See to me it's the same people in every thread calling anyone who dislikes a poorly written female character or story line sexist.

Fact is there's alot of bad/annoying female characters in tv shows. Often they are used as boring filler, as a foil for the main characters or got really annoying personalities.
It's so silly when some white knights come to defend characters like Skyler, Margaret, LaGuerta and Lori who got alot of reasons to hate them. If the same people hate on characters like Cersei, Joan, Peggy and Carrie you might have a case for them being sexist. If not, not so much.

nuggy is BY FAR the most frustrating spelling of a name in OOTV

Margaret, Skyler and Carmela Soprano fall in the category of "female characters people think are bitchy scolds because they show some reticence when presented with the horrors of their husband's actions." Mostly young male internet frequenters who watch the shows for escapist reasons are going to hate the woman who ruins their fantasy of being a badass criminal and view the woman as antagonists to our hero. They aren't harpies because they don't explicitly state their approval of heinous crimes while blowing their husband and cooking him dinner at the same time. There can be problematic issues with these characters, but most of the time these complaints aren't articulated it in a way beyond "durr I like the show more when things go bang bang", which can cause the actual valid complaints to be lost in the shuffle.

Think it's funny everyone seems to hate the Margaret stuff (which I too can care less about most times) but more than half the posts here are about her.

Agree about this being best ep of season and one of best of series. Love the new Eli. He's an entirely different person.

Can't believe they made me sympathize with Capone. The scene where the kid starts crying when he's trying to toughen him up was just heartbreaking. He beat a guy to death (mostly because of his son getting punched in the face) and I still felt bad for him!

The Nucky stuff was incredibly powerful even though it was obvious. You still found yourself hoping he wouldn't, but you knew he was going for the gun as soon as he turned around. And that was all about proving a point and putting some scare into Owen just make sure he understood who was boss.

I was also upset when I found out there'd be no Harrow, but didn't mind at all. This episode totally delivered. (Guess they coulda just thrown him in the Margaret parts instead though.)

The problem is the white knights try to group all of these character's detractors together and rarely differentiate between a valid complaint and misogyny. Even while said white knight may see problems with the characters themselves, they first must point out LOLMISOGYNY before listing the acceptable reasons to dislike the character. It really gets old.

As I stated, the issue with Margaret this season is that her story-line is a hospital beuracracy story-line and that just isn't going to be as interesting as pretty much anything else on the show (although the mot recent ep was better in this regard). I'd say Margaret is suffering from a serious lack of interaction with Nucky this season, and that she is at her best when she is showing reticence.

pisses me off every time I read it

Exactly. Well-stated.

all capone scenes are so great. amazing ep all around

I am fine with their reticence and think it adds to the show as a counter-point to the main characters' misdeeds.

I think the problem with these chartacters is that other than their ineractions with their husbands, they often don't tie into the main plots of the show. Thus the writers are faced with a tough decision - either the women can have very limited roles or they have story lines only tangentially related to the rest of the show.

For instance, in the Sopranos, the plot lines about Carmela's affair with the teacher had very little relation to the rest of the series (as a note, I would add that I thought the show could have done without many of the plot lines for AJ). On the other hand, the plot lines about

That is my problem here with Margaret. The shows already seem compressed enough as it is, without devoting 10 minutes to a largely unlrelated plot line about the hospital. I watch the show to see gangsters and their world - not to learn about how much prenatal care sucked in the 1920s.

I would feel the same about the Van Alden story, but it seems clear that they are going to bring him back into the main plot in the near future - I see no way that prenatal care will ever be part of the main plot.

reticence ITT

Idk if you can put Skyler in that category, people were hating on her long before she found out about Walt's involvement in the drug game

This totally depends on how you frame "the series" in your mind. The Sopranos could be about the Soprano Criminal Organization, or the Soprano family. If it's about the Soprano family, Carmela's (a character I actually disliked a lot and to whom I think many of these complaints are more validly addressed in terms of being intentionally written as a not terribly endearing character) plot lines, even if they have nothing to do with the other elements of the show, are a very valid part of the story.

In terms of the person who invoked Joan/Cersi/Peggy/Carrie- those characters are all more sexualized/attractive than Carmela/Skyler/Margaret and if Margaret spent more time with her hair down in bed with Owen I don't think we'd hear the objections we do. (and Carrie's role is much different in relationship to her show than the other examples).

Carmela was quite sexualized - definitely moreso than Peggy (and I would also say more attactive than her). There were a number of plot lines about her sexual desires (with the teacher and Furio). Plus, there were a number of sex scenes between her and Tony.

Adding a few random sex scenes with Margaret would not make the plot line about prenatal care any more interesting (and the story would be just as boring if it were Nucky or some other gangster making the drive for prenatal care).

and ur just delusional enough to believe that everyone who disagrees and/or laughs at you is trolling and/or obsessed with you? I have no idea who those same people are, I do not read threads such as these close enough. skylar and margaret are bad characters and it is not sexist to think so.

Yes, the main problem with margaret is that her character is piss poorly developed and all the different **** that she is sucked into leaves very little impression onto her and she just goes through it all like a robot without any real progress. this is why people hate her and the stupid busybody **** that she does. it has nothing to do with people having issues about women on screen. it has nothing to do with being 'reserved' either, even her maid that was on screen for like 5 minutes total and ****ed owen in the last episode is more entertaining than margaret.

FWIW I mainly enjoy Margaret and for that matter Angela's plotlines because I think they do a good job of fleshing out the non-criminal elements of the universe and I am a sucker for the little slice of life historical stuff present in the show.

sightless,
I think she is clearly learning things. She instantly went from overwrought lower class housewife, to wife of a powerful politician in like 6 months. A lot of her arc was about her not feeling like she was fitting in and not knowing how to take it and questioning her new selfish lifestyle. Starting from the donation of the land last season, she has moved towards a more altruistic life and has focused on doing good after her brief dalliance with Nucky's sinful world, while also learning how to politic and survive in this world.

There was some Soprano-level foreshadowing and thematic work this episode.

a) Nucky/Owen and then the killing of the boy. Great stuff there.
b) Capone/son and the O'Banion-thug beating. I enjoyed that parallel even if it was a bit heavy handed.
c) Eli/Nucky at the end with the buddy song playing. Appropriate.

and lastly:

Carmella was a compelling character imo, and perfectly in line with the overriding themes of The Sopranos: Family, existential anguish, denial, and the incapacity of people to change their stripes. The general complaints about her character on 2+2 were irritating because I thought they demonstrated a lack of engagement in the show. Worse though was the way she was regularly held to significantly higher moral standards than Tony.

Skylar I don't think is a great character, but I don't think Breaking Bad is a great show. She has a distinct arc though, and her breakdown is a reflection of Walter's actions. The show wouldn't work as well without her.

Margaret is intrinsically important to Boardwalk Empire simply because she is part of Nucky's home life, and it is in large part a character study. But in a show about prohibition, her arc also helps to highlight recurring themes about the hypocritical puritanism of the time. Beyond that though, the gender politics of the time are actually an interesting subject in and of themselves, and something that plenty of posters here are clearly oblivious to. I especially liked the posts asking why the religious nurse was so opposed to the word vagina etc, like it was some dumb oversight by the show's writers cos obviously no one would be bothered by the word vagina...

Anyway, Margaret's not my favourite character by any stretch, but complaining about women characters is a dependable trend in OOTV threads, which is why the 'white knight brigade' jump to claims of misogyny.

i do think margaret's storyline is particularly bad this season, but i think the writers will eventually take it somewhere interesting. maybe.

that was a strong episode - disappointed nucky didn't keep the kid around, i also misread him, but oh well. i still don't like all the strands, but that's just how this show is going to go - every episode that takes place outside of atlantic city we'll have to have a helpful hint on the bottom of the screen where we are. the capone/torrio arc seems totally divorced from the rest of the show. i recognize that they've set it up that van alden will eventually figure in to this. but still, i always have problems with this show, but that's a real strong episode of TV.

I thought Pitt was amazing, the second to last episode of last season (the one with the flashbacks to his college days) was epic. Owen is the new Jimmy for me, ie the last character I have any rooting interest in, but there is no reason to think he's going to rise to power like Jimmy did and he may end up dead at any time.

Gyp is a bad character so far.

I was under the impression that Nucky only decided to kill the kid once he realized he'd been lying to him all along.

I lied, I forgot about the half faced assassin. He's my favorite, but I'm rooting for Owen too.

I was under the opposite impression: that Nucky planned on killing him the whole time, was trying to get information from him but the feds showed up and of course they had to remain quiet. Then Nucky shoots him in the back of the head the first chance he gets.

Nucky killed the kid to show Owen who is boss / who makes the final decisions.

Towards the beginning of the encounter, Owen suggests he could 'take care of' the kid to keep Nucky's hands clean. Instead, Nucky offers the boy a cigarette. To Owen, it seems as though Nucky favors the boy and that he may spare his life / accept the offer to let him work with them.

When Owen finally comes around to the kid, thinking he is agreeing with Nucky, Nucky shoots the boy in the back of the head. Owen's opinion never mattered.

I see no evidence that she is 'learning' things. She stopped struggling with being rich long time ago, but is still acting like a confused woman character she was at the beginning of the show. If her whole story line was her slowly being acclimated to her new position of wealth and power, while slowly chronicling her change, you would find very little complaints about her. Instead she was thrust in numerous dumb subplots, which took up big chunks of the time, but ultimately had very little to do with anything.