The exploited women in Boardwalk Empire

Though I am kind of enjoying "Boardwalk Empire," we will most likely abandon Season 1 at this point, after 8 episodes - M. very frustrated and annoyed by the demeaning treatment of women throughout the season, and, though I can more easily accept that there's some verisimilitude in that no doubt this is how the mobsters of the era did treat women, there's also a sense that the series itself exploits the women characters in that they are props, lurid little toys that get to play in a lot of sex scenes and cat fights; the women characters include whore-with-a-heart-of-gold and serious drug addiction, sex crazed show dancer with major oedipal issues, uptight suffragettes, sickly and barren wife left behind by self-righteous federal agent and who seems like Ethan Frome's hapless spouse, nasty dress-shop owner, pea-brained concubines, and so on; the main female character, Marguerite Schroeder, is by far the most sympathetic, smart and bold and very sweet - but she's also, incomprehensibly, an incredible fool, naively agreeing to live as the main mobster's kept woman without, seemingly, realizing how deeply he's into corruption, gambling, and rum-running. Perhaps, on "discovering" his criminal behavior, she will turn against him - but really, is that probable? possible? She's either far too smart to get involved with him in the first place or far too selfish to care how he treats her and how he gets his money - she can't really be both.

Buscemi makes Boardwalk Empire worth watching

Now through the first 3 episodes of Season 1 of "Boardwalk Empire," and, though it's flawed in many ways, it's still a very watchable series - mostly, because of Steve Buscemi, who makes every scene he's in compelling. Nocky Thompson is a perfect role for him - sarcastic, tempestuous, unpredictable, and super-smart - a corrupt pol more than a gangster, in that's he's not particularly tough but the threat of terrible violence is beneath or behind every insinuating smile. He's a contrast to the gangsters that are trying to move in on his territory, some of them historical figures: the sly Rothstein, the tempestuous Luciano, and most of all a very young and very cruel Al Capone - each of these minor figures delineated and portrayed very well. The superstraight federal agent is also a good foil against Nocky, and N's brother Eli, the corrupt sheriff, so stupid and so malleable, is another good foil - though I wish they were more credible as brothers. The weakness continues to be the subplot of his protege Jimmy, who gets expelled from the garden and links up with the young Capone in Chicago, and also the love interest, the working-class Irish girl Marguerite: neither of these characters quite holds together. Jimmy doesn't seem tough enough for the role, and Marguerite is confusingly portrayed: she seems too innocent to seek out Nocky for help, at the outset, and then, as the plot develops, far too intelligent and wily to stay within his orbit.

Can Boardwalk Empire reach Sopranic heights?

Based on the first two episodes, the HBO Terence Winter series "Boardwalk Empire" is worth watching for Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson alone - Buscemi, as he did in Reservoir Dogs and episodes of The Sopranos, makes every scene he's in better, makes many scenes great - and he's perfectly cast here as the kingpin of the East Cost prohibition mobsters. HBO itself set the bar for this kind of series extraordinarily high, and from the first two episodes it doesn't seem the Boardwalk can climb to Sopranic heights - what made The Sops so great was the focus on the family life and the interior life of Tony S., whereas in Boardwalk Nucky T. doesn't have much of an interior life - the various references to his late wife and his loneliness to not ring true and his relation with his brother, the corrupt country sheriff, have not yet developed at all - the sheriff might as well be any corrupt official, the writers have done nothing to develop the family dynamics. The weakest link, however, is that between Nucky and the young mobster aspirant, Jimmy, who's supposed to be a war vet and Princeton dropout, yet there's no clear or credible explanation as to why he would choose to stay involved with Nucky - this part obviously modeled on Christopher in The Sops but the relations are vague and the character is ill-conceived. That said, there are excellent scenes in the first two episodes, particularly the huge parties and crowd scenes in Atlantic City in the '20s - Scorcese directed the first episode, and it's clear once again that nobody today can direct these massive party scenes as effectively as he does.