Welcome to episode 1 of The Pubcast. My name is Brendan O'Neill and I would normally be joined by Mike Cross and Michelle Riley. From these first few episodes we are revisiting our previous podcast, Boardwalk Breakdown. Basically we're shutting down the Boardwalk Breakdown podcast and moving those 13 episodes over here so we can keep them alive and well in our archives.
So the Pubcast is our new podcast where we'll talk about all kinds of stuff and not be limited to only talking about Boardwalk Empire and we'll actually begin on episode 14. So just consider these first 13 episodes as bonus content. Slanja. Welcome to the Boardwalk Breakdown podcast featuring Joe Riley, Michael Cross and me Brendan O'Neill.
Basically we're fans of the HBO show Boardwalk Empire providing some analysis and silly commentary. If you have any comments or questions you can contact us on Twitter at Boardwalk Break. Enjoy the show. Alright, season 3.
Let's do this. I'm not rolling. We're rolling. We're always rolling.
Oh, okay. She's the lost tape for real. Alright season 3 I'll have to say is whole 3 shit. Ship, this is when- Diplume my mind.
I would say and everybody would say sort of carry over from the finale of season 2. This is when Nucky's in full gangster mode. Yes. Season 3 premiere takes place on New Year's Eve 1922.
Yeah. Yeah we fast forward to the year or two. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. He has to be the craziest introduction of all time. When he kills that guy trying to help his team get a tire back on his head.
Yeah, I mean just violence. I mean violent, oppressive, offensive. But no reason. Damn the saying and the guy is just totally crazy and his performance is mesmerizing.
What's he saying on the list of characters that are compelling? Oh my god. He is definitely at the bottom. And there's a part of me that's- He's at the top and the bottom.
We see him and just have dread like oh this is going to be just a shit show. And then the other part of me was like this guy is so committed to the crazy in him. You can't take your eyes off him. You can't take your eyes off him.
I mean I actually looked it up and he did in fact win me at me. Yes. Thank God he's finished it. Oh yeah.
That's time out. I want to back up to that for just a second or fast forward to that in time I guess. We're in season 3 I'm going to talk about season 4. We're my campfire not involved in any of the Emmy stuff this past week.
Right. I mean that's not... Who cares? Well they do.
Listen. I don't want to hear about this. Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones.
I want two. Game of Thrones. Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is a swan-zong situation.
They get a lot. Fucking- Great, but it was a career achievement award. I mean it really was. At least people from this series should- We're a walk empire should have been nominated.
I don't care who wins. Well Chip looked mine and he was nominated- Anyone. Yeah. Yeah.
The thing that's crazy when you think about him being Vince and really Grace and being being a cop. I don't I don't want to talk about this one. I remember. How do you say his name?
Kennebali? Kennebali? Kind of Bali. Sure.
Forgive me, Fabio, if you're listening. I don't remember that. Well, he's a handsome devil. I'll tell you that right now.
And he played Will's boyfriend towards the later years. Oh, son of a bitch. Willing Grace. I never watched Willing Grace.
He was a cop. How could you? OK. I did watch it.
I didn't see the. Willing Grace was like one of my own time favorite. No, I think I'd given up on sitcoms. Well, I say you go back and revisit.
I'm going to do a podcast. I'm going to do a podcast. There you go. Right on.
Anyway, Jip was just horrible. He's a man's down. Well, it's horrible people on the face of the earth. He's pure aggression.
The physicality of the actor really, really. He was scary. He was just scary. And he would, like I said, cause me anxiety, everything on the screen because he was just purely aggressive in an impressive way, in a nonsensical way.
And clearly the character was not smart. And obviously he had. Well, the thing, the guy is helping fix his random guy, he's helping fix the tires on his sort of mobster caravan. And he makes a comment here and there about the kind of tires, or what's wrong with his car.
And Jip just doesn't understand. He doesn't know what he's talking about, because he's not smart enough to get it. He thinks the guy is disrespecting him. You know what reminded me of?
And I hate to do this too. It reminded me of Shushing. Oh yeah. Yeah.
He clearly didn't understand the word until we last that. That's totally what he is. Shushing. Shushing.
Well, it also speaks to a later point when Nucky finally gets you getting way ahead. Nucky makes the truth with Jip. And he says bone fortuna to him instead of bone fortuna. Yeah.
He pronounces it incorrectly, being that of all things, Nadi is, he is not Italian. And he pronounces it incorrectly. And Jip, being the most fucking lunatic insane person on the planet, takes it as a slight instead of someone who's not Italian who doesn't understand how to pronounce it. But again, it's one of those subtle moves within the series where you don't know if Nucky did that to be disrespected by one.
So you have to gauge it for yourself. That's right, Michael. And it makes Jip lose his mob. He doesn't take much damage to his mob.
He doesn't mean he's clearly lost his mind before we even see him. Well, I don't know that he ever had it. That may be true. But really, I mean, Jip is really what he's in too, is all about.
And Tabor Heights is really what it's all about. Jip and his blockade at the Blocade in New York in New Jersey. And it was a smart move. But he had to both infiltrate the Chicago and New York camps in order to make this work.
Obviously that was a futile attempt. But it worked for a while. But the whole season is really based on how things play out in Tabor Heights. Yeah.
We have some issues with Van Alder and going to Chicago. And what happens with the mix and the components? So I want to talk about that in particular. We're going to touch on this.
I've done a little bit of research on Dino Banyan. And the way he's portrayed in this series is fucking bullshit. And I'm taking that as an Irishman in defense of our Irish gangster assholes in this show. He is portrayed as kind of.
So speak. He was the, he was Capone before Capone. He was, I mean, physically he was much different. He wasn't this big, linky idiot Irishman.
He was a little more squat, a little more heavy, rounder face, kind of balding, a little more of a presence than the character on the show. Right. It's a different kind of guy. I think the guy who plays him is more curious.
Sorry. I care though, but it doesn't matter. You've never seen me yet. And so he was Capone before Capone.
He was much more charismatic. He worked at the press. He was like the. The mayor.
He was the mayor. At the time, the people in the area and the political establishment and the cops and whatever knew what he was doing basically. Like I never pinned on him. But he was an acceptable evil.
He benefited the community in an illegal way. It was Robin Hood. Effectively. I mean, not quite as.
Yeah, not as climbers. He was a bad element but was not sort of over the top with it. Until Torio and he got in a big battle and then took over the town for the Italian side. So I have a, that was hard for me to take.
I know this character a little bit better. I'm like, you're missing an opportunity. I think he just plays a role. Right.
Well, it was a setup. It was a setup to move the Capone side. We got to follow Capone's rise. Right.
Because that's really the story. On the outside note, this did remind me of the Ben Affleck movie. Where they do the heist and baseball. No.
The town. The town. Great movie. Because the, you know, the Whitey Bolter character in the town was in a florist.
And so was the, uh, O'Bany character in Chicago was on the florist. Yeah. Now that was real. Right.
They were both. Well, the town was a facsimile in Whitey. I don't think it actually was. Right.
No, no, I'm something. No, the O'Bany character. The O'Bany. I'm going to get into this movie.
I guess we can do this. It's later on in the season. But so he is, remember when the Italian gangsters come in, effectively, nameless gangsters, no matter who it is, they came in and they grabbed his hand at the forest shop. They grabbed O'Bany.
Shook his hand saying they wanted flowers for whatever event and held it there and then shot him in Chicago lore. That's the famous handshake murder. They shook his hand and shot him so he couldn't get away and that led to the St. Valentine's Day massacre.
So in the weeds in that I think Van Alden is down below or behind the in the flower shop sort of aware this is happening doesn't do anything and he's sort of a bystander to this very famous murder. So but all that was good it made sense but that was a real deal was the Scofield flower shop was there it was actually across the street from a church too which had some significance to a van in some way and it was a whole Chicago Irish Catholic. Anyway back to season one or season three. Jesus.
Tip just goes on a freaking rampage trying on Taver Heights then Alden goes to Chicago. Eli finally gets out of jail and when I thought that was the most interesting thing of the early part of season three was Eli's relationship with Nucky. We tried to have killed right and now he's out and trying to suck up to Nucky and find a place back in the world that was wild. Any Ducey Eli little bit with his own family and just see the dichotomy there of him trying to play it straight with that wife who wants to believe that her husband's a police chief and that her brother-in-law is a freaking whatever he is.
What does he look like a county commissioner? He was. Treasure or something? Yeah.
Anyway she of course annoys me because there's also sort of a storyline that filters into season four with Eli's oldest son going college. Right. Right. Yeah I don't think so.
But you're right brother. The Eli sort of trying to figure out how he's going to be after he gets out of jail. I wouldn't think the gangster Nucky would overlook that. He was more cold in calculating than he turned out to be.
He would. He eventually gets there. But yeah he needed him at the time. That's where you have to become savvy when you're watching the show in that you have to start to understand that every move is done in a calculated way.
So he didn't kill him doesn't mean that he wants him alive. That just means that he needs him alive right now. And that's kind of an overriding theme throughout the show is everyone's making chess moves with people's lives based on the necessity to have them around. And unfortunately Nucky is not thinking in a passionate way of this is my you know the same flood courses through our veins.
Exactly. I need him around for a while so I won't kill him now. Yeah. I felt a little bit although it's not a one to one comparison.
I felt a little bit of the Michael Fredo relationship. Yeah. Totally. I think there's a huge shy there.
I mean it's definitely a hint of that. And you know the favorite son versus the other guy. Kind of the ad. The lost soul.
The wandering soul of family right. And in this season Nucky definitely floats away from Margaret. Yeah. But he you know he gets out of the girlfriend and she's doing her thing with the women's clinic and all that other stuff.
But he seems to me to be sort of using Eli's family as a way to get what he's not getting from Margaret which is let me be nice to these people. Let me be a patriarch here. Let me help these poor little fuckers since their dad was in jail and it's feeding his. It's feeding his ego massively.
Right. His need to be seen as a good guy. I think he you know that family thing in tact. One thing about him as a character is that despite the fact that he's calculated now after season two he's this full blown gangster.
He's still a guy who wants to feel like he's important on a personal level to people. Right. Yeah. He needs that to feed his ego to feed it.
And it helps him feel like he's okay. Right. It makes you feel like he's okay. It makes you feel like he's well I can't really be this bad of a guy if I'm doing this.
Right. But you know one could argue that that sort of hypocrisy is the worst way to live anyway. But anyway the Eli relationship is complex and it's really really fascinating. I actually think season three is the most balanced in the way that the war is portrayed between Chicago and New York and Philly a little bit in Atlantic City and the way that sort of all plays out.
And then Jip is just the wrench and the whole story. I mean he is a catalyst and he is obviously a clever way to tell that story. But he is bananas. I mean the most aggressive most egregious.
When he beats that priest. I mean violence. Violin beats that priest. I mean it's significant.
He's in everyone's business. Yeah. From the get go. He wants a piece of everything.
He wants to take people out and take over their operation no matter who it is. He wants the whole app. He doesn't want to fight with it. Right.
And that's I mean that's. I mean this is such a great performance by him and unbelievably. I'm like he portrays that sort of confidence in that sort of on the man mentality. But then when you see him and he's like his home life or when he's with Mazariria or whatever.
He's a peon on he's a soldier. He's not a general at all. Well and to equate it to any of our sports fans who may be listening he's like the Dexter Manley of the gangster world right. He's the guy who's sitting there reading the Wall Street Journal or pretending to read the Wall Street Journal while he can't read right.
Right. He is totally putting on a show. And the only way he knows how to act on that to exercise that power is through violence. So the people that are that violent are over-capped and standing for incredible amount of insecurity.
Yeah. Deficiencies and security is there. Yeah. I mean he's reeking of those but he's so compelling in this dramatization of this person.
I mean he is gigantic on the screen. He's absolutely. Definitely larger than life. Yeah.
Right. He really stood out on the show from the second he came in. And he's a believer to the show. He owns all season.
He does. He does. And I'm trying to think if I mean this is stupid but I think that I maybe was pregnant during the season. Yeah probably.
I don't know if it was me. Emotion. Emotion. I mean this was a thing I was like I can't watch.
I can't get up. I got a lot more squeamish about violence. I got a lot more squeamish about violence. Yeah.
That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. But I just can't.
I mean it was exhausting to watch Chip because you're like God you're a maniac. You know on another level and I know probably Bhushami doesn't feel this way because he's such the quintessential professional but how would you feel if you were an actor on that show who had been there for two or three seasons and here comes this guy who just absolutely is a free train. He just freaked out. He absolutely dominates the show.
He takes over. He does. I don't know that you can get away with that character with many actors. I really don't.
No. Well the truth is I don't know how I feel if I was one of the characters that you described but as far as Nucky goes I mean he's got to be slow and steady. He's not going to change. He's not going to change.
He's not going to get killed anytime soon. He can't change his personality. I mean he can shift. He can have his shifts from half gangster to full gangster.
He can take baby steps to becoming the animal that he is. He's there to be inside his own story. How do you feel like from let's look at it from the outside in? As an actor.
I'm an actor. I'm on the show. I have a good part. I'm Chalky.
I'm Chalky who's a great character. We haven't given a lot of time. We've given him a lot. But you know he comes from big season four.
But how do you feel if you're Chalky and you've done epic performances in season one and season two. Season two particularly is when he kicks in the eye gear and then along comes Jeff in season three and he just rolls over. He's game rolls everything. I don't even tell him it's the actor.
I mean every freaking preview in season three was Jeff. He's a maniac. I mean and he dominated the storyline. I think everyone could see sort of when I assume when they were handed the scripts or when they saw him perform.
He was the candle that burned twice as bright but it happened long. He was coming in and fires. I don't know how long you could sustain something like that. Well but I mean in the arc of the series I mean they may not have known as only one of season five.
I mean I realized when the end was the end was not far after season five. No. It would be long six. So everyone knowing the arc of the way these sort of dramas go the middle act at three and a three-act play or whatever it is is always where the most conflict happens.
The most ass-taking happens in the middle right. So this was effectively the middle depending on how you want to cut it. And they knew someone had to be that guy. I also feel that you know I mean to take out the performance in and of itself there is an arc.
I think that this season was one of the most perfectly balanced in terms of the story and the writing because basically you had to have an epic force Jeff to pull to be able to bridge that gap where Ross Dean and Nucky were going to come together to shut him out. I don't know what that is. It's a big reason to sort of gang up on this dude and take the whole New York situation. Because the last say three episodes were so intense and so much violence I had three or four maybe two where the war was happening and Capone teams up with Chalky and they are fighting in Nucky's stead effectively and taking out Mazaria's guys and taking down or chopping the legs out of Japan whatever the last quarter of that season is just a firefight.
Yeah. The first three quarters balance it off that well. But what do we get? I mean at the end what do we get?
I think in the final episode of season three we got like 67 kills in the final episode. I mean Jeff is dead. Mucky wins the war and five at least. Well I mean it's very I love the prophetic nature of Jip's end in the you know with stabs.
Yeah and that's called scale war and Atlantic. But it's very shakes the end of it. It's very it's very it's very it's very it's very it's very it's very it's very it's very it's it's yeah it's yeah it's a leak and I'm getting two shots of some of the Atlantic city part. Right.
I just I love the whole arc and I and you know as much as I was disappointed that Jip was dead because I wanted more Jip. I could take any more. I think we had much Jip as we needed to get. I could take any more.
It's you know I don't want to jump off into other shows too much but like homeland I don't know if you guys watch homeland but he needed to die right. He had to go. He had to go because he had run his course right. You know how much more of this can we possibly take living on the edge of our seats you know wondering who's gonna you know what port none is gonna get whacked by Jip.
He's heard that. He's looking at him the wrong way. And one of the things that we that this season does pretty well is set up the for lack of a better term the next generation of gangsters the Meyerlandski the Lucky Luciano they start trying to get there to find their footing. Well the arc starts going there right and right starts seeing the tell right they start gifting a heroin operation.
Yeah. Or do you know with mozzeria or not or it's a whole thing. What you getting to that whole shift in the gangster world and they're above their heads too like they get out of the way out of the way. I get out of the league at this point and they've got the ties to Arthur Ross team yeah Arnold Ross team and they got they've got the drug thing which at the time was a very new flavor of the gangster world and touched on in the Godfather film.
Yeah roughly the same time. Right about the same time right and that was just a new introduction and how the old guard didn't want to part of it and the new guard was gonna do it no matter what the old guard wanted but they were gonna do it behind their back and there's conflict there that you're gonna see come to a resolution in a bad way right because it always does and not just kind of a I thought season the end of season three in one in the season four was very well done and it season three really set the table nicely for season four. We got our third act which is you're right. The catalyst act in any given play right it's where the most drama or activity happens and then it leads us right down this path of kind of a steady dose of violence anger.
Yeah I mean just work and then I'm gonna touch on a couple things. Margaret takes up with Owen again sort of extending that relationship we kind of know where that is heading. Then Michelle you mentioned that Margaret sort of putting her time and effort into the sanitary conditions the hospital and that's a whole right. I really forced into that.
The kids get involved and I didn't like that. I wasn't found of that. I think at that point we got we had too much Margaret right. I think they were trying to force feed us Margaret and it needed to kind of die down.
It's sort of parallels though then Capone and the couple of insights into his little home life and his deaf son and how he handles that and he's not great with it. No that's a whole thing. And then we get into Nucky and Owen. Plan the move against Mezzeria.
Right. He's definitely acting as some sort of sidekick conciliaries something. Is it this series or is it season four where they go to Ireland and they find that big cash of whiskey? I remember that.
Three. No. This is like before. Oh and they bring it back.
Owen was involved. I think Owen died at the end of the season. Yes he does. So it's got to be during the season where he goes to...
I'll say Belfast. I don't know. I think it's Northern Ireland somewhere. There's a whole...
Nucky finds a new source of whiskey. Not having a lot. They're lying everybody else. They're trading guns.
He's got the guns from leftover from the war. Nucky finds this ammo depot with all these guns and stuff. And of course I think he goes there and he makes a mess. He's secretly one of my favorite characters.
He's always there. He's always fucking up. That little like maniacal laugh. He does.
He has like a cartoonish laugh. I think in a different series that actor and that character could be a whole thing. I think it's very good. Alright, Margaret becomes pregnant with Owen's baby.
Yes. That's a whole thing. Says Nucky off eventually when he finds out. Maybe the most interesting temporary relationship is when Eli brings Capone back from Chicago.
Nucky is sort of very vulnerable. He's in this lumberyard trying to sort of regroup. Regroup. Yeah.
Figure out what's happening. Fight of battles. That was very curious. Eli.
Eli brings in Capone. Yeah. And it's Capone and Chalky who are the defenders of Nucky and Eli. That was really interesting.
These two sort of at the time underlings fighting the war for these big shots. Right. Yeah. Because at that point Capone is really not the centralized character that we are.
But he didn't hesitate to soon up for that. Capone is almost like Jeff and he's quick to violence. Right. As soon as Capone turns bad he's gonna fill the first punch.
He's in. Alright, basically Chalky and Capone massacre. Maserius. I can never.
Maserius. Man. Too many Italian names. It's my Irish people.
I'm gonna say Murphy just like that. Oh Connor. Oh Connor. Oh I'm in.
Yeah. And then Richard. He takes Tommy away from Jillian. That's the whole kid.
That was the kid I don't like. I get it but I don't like it. He takes Tommy away and gets it to his new girlfriend. Julia.
And Emily solidifies that relationship. Yeah. It really humanized him in a lot of ways. He's saying the kid has this.
Meaning act of Jillian. This is a tired killer. We knew he was an okay guy but that's all we had seen in a minute. And then we were just being used for sharpshooting skills.
So this really did kind of humanize him in a lot of ways. I thought they over reached with that arc. I think so. That arc.
Yeah. I did too. It didn't really move. But what I was leading to was the end of season four.
When he had the bloodbath. So I think they were teeing that all up by using that as kind of. Well and they were, I mean in terms of teeing it up, they were definitely trying to show how invested he was and how close he was. How real it was to him.
Yeah. And then that made his commitment in the season four to doing what had to be done and stronger. And then he was giving up. So, alright.
And then to wrap up season three. And this is all big stuff that we're going to hit in about two minutes. It's an hour worth of talk. But Nucky uses political connections to settle score with Ross Dean.
Richard gives time to talk about that. Right. Rosetti then made his remaining two or three henchmen. On orders from Nucky.
Jip's guys stabbed in the death while he was taking the piss of the beach. Which is amazing. There's a Nucky tie to Jip's death. Nucky finds Margaret and the relationship is over.
She's off to Brung One. She's off to live by herself with the kids in a small apartment. Coil in and on the mini. Yeah.
Back to reality. Certainly to be over the top. And then while he's now lonely, everything he had is gone. I mean there's no Margaret, there's no Jimmy.
Eli is a whole different relationship there. He is now retaken in the clinic city. He's back to the guy. And he is at this point turning into quite the sociopath.
Right. And he's gone from a guy who was trying to cling to any kind of a family kind of a relationship-driven world to I'm the boss and I'm gonna get you done. And I think at the end of this season you see it like that. Most clearly that he's most concerned with power.
I mean he needs to be in charge. He's powerful. If he's not, then he's a problem. And now he's back in charge.
Right. Teying up season four. Sorry for the abrupt end of the show. But for the first few episodes where we recat each season, we recorded them all in one sitting and needed to break up the discussions of consumable bite-sized pieces centered around each season.
Thank you for listening to the Board Lock Breakdown Podcast and follow us on Twitter at Board Lock Break. Future episodes of this podcast will focus on a single episode of Board Lock and Bear.