That episode was the worst of any, and by far the worst this season. For me anyways.

Is there really any doubt that the kid is out of his mind and a pyromaniac?

I kind of agree. Took me 2 batches of 20 minutes and then finally finished it off.

Capone, Van Alden, and Chalky may be peripheral characters, but imo they're also the most interesting characters. I want to see more of them and less of Jimmy's mom being super creepy and weird. Margaret is fine since she's clearly important to the show, but I don't see how Jimmy's mom isn't considered a peripheral character at this point. Her importance in the first 2 sesasons was how she related to/coached/had a ****ed up relationship with Jimmy (who was clearly one of the 2 main characters). Now that Jimmy's gone, she should be too.

God damnit I miss Jimmy. Is it weird to miss a TV character?

^lol no

Everything not involving Gaston Means or Esther Randolph in this episode was pretty awful. There is no reason for Gretchen Mol to still be a regular on this show.

Outside of general badassery there is no real reason for Harrow to be a regular on this show either.

i agree with this, i don't think she has much of a place on the show either. but wow do i disagree about capone, i think his character is about the least interesting on the show. van alden's character was interesting, he still kind of is, and i think obviously that we will see him become some sort of enforcer in chicago, but that whole arc seems very contrived.

Dull episode. Moving of chess pieces and what not. Not really a fan of the Nucky vs government plotline which i assume will be the focus of the rest of the season.

kind of surprised that you see capone as uninteresting, but to each his own. Van Alden's character does seem kind of contrived, but I still enjoy seeing his evolution from hyper religious strict rule following fed to organized crime enforcer.

I didn't have a problem with the Van Alden plot before....back when I thought it was going to be about money.

But the whole FBI agent/wife/murder thing is just horrible and worst of all, unnecessary. They could have just ridden the broke angle which would have made a whole lot more sense.

what does capone have to do with this show? what relation does he have to nucky or atlantic city? barely any. if the character's name were al simpson it'd be like 'why do we keep seeing what al simpson is up to?'

Why do we keep seeing what Richard Harrow is up to? Oh that's right because he's a main character in the show and because he's AWESOME.

Your argument can be modified for anyone and doesn't really say anything.

And I think this is a problem with the show trying to be like The Wire, but not pulling it off. Jimmy was kinda sorta the main character in The Wire... if we were forced to pick one. But the show had an extremely decentralized structure, and every once in a while we'd get a pay off when seemingly unrelated characters or events became intertwined, or even just casually passed each other by. The main character was the world, the bureaucracy. BE has a much more clear main character in Nucky, and so peripheral characters getting lots of screen time feels out of place.

harrow lives in atlantic city. he worked for nucky. my argument is against ever having included al capone in the show. i've only watched the show once and i know he was involved in some plot machinations in both seasons, but he feels like a peripheral character, but was only included because he's a character people would know. although this thread seems to think everyone knew who nucky johnson was.

i know that winter wants to include all of society here, and harrow represents the veterans of WWI now that jimmy is dead. but yeah, i totally agree that there are too many characters in this show. the seasons should be longer to service all of them, or some of them should be written out.

edit: treme is a show where the seven people who watched it also felt like there were too many characters but it knew where it was going and now it's one of the best shows on TV. i don't think boardwalk empire's writers have that kind of vision though.

Amen.

I didn't watch The Wire as it was airing, but I imagine this is how it felt. Everyone is talking about this show or that show, yet no one ever talks about this amazing gem that somehow hides out of sight on HBO.

everyone dismissed it as lame and boring. and season 1 kinda was lame and boring. but now that the world is built up, it's just great to spend 55 minutes a week there. people say that the wire was like a novel on tv, but that was like a crime novel. treme is like a russian novel - it's got everything.

note: i'm still 2 episodes behind on it though :/

The wide scope of the show is one of the things I like about it. It's like reading a dense, multi-character novel. i like that there are a lot of characters that come and go.

I love the wide scope - I just think that, amazingly, it's too wide. There are a billion characters - it feels like that by trying to service all of them, none of them are serviced as much as I'd like.

I think if you physically watched the show more than one time you might understand his connection, and be of a different opinion. The 1st season was pretty critical to understanding why. You should watch that.

Yeah I just re-read the plot summary. Like I said, I still think Capone was put in because he's a 'name' and that could get people excited during the pilot (I think I was excited, tbh). Or I could be way off and he becomes vital again, I don't know.

Good points smiglet.

Capones importance will be determines by how many seasons the show goes for.

Better to put him in early in case it does go for a long run.

capone is one of THE main players in 20s bootlegging. Not putting him in would be a massive oversight on the writers part

I'm guess that was Gyp's sister giving him a hard time at the beginning. Thought that was a good scene. The church scene was great. **** it the whole episode was really good imo.

Does anyone else watch the episodes on HBOGO with the interactive features on? I find this really helpful for following plotlines.

i loved it. well, i hated everytime they came back to Gillian, but accepted it because they managed to "kill" that relationship pretty quickly.

Gyp's family was comedy. That old soldier is comedy. Tommy was comedy. Buscemi cg juggling and Margaret singing was a good scene. Emily is adorable and i still think she's a great actress for her age. Richard is just a great character, and his new girl is cute. Liked pretty much everything, and loved how it all revolved around Easter dinner.