“I didn’t spend my life getting groped by a bunch of drunks to wind up in a goddamn poor house.” (Gillian)

What an unexpected episode. Like a fait divers, we got treated to a season changer in the form of a stroke. What happens in a world like Boardwalk Empire’s when the king falls?* The pawns start rearranging themselves. Everyone starts looking at the queen. Which is exactly what this episode does.

I’m happy to finally get some more emotions out of Gillian. She’s always been Jimmy’s slightly creepy mother and we knew everything that happened to her in the past with the commodore… but we had no clue how this impacted her emotionally. I thought she was pretty happy with her life overall – she surely gave that impression. Of course it struck me as odd, but I never figured she might be hiding everything. The final scene, in which she gave the commodore a spanking, was the first time I finally seemed to get her. It’s nice to see side characters take a more central role.

Speaking of side characters and backstorywounds, we got treated to a bit of Richard’s. I think I’m going to start a drinking game: every time a scene makes me feel more pity towards Richard, I’ll drink a glass of wodka. Or an entire bottle. Jesus, what that guy has been through is insane. Not feeling anything for his twin sister anymore. They must have thought for a long time in the writer’s room to decide on whether they would choose a sister or a spouse. The sister is definitely sadder – while you can fall out of love with your wife, doing the same with a family member is so much harsher.

I liked the cliffhanger leading into next week’s episode. What will be the repercussions of Doyle’s distillery blowing up? Here’s to hoping it leads to an entire episode revolving around Doyle and maybe a backstory depicting the origins of that amazing laugh.

Thoughts and things

• Twenties award of the week? Must be the way people talked about the commodore. It’s like he’s worse than dead. On the flip side, people still do this today.
• Van Asshole. Heh heh heh.
• Nice to see Mickey Doyle again. I wonder if they write that laugh in the script?
• I haven’t mentioned Margaret’s secret stash. I wonder what that’s about?

In all..

A very strong episode. Again. It’s getting harder to write about Boardwalk Empire because it’s just been so consistently good. For me, no episode was better or worse than the last. Maybe when I watch them all consecutively I’ll have a different opinion, but right now it’s been greatly entertaining all the way.

* Note: I never win at chess.