“How Nucky shoes be fitting these days?” (Chalky)

If you say you didn’t see it coming, you’re pretty much blind. Sure, it’s HBO – if Boardwalk Empire were a network show, Angela’d been dead ages ago. But, even with HBO’s budgets, a role can be so piss-poor that not even money can save it. So Angela bit the duts in what would otherwise have been just another Boardwalk Empire episode.

And yes, I do think it’s kind of a shame. Angela was our window into the strange cultural world of the twenties. Unfortunately, given the rigourous outer plot, she had no room to blossom. If you hadn’t forgotten about her by now, you can safely let go now. So long Angela, your biggest deed will always have been cutting your hair.

Which doesn’t mean her death was entirely useless. On the contrary, it functioned the way every good Angela-related moment has functioned: in service of another character. Her murder is exactly what Chalky’s title question refers to: how is it to talk the talk? How will Jimmy respond? Retaliation? Go in there guns blazing? And: what good will it do? A lot of interesting possibilities there. Only shame is they were all created out of a dramatic rough patch.

Other things happened, too. Boardwalk Empire showed us its vision on religion under the motto shame shit, different day. Margaret donated all her money to charity and got misery in return. I think they constructed this plot for Van Alden at a certain point. It’s interesting to see Margaret struggle with her faith; it fits the character’s dramatic curve this season really well.

Thoughts and things

• Twenties-award of the week? How about an angry mob of white people with clubs slaughtering a group of black people and no one notices?
• Speaking of which, the way Eli abused his deputy was diabolical.
• Rothstein and Nucky share some wonderful scenes. I loved the nonchalant way their lawyer put another signed ball on his table after giving his to Margaret’s son.

In all…

It was a nice bait-and-switch, but it solved a problem that’d been bugging me all season. Oh Angela, you had such a great storyline in the first season. What happened? Was it us? Was it because we angrily proclaimed, pitchforks in our hands, that we wanted more plot? Oh, what fools we were. What mighty fools…

But the most important question is: will Jimmy’s mother touch his son’s little winky now?