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"Boardwalk Empire" -- "Gimcrack and Bunkum": I Know It was You, Eli. You Broke My Heart

By Aggie Maguire | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (12)

BOARDWALK-EMPIRE-Gimcrack-Bunkum-Season-2-Episode-5-4.jpg

So we’ve skipped forward to Memorial Day. Everyone is wearing paper poppies at the War Memorial ceremony which is a teensy bit of an anachronism given that the practice wasn’t widespread in the US until 1922 when the VFW decided to sell poppies nationally. Nucky gives the usual speech about valor and loyalty (using it to needle Jimmy), but speeches about “the values we fought for” in World War I always kill me: more than 15 million people died because three cousins wanted to own more land. Also on the podium with Nucky are the five bewhiskered old Dick Cheney clones who finance Jimmy’s operations with The Commodore: your typical war profiteers who show up for the flag waving but privately describe the generation that died at the rate of 1000 a day in Meuse-Argonne as “ungrateful”. Was anyone upset to see Parkhurst get his, ahem, comeuppance in the end?

There were several scenes that were tough to watch in this very heavy, virtually humorless episode, but for me none more so than the innocent trust of Eli’s son as he stood outside the garage door unaware his dad had just bludgeoned a man to death. Poor Eli! He’s a Fredo through and through and there’s nothing he can do about it. It’s difficult to see how he can stay alive much longer without any friends or even the wits to watch out for himself. He should at the very least turn down any invitations to go fishing.

Margaret, not surprisingly, is grating on my nerves in the past few episodes. If you throw your lot in with a violent crook who you know had your husband murdered, you don’t get to complain self-righteously when the rougher side of his business starts intruding on the home front. At least the maid (whose accent very annoyingly changes from episode to episode) is finally on to her and no longer trying to be her friend. Elsewhere, Gillian is still doing her full throttle Lady Macbeth and Angela is still practically in a fugue state. I realize she went through some rough stuff last season but when did she become a Stepford wife? I can’t figure out if she’s scared stiff of Jimmy, biding her time until she can leave, or just a very depressed housewife in the pre-Valium days. Did I see a quick glimpse of her and Jimmy having an intimate moment in the previews for next week? It’s difficult to see how they can recapture much because he seems to place her firmly in the betrayal camp still.

I have very mixed feelings about the Harrow story line this week. On the one hand, it was beautifully filmed and poignant: it makes sense that he would choose Memorial Day to do the deed. But it felt like a Twilight Zone episode to me where the lonely guy meets these kindly down-to-earth men with the sage old dog who save him from a desperate act. I was half expecting him to go back the next day and find no traces of their camp. But they didn’t give the guy a good reason to stay alive; and it’s difficult to take a man seriously who says “these woods are for living, not dying” when the skinned corpses of twenty squirrels are hanging behind him. Harrow didn’t return to Atlantic City any less miserable. It just didn’t fully work for me as a narrative.

Line of the week: “You killed Mary Pickford?” Who didn’t welcome the chance to laugh after 50 minutes of sadness and brutality?

Anvil of the week: Eli waist deep in the hole he’s digging.

Next week Van Alden’s story line is back which means that TV MA warning for nudity should be taken seriously.

Aggie Maguire lives in a fly-over state where she enjoys waving at the people flying over and wondering if anybody ever waves back. She is a member of the Jane Austen society and a life-long supporter of the Home for Abused Apostrophes.









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Comments

I was surprised by the blood in this episode. It was pretty graphic. You knew the rich guy who hit Jimmy was going to be paid back in kind, but wow, that was brutal.

I think Angela is quiet these days because she's basically resigned to her fate.

Posted by: Wednesday at October 26, 2011 12:27 PM

Eli is such a big, stupid baby. It will be interesting to see how he meets his end. Hopefully, he won't be skinned alive! That scene was awesome.

Posted by: dl at October 26, 2011 12:37 PM

Dudes. The Parkhurst scene. I squeeked and hid under the covers.

Posted by: the other Courtney at October 26, 2011 12:52 PM

I can think of at least a dozen people living today who deserve the same fate as Parkhurst.

Posted by: John W at October 26, 2011 1:01 PM

Is it too much to hope that Jimmy and Gilian get whacked and Richard ends up with Angela raising Jimmy's son. Angela's probably gotten more out of Richard when she was painting him than anyone has since he was injured, and he knows she can stand to look at him without his mask.

I'm normally not one for happy endings, and I'll back that up by saying the only people in this show I'd like to not see die horribly are Eddie, Chalky and the prohibition agent with the walrus mustache.

Posted by: Tree Rat at October 26, 2011 1:04 PM

Don't want to be the buzzkill, particularly because the show is taking the odd liberty here and there with historical fact, but Nucky Johnson ended up living with his wife and brother in his wife's (independently-owned) house upon Nucky's release from prison in 1945. No dead Eli.

What bothered me most is not so much that Eli killed George, or even how Eli killed George, it's that George was so thoroughly tone-deaf as not to realize that his agitation was only making it more likely that Eli would panic in kind, and that that would escalate to the point that Eli would do something so irrationally violent in the interest of self-preservation. I mean, it's not like anyone is acting with any degree of foresight, but George's faux pas seemed particularly egregious.

Posted by: Jerry at October 26, 2011 1:45 PM

Jerry:

I wondered why George didn't back off when he smelled Eli's breath. He had been drinking all evening and must have been issuing major fumes at the point.

Posted by: PaddyDog at October 26, 2011 2:42 PM

Dead on about the Richard bit. After last week's scene with Angela, it's apparent that the subtlety the writers employed about Richard in season 1 is rapidly diminishing in season 2.

I always end up disagreeing with you about Margaret. Maybe it's because there are so many female characters in the show that are almost passive observers of their lives (and that's being done so much better on Mad Men) and Margaret, whether you love her or hate her, is a woman who actively tries to shape the future for herself and her children.

Eli is very much a Fredo-like character, but his scene with Nucky in the greenhouse prior to the scuffle still can't match John Cazale's scene with Al Pacino in the Godfather II when Fredo rages about being passed over. It's one of my favorite scenes in any film, ever. That being said, it is always wonderful to see two excellent actors get that intense for a scene, and it was certainly a well-written one.

Posted by: KKO at October 26, 2011 3:06 PM

KKO:

I'm not sure anyone could match the intensity of John Cazale as an actor. A real shame that he died with so few movies under his belt.

I suppose we'll agree to disagree about Margaret.

Posted by: Aggie Maguire at October 26, 2011 8:11 PM

I don't think that EVERYTHING needs to be subtle and nuanced - I am really enjoying Harrow. I'm pretty sure he and Angela are about 2 deep-and-meaningfuls away from banging. Which I enjoy.

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