Creator: Terence Winter
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Michael Stuhlbarg, Stephen Graham, Vincent Piazza, Michael Kenneth Williams, Anthony Laciura, Paul Sparks, Jack Huston, Bobby Canavale, Gretchen Mol
Running Time: 600 minutes
Certificate: 18
BOARDWALK EMPIRE was left in a rather precarious situation following the Series 2 finale – Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), probably the show’s most interesting and unpredictable character, was dead at the hands of Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi). The backlash from fans was huge, and the show’s writers had a monumental task ahead of them in attempting to regain viewers in Series 3.
Their solution? Gyp Rosetti, the series’ new big bad, and also basically the evil version of Jimmy. At least for a bit, as his unpredictability at lashing out at people soon weans into the predictability that he will always do the worst thing he possibly can. He’s fun to watch, with Bobby Cannavale giving a particularly unnerving menace to the character, but he still doesn’t feel quite as three-dimensional as Jimmy did.
Nevertheless, Rosetti provides perhaps the greatest threat so far to Nucky’s empire. Where the first series saw his power rise, the second series opened up the possibility that the man of power was not invincible, with a plot to bring him down coming from those within his inner circle. Series 3 explores this even further, as Nucky’s few remaining allies slip away from his reach and he finds himself alone and isolated, with Rosetti marching in to take over.
While the narrative sounds interesting on paper – Rosetti moves to secure Tabor Heights, a key stop-off point between New York and Atlantic City, in order to cut off Nucky’s booze shipments and take control – BOARDWALK continues its trait of doing everything at a horrendously slow pace over the series’ 12 episodes. While the first two series’ narrative arcs gave room for the writers to crank up the tension right the way through, those with a shorter attention span may be far more inclined to switch off Series 3 after the first three or four episodes.
It’s not difficult to pinpoint why this is – with Jimmy and wife Angela both dearly departed, there’s barely an interesting or likeable character left in the series. And head writer Terence Winter doesn’t seem afraid to continue his penchant for killing off those characters that might stray towards being remotely likeable, either – so by the series’ end, just like Series 2, all we’re left with is a bunch of characters we wish were dead instead of Jimmy.
Not every character can last forever and of course, it might be argued that it’s time to move on. But it’s hard not to dwell on how much better Series 3 might have been had Jimmy become the new face of the show, and Nucky departed instead – not least because Buscemi now plays arguably the least interesting character in the show.
Masked war veteran Richard Harrow, one of the show’s few remaining likeable characters, provides an interesting counterpoint to Nucky that helps to illustrate the problem with Buscemi’s character. Around halfway through Series 3, Nucky asks Richard how many people he’s killed, and whether he thinks about any of them. Richard’s retort (‘what do you think?’) paints a vivid picture of a man conflicted, wrestling with inner demons while attempting to make something of himself in a world without war.
Nucky, on the other hand, might as well be the series’ villain for all the remorse he shows. We catch glimpses of his true vulnerability after he’s rocked by an explosion on the boardwalk, but the direction of the character cemented by Jimmy’s murder does not falter in Series 3. Nucky is a cold-blooded killer who plays the game without compassion, and essentially turns BOARDWALK EMPIRE into a show about villains fighting villains with nobody left to root for.
Of course, villains fighting villains can be entertaining – it’s just that BOARDWALK EMPIRE no longer is. The final two episodes contain some dramatic and engaging sequences, but that’s not enough to merit a slog through the rest of this often painfully slow series. It’s a crying shame, because Series 1 is still one of the best things to come out of the recent boom in American television.
After Jimmy’s death, the direction of BOARDWALK EMPIRE Series 3 was always going to make or break the show. Sadly, it appears to have done the latter – while the sets are still lavish and the strong cast still give superb performances, it takes more than that to create 12 hours’ worth of engaging television.
BOARDWALK EMPIRE Series 3 is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.
