for a season five that will break the mold. Creator and showrunner Terence Winter, who also wrote the script for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film The Wolf Of Wall Street, talked with The A.V. Club about the season’s twists and turns and why the character that died in the finale’s closing moments was fated to do so from the season’s earliest moments.

The A.V. Club: Why Richard? If I were up to it, I would do an anguished howl.

Terence Winter: Aw, I know, I know. It felt like the right time and the right way to end his story. It just really felt like we’d brought him full circle. Given the events of season three, how we left it, he delivered Tommy to Julia’s house and sort of went into a downward spiral and went back into that world, that mindset of killing, and we pick him up in season four, of course, having become a killer for hire again. When he left Wisconsin and his sister told him to call himself to account, we knew if he got to the point where he picked up a gun again, it would probably be the end of him. Inevitably, as the story progressed, we knew it was heading there. That was sort of the one step too far, both for him emotionally and literally in that world. There’s only so many times. You know, Oscar Boneau said in episode 11, “Eventually, we all run out of road,” and Richard ran out of road. We felt we can’t go back to that well every year of bringing Richard out of retirement to kill people. [Laughs.] Not that that was the only function that character served, certainly, but again, as it played out it just made the most sense dramatically to bring him to a conclusion in that way. We just cut together a little piece that HBO’s going to run of a Richard Harrow memoriam thing, and it’s really emotional. That character resonated with people and certainly for us. Jack Huston’s portrayal of that guy was heartbreaking, and it speaks to how good of an actor he is. This guy, by his own count, said he killed like 87 people, and you still forgive the guy. People would just want to invite him over for dinner, [Laughs.] and it’s like, “This guy’s a murderer!” He’s done some horrible things, but he really made you fall in love with him.

AVC: Was there any thought given to him going to Wisconsin and starting a new life?

TW: Yeah, there was. We talked about it. We batted that around for a while, but it felt too wrapped up neatly in a bow. Not that we were trying to punish him for his sins, or we were trying to send a message that crime doesn’t pay. We weren’t. It just felt a little too nicely wrapped up and neat. This felt like a much more realistic, dramatic way to go and tell that story. In his way, he did get a happy ending. He was able to put together the family that he wanted, sort of the real-life version of that scrapbook, and send them to Wisconsin with that wife and adopted son and ultimately came home in the end.

AVC: You brought back Jimmy Darmody’s death at the end of this and yet the characters that have connections to him outside of Nucky, obviously, are increasingly on the margins of the show. Was this your way of saying goodbye to that as a motivating factor for the show?

TW: The Jimmy thing is something that resonates with Nucky very strongly, and certainly Nucky’s relationship with Gillian is something that’s a pinpoint of his downward spiral. The idea that Nucky delivered this woman to the Commodore. If you remember the back-story, the history of the two of them, the Commodore picked her out of the crowd, and Nucky’s the one who basically delivered her. That idea was something that is an overriding theme of who he is and what turned him into the person he is and how Gillian’s life took a turn and ultimately Jimmy’s as well. And everything sort of rippled from that event. So that’s something that I think is an issue that’s at the core of the series. It will, in one form or another, continue to be visited.

AVC: Margaret is still a character on the show, but she didn’t appear a lot this season. How did you make the call to keep her off screen so much?

TW: Well, everything starts from what’s organic to the story—what feels real. All of the choices we make, I try to make from a place of truth and reality. Killing Jimmy—anything else would have felt phony. Looking at what happened at the end of last year between Margaret and Nucky, I couldn’t see them back together in any logical way until there was something organic that happened that would necessitate Nucky reaching out to her or vice versa. So the choice wasn’t made until we knew where we were heading in episode five with Eddie’s suicide. I said, “That’s the moment where Nucky would logically reach out to Margaret.” Or reach out to somebody for comfort, somebody that knew Eddie, somebody that knew him, and that’s the place where he would decide that he needs to talk to her. To tell a Margaret story separate and apart from Nucky’s story this year didn’t feel like it made any sense either, because it would have just been, “Okay, we have Kelly Macdonald under contract, and we’re paying her anyway, so let’s see what she’s up to.” It needed to fit into the bigger story. It was more of a fun reveal for us also, because I thought, “Oh, this is interesting. We’ll see her for the first time when Nucky sees her. I’m curious: What is she up to? What is she doing? Where does she live? Where is she working? Oh, she got a haircut, wow.” All of those little things, so you’re going along on that ride with Nucky, and then that would be the entrée back into Margaret’s world.

AVC: What do you think her role is going forward?

TW: We’re talking. She’ll certainly be part of the series and part of Nucky’s story, ultimately, but that’s literally what we’re talking about now and just starting to get back into the writers’ room, dipping our toes into season five.

AVC: How did you decide to kill off Eddie?

TW: Once we decided to explore the Agent Knox/FBI storyline, just in following that story, logically, we thought, if you were that guy and you wanted to get into Nucky, who are you looking at? And it was like, okay, this is a guy who is one of the people who’s closest to him, and [Knox] said, “I’m going to find the weakest link.” Well, Eddie Kessler certainly is the weakest link. Concurrently, Eddie, after the events of last year, is asking for more responsibility, which logically made sense and now it’s, “Okay, you got what you asked for. You want more responsibility? Okay, go deliver money to Ralph Capone.” And of course that’s the thing that gets him. His overreaching in terms of his responsibilities is the very thing that puts him on the Fed’s radar, then they bring him in. Eddie, for us, was a character who’s incredibly loyal to Nucky and principled, and going forward, knowing what we knew about him—that he was initially disloyal and stole money—almost overcompensating in his loyalty to Nucky. The whole idea that he would be exposed as a fraud in that sense was too much for him to bear. We knew for a guy like that, there is no coming back. The only way out is the very Japanese harakiri version of, he dishonored himself, and he’s going to go out the window.

AVC: What was the origin of Dr. Valentin Narcisse? He’s a very interesting figure within the world of the show.

TW: Early on in the writers’ room, we talked about the idea of exploring how the Jazz Age really came full swing in 1924, no pun intended. So we knew we wanted to spend some time in Harlem and explore the Harlem renaissance. So we said, all right it’ll be interesting, and the way into that is certainly the nightclub world. The idea that Chalky had a nightclub in Atlantic City meant we knew he’d probably be importing musical acts from New York that had cleared the Cotton Club as well. It went from there. Okay, well who are the people who control those acts? What if there’s a black gangster? Who is this guy? And we just started reading a lot of books about race relations, black pride, Marcus Garvey—that world. We just started to shape this character of Narcisse. At the same time, we read about a character named Casper Holstein, who was from the [U.S. Virgin] Islands, who was a philanthropist, but also the head of the numbers racket in Harlem and was loosely affiliated with Marcus Garvey and the [Universal Negro Improvement Association]. This was already after we had come up with Dr. Narcisse, so it served to validate our Dr. Narcisse character, and it just sort of took off from there. We immediately thought of Jeffrey Wright and wondered, “Wow, is it possible we could get him?” And we did. It’s interesting what happens. You cast an actor for a role, and then you hear Jeffrey speak those words and it’s this ping-pong effect, where you go, “Oh my God, I want more of that.” You’ll see what he does with your writing, and it’s back and forth, and suddenly, within an episode or two, you know exactly who Dr. Narcisse is. There could not be a better person for that role. We’re just thrilled to have him.

AVC: Both Chalky and Narcisse survive this conflict. How boxed in do you feel by the end of season three, where the main villain is bumped off? Did you feel boxed in by that this season?

TW: Yeah, you start to understand the rhythms of a show. “Oh, okay, they set up the big bad guy, and then they get into episode 12, and he gets knocked down, and then everything’s wrapped into a bow, and then they move into the next season.” We consciously wanted to avoid that. And we also felt like there were more stories to tell. It actually worked in our favor anyway, so we didn’t feel the need to kill him, or wrap it up in any more of a conclusive way than it was handled.

AVC: Are you hoping to return to that in season five?

TW: Yes.

AVC: You also did storylines about FBI agents investigating organized crime on The Sopranos. What made you want to revisit that idea in this series?

TW: J. Edgar Hoover very famously denied the existence of organized crime up until the Appalachian Meeting, I think, in 1957. It was interesting to me that he clearly had to know that there was such a thing as organized crime and organized criminals as far back as the ’20s. So we just started with that idea and thought about, okay, who was an agent? How did that get on his radar? And we came up with our fictional Agent Knox, whose real name is Agent Tolliver, the Bureau of Investigation agent. This is a guy who first posited the theory that there are a bunch of criminals from different cities working in concert, and we could arrest them all. Let’s come up with some sort of legal theory that allows us to arrest these guys en masse. Ultimately, when that thing falls apart, Hoover ****cans that whole idea, wipes it off the table.

Ultimately, for Hoover in reality, it was too complicated and too much bad publicity. It was easier to just get headlines arresting bank robbers and people like Marcus Garvey than it was to address the idea that there’s this massive criminal network afoot that we can’t do anything about. We wanted to tell the story that Hoover was really aware of this, but conveniently chose to ignore it in exchange for putting Marcus Garvey away. 

AVC: This season, you develop Chicago as a separate setting and a world unto itself. How did you build out Chicago this season and set that up as a different series within the series?

TW: Capone’s story, particularly in 1924, just really felt like its own self-contained story. I also felt like season four of the show, we knew the people and characters in Chicago well enough that I didn’t feel like I had to necessarily connect it back to Nucky’s story—they sort of felt like their own franchise of the series within the series. So I didn’t feel, oh gee, every week, we need to have phone calls back and forth between Al Capone and Nucky in order to keep that tether there. I felt it could sustain itself completely on its own. There was enough going on in the Capone/Van Alden story that I didn’t feel any need to connect it back and forth, aside from Ralph Capone collecting money and Eli openly going there. Aside from that, it just felt like its own completely sustainable story, so we just let it rip and let it play out. 

For me, creatively, it’s always just a fun place to go visit, and it’s a fun world to explore. And it does tie-in to the bigger scope of the show, certainly, about the development of organized crime and basically the events that shaped modern America. So telling the Chicago story at the same time is completely organic for me, as well.

AVC: Originally, Van Alden was a stuck up, humorless guy. Now he’s become such a funny figure, although he’s still very terrifying when necessary. How did you write toward that split?

TW: He’s really completely turned upside down. As the seasons progress, he’s becoming the truer version of himself. The joke was sort of always on Van Alden. He’s the one prohibition agent who’s actually taking this law seriously—trying to uphold the law that no one else is actually paying attention to. He’s this religious guy in a world where it’s very easy to argue that maybe there isn’t a God, or these rules that you’re supposed to be following are really impossible to follow. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chase women, don’t be a human being, basically. And the deeper into trying to adhere to those rules he gets, the more miserably he fails, and it’s not until he starts to actually give in to his baser nature that he actually becomes the more realistic version of himself and happier. I think the big irony for him is that the thing he’s really good at is being a criminal. That’s probably what he was meant for and he’s almost completely come full circle. He has, now, come full circle from when we first met him.

AVC: Why did you decide to keep Eli alive, and also what are you looking forward to doing with him in that Chicago setting?

TW: Well, we’ve got to keep him alive because we wanted to subvert your expectations. [Laughs.] Partly—in terms of the story, we are always trying to be surprising and do something different than what the audience expects as long as it falls within the framework of the reality of the show. I really try not to do things that feel like TV, or the TV version of something.

I think had Willie not followed his father there, I think that would have had a completely different ending, but since it did play out that way, I think realistically Nucky is certainly not going to kill his brother in front of his nephew and sort of can’t do it, because Willie saw what was happening. For us it actually worked out well, and then the idea of, okay, well, where might Eli go? Well, Chicago is a place that they’ve got people they know, it’s far enough away that he might be able to live undercover and, depending on how vigorously the FBI wants to pursue the death of Agent Knox—and it doesn’t seem like they’re all that interested in that—Eli might be able to survive there under an alias for the time being. 

AVC: Nucky is central to this season without having his own storyline. Why did you have everyone coming to him with their problems, while his main problem is a C-story?

TW: Yeah, it certainly seems like his story takes more of a backseat to the Chalky/Narcisse story. That was really the story we wanted to explore more than anything this year. It was Chalky’s season in that way and Nucky, obviously, is a big part of that, but it wasn’t really a Nucky-centric story. It was again by design. It was Chalky’s world and Chalky, as a character, was somebody we wanted to spend time with, and there’s only so much real estate in the series. Again, in terms of defying expectations, or not feeling like we have to adhere to a formula, that felt like the right time and the right way in which to tell that story, and I think the Nucky story and his involvement in the other characters’ worlds was exactly enough. 

For me, it felt like exactly the right amount of time to spend with Nucky and the right amount of involvement in the other stories. It was not so much a conscious decision as it was an offshoot of how the stories laid out. Again, it’s not like, oh gee, we need more Nucky or well, Kelly hasn’t been in three episodes, we’ve got to put Kelly in there. The show is created and written and designed to work the way it works. If that means we won’t see Van Alden for a couple weeks, then that’s the way we do it. It’s like jazz in that sense. 

AVC: So you’re coming up on season five. Most of these shows run five, six, seven seasons. Have you started thinking about what the end of this looks like?

TW: We are. Those are the conversations we’re having right now. The model for TV has changed a lot, where it’s not so much, we need x amount of episodes for syndication, we need to keep it on the air so long, we’re all trying to pay for our vacation homes… It’s not that anymore. And thankfully, it’s about telling the best story and the best series. So I’m not feeling any pressure to keep us on the air any longer than I feel like we should be on the air. We’re talking now about, okay, well, we want to tell Nucky’s story full circle, and are we there yet? Or what else do we want to say, or where are we trying to get? And I think when we answer that question, we’ll know what the longevity is. HBO respects that, and I think that’s why it’s such a great place to work. There isn’t the pressure of trying to milk something, because we’re getting ratings or selling commercial time or any of that stuff. Those are the conversations we’re having.

AVC: We ran a story called “How the **** are you still alive?”,which was about characters who are surprisingly still alive…

TW: [Laughs.] I remember that…

AVC: The first thing everybody suggested was Mickey Doyle.

TW: Absolutely.

AVC: How is he still alive?

TW: That is one of the in-jokes on the show, you know. Of all the people who would normally get a bullet put in their head, this is a guy who just sort of dances through the raindrops, inexplicably. Characters on our own show have made that same observation. I think Eli said that to him when he got out of jail. “It’s amazing. You of all people.” Like I said, it’s kind of an in-joke that Mickey somehow manages to skate by. I think as he himself said, he brings people together. Maybe he’s right.

Alan Sepinwall interview with Terence Winter.

[h1]  [/h1]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

[h1]'Boardwalk Empire' creator Terence Winter on who lived and who died in the season 4 finale[/h1]
Why did Nucky take a step back this season? Where was Margaret? Who's coming back?

By Alan Sepinwall   Monday, Nov 25, 2013 1:00 AM

After each season of "Boardwalk Empire" ends, it seems, I wind up on the phone with series creator Terence Winter to ask why Character A died, why Character B lived, and whether Character C will continue to be on the show. Time to play that game once again about the show's terrific fourth season. I reviewed the finale, and also spoke with the performer who played the finale's most notable casualty, and I have a lot of explanations from Winter coming up just as soon as I hunt you down and drag you to Wisconsin...

We have to obviously start with Richard's death. Given how efficiently deadly you showed him to be in last season's finale, did a part of you start to realize, "Wait, if we keep him around, he can basically solve every problem all the time?"

Terence Winter: (laughs) Yeah, more or less. But we also knew that there's only so many times that you can do that. As Oscar tells to Chalky, eventually we all run out of road, and we knew at some point, Richard was going to run out of road. Psychological events, having gone back to the well, into that downward spiral of killing people is what led him starting off the season as a killer for hire, going back to Wisconsin. It took such a tremendous psychological toll on him, that coupled with the hand injury, coupled with really sincerely feeling like he can't do this anymore, added up to the fact that he literally couldn't do it anymore and was not the same guy he was a year earlier. It all ended up making sense for us. It wasn't really like how do we consciously diminish this killing machine. It was sort of organic too the growth of the character.

Going into the finale, the assumption on most viewers' part was that if someone was dying, it was going to be one of Chalky and Dr. Narcisse. Both on this show and on "Sopranos," you've been in this kind of situation where characters are in a beef and one of them has to die, yet you came out of this season with both of them alive. How did you come to that as the resolution?

Terence Winter: Part of it was there was more story to tell. Part of it was I'm very conscious of the fact that the audience starts to understand the rhythms of the storytelling. I didn't want them to think, "Oh, here's the big bad, and then in episode 12 he gets killed." It was that way on "The Sopranos." There was a very conscious decision to kill Ralph Cifaretto in the ninth episode of the season because we knew everyone would have expected it to happen in the 12th episode. Part of this job is to always surprise people and be as entertaining as possible. The surprise was that it'll play out in a different way. I'm sure the Vegas odds were on either Eli or Narcisse to get it it, but none of those things happened. I think people will probably be very surprised it's Richard.

I think some people will probably be disappointed as well, but you've been through that once before when you killed Jimmy.

Terence Winter: Yeah. This is different. I feel like Richard's character really did come full circle. I feel like that was very satisfying, at least for us, creatively, artistically — as a viewer, I think I would feel satisfied with that storyline. Jimmy, I think people felt cheated, they wanted more, they really enjoyed him, and it was, "Wow, that was such a cool character, I wish I could've seen more of that guy." And maybe I'm wrong, they'll feel that with Richard, too. But for us, we couldn't have Richard say, "Oh, I'm not going to kill anybody again" and then take him out of mothballs every season and kill everybody and solve all the problems. "Oh, that's it, I'm really done now! I'm going to go off again!" There's only so many times you can go to that well.

I'm curious about the creation of Dr. Narcisse and how the feud with Chalky allowed you to really get at the state of black culture at the time.

Terence Winter: Once we knew Chalky had the club, it started from there. We said, "Well, where's he going to get the acts to perform there?" And we figured they would share acts with the Cotton Club, and we started to read about the Harlem renaissance, and what was that world like? Then we wondered what if the guy who's in charge of that stuff is a gangster who's Chalky's New York counterpart. Then we just came up with Narcisse. We wanted him to be the antithesis of Chalky. Chalky is very  American, very much a guy who is up from his bootstraps, not very educated. Narcisse is the opposite. He's from the islands, he's an immigrant. His power is manipulation and words, his vocabulary, and he's a very different guy. We thought that would be a really cool nemesis. We also read a lot about Marcus Garvey, and what was happening in Harlem in the 20s as well. So he could be a complete hypocrite: on the one hand espousing racial pride and uplifting the race, and on the other hand, he's a criminal. And then coincidentally, in our reading, we stumbled on a guy named Casper Holstein, who was also an immigrant from the islands, head of the Harlem numbers racket, also loosely affiliated with the Garvey movement, in that he was a fan. And we said, "Wow, that completely bolstered our idea of Narcisse. This does have a basis in reality. There was a guy sort of like that." But it's not fair to say he's based on him, but once we saw that he existed, we knew we were on the right track.

Between dealing with the Chalky/Narcisse feud, telling this big Eli story and going to Chicago a lot, Nucky took a bit of a step back this year. He's always been the clear lead, or first among equals, and this year you seemed comfortable letting him exist on the level of others in terms of screen time and story arc.

Terence Winter: We really wanted to spend a lot of time in Chalky's world, and it was really going to be the Chalky/Narcisse story, and Nucky certainly would be at the center of that. There's only so much real estate to go around, and we didn't feel like, "Nucky's the star of the show, and Steve has to be at the center of it." We thought whatever is the best and most entertaining story, if we end up spending more time away from Nucky, and have him on the periphery of those stories, we were totally comfortable doing that. You have the reintroduction of Kelly (Macdonald)'s character.A more traditional version of that scenario would be, "Hey, Kelly MacDonald's under contract. This is ridiculous. We have to have her in every episode." It just had to make sense for the story. Once we laid out the stories we wanted to tell, it wasn't necessary that Nucky had to be smack in the middle of Chalky and Narcisse. He was, but we didn't have to concoct reasons for him to be in all those scenes, or for him to go to Chicago to set that up. The Chicago storyline particularly was really its own universe, and that we felt we had earned as well. We know enough about those characters, have spent enough time with Capone and Torrio and Van Alden that we didn't have to contoct a tether to Atlantic City and Nucky. We had Ralph Capone going back and forth, and the Eli thing at the end, but for the most part, that existed on its own and I didn't feel like anybody had a problem with that. No one was wondering, "When is Nucky going to show up there."

So Margaret was entirely a story-driven decision, or did Kelly need to take a step back for the season?

Terence Winter: She had a baby, so there was a little bit of that. But for the most part, it was the story stuff. She was so definitively away from Nucky, we knew whatever event that would get them back together had to be big enough, and not contrived, to draw them back into the same world. It can't just be that Margaret needs money; it had to be a pivotal moment. We realized once we knew Eddie was going to go, that was the moment Nucky would reach out to Margaret. She's someone that knows Eddie, that knows Nucky, and she's someone that he would reach out to for comfort, whether or not he got it. And I think waiting until episode 6 really worked out well. I didn't necessarily need to keep checking in with Margaret all season. It felt more fun to take that journey along with Nucky, and for the first time, we see her when he sees her, and she looks different, she has a job. And at that point, I said, "Now we can jump into her world."

It felt a little bit like the way you used Van Alden last season, where it's basically an entire arc setting her up for what she's actually going to do in the following season. 

Yeah, little bit

Talking about Chicago, Eli and Van Alden had several notable interactions at the start of the series. Does Eli remember the guy who is picking him up there?

Terence Winter: I don't think you ever forget Michael Shannon. I think that's a face you don't forget. I'm sure that was a very long conversation after Eli got in that car. I think he knew exactly who that is.

With Gillian, you set up this long con with Ron Livingston's character. Where did that come from? And I know I seem to ask you this every year, but will Gretchen Mol still be on the show?

Terence Winter: There were two separate cases I had read about, both of which took place around the turn of the last century — that exact type of long con. In one case, it was a female detective who duped the male version of Gillian into falling in love with her and got a confession out of him. "There's something I sense you're not telling me. I can't move forward in this relationship until you're forthright with me," that sort of thing. It was all designed to elicit a confession. The other case involved two roommates where a guy told his roommate that he had inadvertently killed somebody, and he knew the other had killed someone for real, and he said, "Wait, you can actually get away with this." I thought that would be a neat way to get Gillian to confess. And also it was a way for peeling back the layers of who Gillian is as a person. It gave us a real opportunity explore who she is, and her backstory, and also get people to really start to care about her a little. This is a character going into the season that people despised. I think a lot of people have expressed that they now feel sorry for her. She's also a very pivotal character. You can almost zero in on Gillian as the beginning of Nucky's downward spiral. The fact that he's the guy that delivered her to the Commodore when she was a kid; crossing that line for Nucky was what started his descent into what he is today. I think Gillian is really the lynchpin for him psychologically and in other ways, in terms of telling his entire story. That single event had ramifications and a ripple effect that continue to this day on the series. And, yes, Gillian will be back.

Given the way you've told stories over the previous seasons, do you feel you've developed a level of trust with the audience that they can look at something like Willie's adventures in college and feel confident that it's going somewhere vital, which it did? 

Terence Winter: I hope so. We're well aware of the themes being portrayed on the show.  We don't have a history of putting haphazard things on the show for no reason. These words don't fall on the page by accident; we don't decide to do things by accident. Part of the difficulty with the weekly recap thing is that people are forgetting that an episode is part of a bigger piece. Occasionally, I'll read, "Well, that story went nowhere." Well, why don't you tune in next week? Maybe it'll pay off! I think we do a pretty good job of having everything tie in. To me, that's the most satisfying storytelling. I think the people who are thinking about this are going to see what's happening. Hopefully, it'll be satisfying.

Going back to Chalky and Narcisse, pretty much since the start of the series, you and I have talked about your desire to give Michael Kenneth Williams more to do, which you clearly did this season. What was it you had learned from watching him and writing the character in previous years that fed into what he got to do here? 

Terence Winter: The minute the camera's on the guy, you can't take your eyes off him. He's just so electric. Michael is one of those actors where whenever he's on screen, you're just thrilled to see him. In the pilot, he had literally one shot, one line, and I knew I wanted to see more of that guy. I knew from seasons 1 through 3 that he was gold, and you could just bet the ranch on him, and he wouldn't disappoint — especially putting him in the same room with Jeffrey Wright or Margot Bingham. He's just great, just one of those guys you're drawn to. He's so magnetic and powerful and compelling that you could bank on him always being there for him.

How did you end up with Jeffrey Wright as Narcisse? And how much of that character and the way he plays him was on the page, and how much did he bring to it?

Terence Winter: The language was all on the page, the words were all there, but the mannerisms, the cadence, the physicality, the look to a large extent was Jeffrey. And that was a no-brainer (casting choice). The question was, "God, can we get Jeffrey Wright to do this?" We did have a conversation. He wasn't completely familiar with the show when he had his first meetings with Howard (Korder) and I, but then he was very interested and very excited, and just dove right in.  We knew we were in great hands with Jeffrey, and as soon as he felt the same way about us, we were off to the races.

Finally, going back to Chicago, Van Alden refers to himself by his given name for the first time in a season and a half. Who exactly is this guy at this point? 

Terence Winter: I think he's now finally the truest version of himself that he's ever been since we met him. We meet him as this upright, hyper religious guy trying to enforce this law, but the joke's on him: no one else is taking this law seriously, and he is, and he's failing miserably at enforcing it. That was really, everybody says they believe in God, and should follow the Ten Commandments, but they really don't. People lie, they cheat, they steal, they fornicate, they do all these thing. You're just doomed to failure, trying to adhere to these rules. It's not until he starts to slip as a person is that he's happier. And the thing is, what it turns out he's really good at is being a gangster. He's probably never been happier in his life now, this is who he is, he's now back, after years of pretending, he's now Nelson Van Alden again, but he's the real Nelson Van Alden. He's not the guy we met in the pilot.

Because earlier in the season, he was all ready to kill Al Capone to get him out of his life, but he later saves him from an assassination attempt.

Terence Winter: By that point, the whole O'Bannion thing is already played out, and he's firmly entrenched in the Capone camp now. He's a good soldier. He's realized this is where his bread is buttered.

Jack Huston (Harrow) interview with Alan Sepinwall.

[h1]  [/h1]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

[h1]Latest 'Boardwalk Empire' casualty speaks about season 4 finale[/h1]
When did the performer know it was time to go? And how did they feel about it?

By Alan Sepinwall   Monday, Nov 25, 2013 1:00 AM

The "Boardwalk Empire" season 4 finale, like the finales before it, was not without bloodshed, including the loss of a regular castmember. I reviewed the finale here, and spoke with series creator Terry Winter about the season, and after the jump I have an interview with the performer who played the deceased character, coming up just as soon as I only know what I read in the papers...

So if you watched "Farewell Daddy Blues," you know that it ended with a shot of Jack Huston as Richard Harrow, the masked, scarred, damaged master killer, lying on the beach under the boardwalk, dead from gunshot wounds he suffered after botching an assassination attempt on Dr. Narcisse. Last week, I spoke with Huston, who's busy appearing in a play in his native England, about the birth and death of Richard.

How did you find out that it was Richard's time to go?

Jack Huston: I had discussed with the producers and the writers about where can he go, where else can we take Richard without using the character the wrong way, or going around in circles. We all decided that there was a possibility this might be the last season for Richard. I got a phone call from Terry, and when you get that message, you usually have an idea of what that might be. But he's so nice; it was almost a teary phone call, with him saying, "We're doing what we have to do." And I have to thank him, because he wrote me the most beautiful ending possible for Richard.

What do you mean when you say you were worried about using the character the wrong way?

Jack Huston: Richard is such an amazing, original character, in the sense of where he came from. It's very hard in a TV series. If it's a movie, you can watch someone play something like Richard, and it lasts through the movie. But on four seasons of Richard, there's a chance where you start repeating a pattern. He fell in love, he saved Tommy and gave up the love, which he found again, it's basically sacrificing himself this time again for the good of Tommy so Gillian won't get him back. The story can repeat itself a bit. Richard has a beautiful air to him, which is so unique. I said, "Tragic characters have to die tragically. And that's how you keep them in your heart forever." That's the basics of all tragedy. We wanted Richard not to go on and on and on for seasons where one could maybe not get bored of him, but there is a chance of it becoming old. That character could become old, doing the same thing, being this type of killer. There is that part of you that loves the character so much that you want him to go out in this beautiful, tragic way. I felt that's what Terry and Howard (Korder) and all those guys wanted to put together. If he was going to die, they wanted him to die when people still loved him — not when he was just another character.

It's also occurred to me that after we saw Richard cut through Gyp Rosetti's men last season, he had become so potent that basically any problem on the show could be solved by having Nucky tell Richard, "Go kill all of those people who are bothering me." I have to imagine that became a challenge for the writers as well.

Jack Huston: And that's what I mean. If you think about each season, there is a certain amount of that stuff that Richard does. What they did very smartly was to try to take him in a very different direction, which was exploring his family life. And he doesn't want to kill anymore. After exploring that, for him to come back to killing, it cancels out all the work we've done. This season, when  he buries his guns and he tells his sister, 'I can't do it anymore' and he can't even kill his dog, for him to go back to killing would take away all the emphasis of what we planned all season, of where he's gone. That's why the beauty is he dies because he doesn't have it in him to kill anymore. If he can't kill, what is he? He's found love, he got married, he's found all the things he thought he'd never had. He actually got it. He basically had a family, he was happy, and he died saving the people he loved. If he was just wounded and came back, I thought it would take something away from the character. When Terry called me, I said, "It's the perfect ending for this character, and I couldn't be happier that you gave it to me." It really is so touching. The last shot is just heartbreaking, of Richard dead under the boardwalk. ...

The last shot is also of Richard in profile, with us only seeing the undamaged side of his face. You played this character for years where, other than a few dream sequences, you had to act with only half your face. How challenging was that?

Jack Huston: I actually quite like it. There are certain affectations I do to break in characters. I like to play something which is completely outside of myself. It is amazing how the mask would completely change me, physically. My entire physicality would change. It was almost like an incredible tool that would transform me into Richard. It became like this safety zone. Once I put the mask on, I was him. It's an amazing thing that something like that could become so integral to the character. Just having it on your face, you're so aware of it, as he was. It is obviously hard, because you have to work very hard to convey certain emotions through one eye. But it gave him this incredible deepness, these wonderful images where you just see the mask, and it's amazing a character can become so apparent just from a mask. The mask is Richard, and it's him. He'll be forever remembered for that mask.

One of the other things that's distinctive about Richard is that remote, strained voice. When you got the part in season 1, how did you come up with that?

Jack Huston: I was on a train with my brother in England, I got sent this part and I just fell in love with this character. It didn't say he spoke in a different voice, but I  assumed that if his face was scarred, it could've easily affected his throat as well. So I was trying out different voices on my brother on a train. That voice just came out one second, and he was horrified by it, and I saw that and thought, "That's something new." I went and put myself on tape for it in London and sent it to Terry and the guys at "Boardwalk," and they saw it and said, "Don't change a thing."

And what were your expectations for the longevity of the character going in? Richard began as a guest star, then quickly became a series regular.

Jack Huston: I was meant to do three episodes. Anything over three episodes was an utter gift. That I managed to make it through four seasons of "Boardwalk Empire" has been one of the true highlights. I owe everything to this show. It gave me a chance to explore a character, and for people  to see me act not as myself, but as something else. I always believed in myself as a character actor. It has been the most incredible platform, working basically with geniuses. These guys, what they do day in and out, I'm just so in awe of them. There were zero bad feelings when I got the phone call from Terry, because it was almost like it had to happen. I knew it before. I just felt very honored that they had kept me for four seasons. It's been a wild ride, and one I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Richard had largely been defined by his friendship with Jimmy. When they killed Jimmy off and Michael Pitt left the show, were you at all worried that you would be following him out the door?

Jack Huston: I was! And I was so unbelievably flattered that they did decide to keep me around. It's funny: when I watch the show, Richard, really, over the last couple of seasons, his story has really been a side story. He hasn't really interacted very much with the other characters, besides Gillian and Tommy. I was so touched that they decided to explore Richard deeper, because he was a character I felt needed exploring. There was so much inside of him, and every time on set, you'd just discover more and more about this guy's life and how he would be in this time and this situation. That's what I thought was the most incredible thing: they gave me a chance to flesh Richard out a lot more, so everyone got a chance to see his true colors. They've seen all the kinds of Richard: at home, finding love, losing love, amazing moments. It's an incredible thing that they took the time out to do that with this character, especially with all the incredible characters they have on the show, which I'm riveted by.

Finally, your extended family (including great-grandfather Walter, grandfather John, aunt Anjelica and uncle Danny) have played some incredibly memorable gangsters and/or killers over their careers. How has it felt to join this particular aspect of the family business so indelibly with this character? 

Jack Huston: It's amazing. I've been acting all my life, mainly on the stage. I came out to the states when I was 21. It was really a struggle getting work. In the beginning, people approached me with trepidation, thinking they didn't want cast someone where they could be blamed for just using a name. But what was normally presented to me were characters who were quite like me, and I would always consider myself a character actor. I always was much better playing characters who were nothing like me. My great-grandfather Walter was a phenomenal character actor, as are other members of the family. It's nice to get a role like this so people can see this and say, 'Oh, he can be quite good when he puts his mind to it." Of course you want to make your family proud, and I've always had that inside: I wanted to carve out my own path, but at the same time, honor my family and my legacy. That's why I owe this so much: it gave me the platform to really explore that. I'll remember that for the rest of my life. It's nice, because now I'm with my family, and we talk about things, and I guess I'm taken seriously as an actor right now. Which is a lovely feeling.

 

 

[Nike Jordan]

Narcisse and Chalky buttheads for real.

 

[Hahahaha]

I like that Eli killed that homo. Should have done it weeks ago.



I HATED the scene with Richard shooting the daughter. The best killer on the show, suddenly can't shoot. The girl that was being detained and not allowed to move, randomly walks up to them. How did she get free if she was being held right there? That scene was terrible and complete ********.

 

[illphillip]

As much as I don't **** with Eli, I thought he gave Nucky the business while staring down the barrel of that gun.

 

[macbk]

Nike Jordan, reps for you when I'm no longer over the limit. About to give those interviews a read (thanks for sharing).

I HATED the scene with Richard shooting the daughter. The best killer on the show, suddenly can't shoot. The girl that was being detained and not allowed to move, randomly walks up to them. How did she get free if she was being held right there? That scene was terrible and complete ********.

View media item 668239
IIRC, Maybelle was walked over to the table by Narcisse's muscle.

The whole point of showing Harrow struggling was that he wasn't about that life anymore. The nerves clearly got to him. It sucks that he finally got a family life set up for himself, but that was all it was, set up. He'll never be able to experience that life.

 

[flightman]

Harrow didn't get a cramp in his hand, he had to see himself make the trigger pulling motion.

He just wasnt cool with killing folks anymore. No one remembers in the beginning of the season how he couldnt kill that one guy in the office after he mentioned his family? Also he couldn't even kill the old sickly family dog, his preggo sister had to do it. The guy even ceremoniously buried his gun. He was done with that life, but for the sake of Jimmy's kid he was pulled back in.

Back to Chalky... I still can't fathom how he leaves his kids, wife, and a big house behind with no type of goodbye or big fight, he just abondons them.

 

[rell826]

Harrow didn't get a cramp in his hand, he had to see himself make the trigger pulling motion.

He just wasnt cool with killing folks anymore. No one remembers in the beginning of the season how he couldnt kill that one guy in the office after he mentioned his family? Also he couldn't even kill the old sickly family dog, his preggo sister had to do it. The guy even ceremoniously buried his gun. He was done with that life, but for the sake of Jimmy's kid he was pulled back in.

Back to Chalky... I still can't fathom how he leaves his kids, wife, and a big house behind with no type of goodbye or big fight, he just abondons them.

Happens all the time. Some ***** is just that good to some people. Completely enamored by it. After what happened to his daughter, how could he go back? It was his obsession with Daughter that resulted in Maybelle's death.

 

[nydunkhead]

Harrow didn't get a cramp in his hand, he had to see himself make the trigger pulling motion.

He just wasnt cool with killing folks anymore. No one remembers in the beginning of the season how he couldnt kill that one guy in the office after he mentioned his family? Also he couldn't even kill the old sickly family dog, his preggo sister had to do it. The guy even ceremoniously buried his gun. He was done with that life, but for the sake of Jimmy's kid he was pulled back in.

Back to Chalky... I still can't fathom how he leaves his kids, wife, and a big house behind with no type of goodbye or big fight, he just abondons them.

This is what I thought initially but the injured hand theory did make sense to me as well. Even though he was done with that life the opportunity to have a happy ending was just too sweet and thats why he took the job.

Also regarding Chalky I don't think we've seen he last of him in AC.... I think there will be a power struggle it would be foolish to give all of that up especially with his daughter being a casualty of war. I also think since Narcisse got pinched he will have to spend a lot more time in Harlem to take down Garvey so he will be absent like Chalky was with the club and it could lead to him having an advantage over Narcisse....

 

[servechilled81]

DOYLE LIVES! 

i'm very interested in the womens prison angle with Gillian next season.  I see a Chicago vibe coming with her becoming famous in jail

the way the people were cheering for her in court

that beating Eli put on Knox was 

 the most brutal thing i've seen on tv in a while

 

[macbk]

The episodes title had me thinking of all the possible "daddy issue" scenarios they could have ended with:

-Eli/Willie
-Narcisse/Daughter
-Chalky/Daughter and Chalky/Maybelle
-Richard/Tommy*

*and that was only a minor thought. I didn't suspect anything bad would go down for him, but all signs pointed to it as the episode progressed.

Just read the articles Nike Jordan posted. Real glad to see Huston getting more work, and being cool with the killing of Richard. Had NO idea he was only slotted for three Season 1 episodes, and lasted till last night .

I love talking about this show, easily my favorite series going. When it's all said and done, it might be my favorite of all time.

 

[|A-Man|]

The episodes title had me thinking of all the possible "daddy issue" scenarios they could have ended with:

-Eli/Willie
-Narcisse/Daughter
-Chalky/Daughter and Chalky/Maybelle
-Richard/Tommy*

*and that was only a minor thought. I didn't suspect anything bad would go down for him, but all signs pointed to it as the episode progressed.

Just read the articles Nike Jordan posted. Real glad to see Huston getting more work, and being cool with the killing of Richard. Had NO idea he was only slotted for three Season 1 episodes, and lasted till last night .

I love talking about this show, easily my favorite series going. When it's all said and done, it might be my favorite of all time.

How that vase didn't break is a mystery. Yeah they were hitting each other with the base of it but still. That **** sturdier than a ************.

*and that was only a minor thought. I didn't suspect anything bad would go down for him, but all signs pointed to it as the episode progressed.

The second he flinched I knew it was over for him somehow.

Now I'm left wondering if he ever smashed. It'd be nice to see a Richard Jr. running around.

 

[Hahahaha]

Nike Jordan, reps for you when I'm no longer over the limit. About to give those interviews a read (thanks for sharing).

I HATED the scene with Richard shooting the daughter. The best killer on the show, suddenly can't shoot. The girl that was being detained and not allowed to move, randomly walks up to them. How did she get free if she was being held right there? That scene was terrible and complete ********.

View media item 668239
IIRC, Maybelle was walked over to the table by Narcisse's muscle.

The whole point of showing Harrow struggling was that he wasn't about that life anymore. The nerves clearly got to him. It sucks that he finally got a family life set up for himself, but that was all it was, set up. He'll never be able to experience that life.

I get it. Maybe he had a change of heart and no longer wanted to kill. Maybe his hand was messed up from the fight earlier. No way the daughter gets away and there isn't any type of reaction from anyone. I think it was a terrible scene. I would have preferred him putting the gun down and walking away or him even being caught.

 

[ace44bone]

I hated the Fact that Narcisse did not get offed in that final episode... But I am definitely bias as Chalky is my fav character on the show along with Doyle... Chalky was definitely in on the set up... Nucky let Chalky know where Harrow would fire the shot from... Chalky looked up to Harrow trying to get him to cancel the shot... Remember Narcisse said if I give the nod you daughter is dead... Right there Chalky realized that if Narcisse was killed then his daughter would be shot as well and that is why he gave Harrow that panicked look.

 

[rell826]

I'm glad he didn't get killed. Every season there's been a new villain.

 

[blakep267]

Narcisse won't be a player anymore IMO. He's relegated to spying in Garvey etc. So i don't see why Hoover would allow him to do anything else

 

[mr marcus]

damn chalky 

 the feels 

 

[nychiphophippo]

I understand these dudes are historical figures but I don't know their stories and avoid learning about them on purpose.

Nobody here caring to use spoiler alerts so I'm out til this show is over

 

[rell826]

Narcisse won't be a player anymore IMO. He's relegated to spying in Garvey etc. So i don't see why Hoover would allow him to do anything else

Hoover is going to let him do him. He said so.