“If America’s not about starting over, where’s the hope for any of us?” – Nucky Thompson
It’s Atlantic City, 1884, decades before Boardwalk Empire’s setting over its first four seasons. Nucky Thompson is but a lad (a great performance from Nolan Lyons), and the Commodore is in his prime, officiating over a ceremony where he tosses gold coins off the pier (the expense will be repaid a hundred fold, he promises the crowd) and the young boys in the ocean, Nucky among them, clamor for the coins.
It’s a great microcosm for Boardwalk Empire and the Atlantic City that Nucky Thompson has presided over: spectacle, greed, and the striving of the American spirit and capitalism (often brutal and lawless) in an age of change.
We then cut to Nucky (Steve Buscemi) in the Havana, Cuba of 1931. Importantly, we’ve now transported some years past Season Four and have even skipped past the end of the Roaring Twenties. It’s a new age, we know from history, with The Great Depression taking its deep and painful bite. Nucky’s still tied up with Sally Wheet (Patricia Arquette) and has expanded his dealings with her in Florida across the sea to Cuba. Nucky is still the consummate businessman and politician, even as his “legitimate” past is many years behind him now. But a path to the repeal of Prohibition might make his re-entry into the public sphere a possibility. It turns out the meeting that Nucky keeps anxiously waiting for involves Bacardi rum and the prospect of a massive distribution deal… should repeal push through at some point.
In the extensive time we spend in Nucky’s childhood – the first time we’ve flashed back to this era during the series – we learn quite a lot about his family dynamics that shaped characters we initially meet in the Atlantic City of 1920. Nucky is more than justified at not having warm and fuzzy feelings for his father, for instance. In one shocking scene by our modern sensibilities, Nucky’s pops gives his oldest son a pop across the face for not catching any gold on the pier (that young Nucky may very well have done so and concealed this from his father is mostly besides the point) with an explosive blast of violence after a sneering satire of fatherly closeness for a few brief moments. At least he had the decorum to send little brother Eli out of the kitchen before assaulting his young son.
Chalky White (Michael K. Williams) meanwhile is a prisoner on a chain gang and it’s easy to pick up that a) the conditions are brutal and b) the prisoners are black and the guards white. There’s something especially creepy and racist in the way that the guards implore the prisoners, clad in classic striped uniforms, to, “Move it stripe-y!” Chalky has seen an alarming fall from the station – precarious as it often was – he long held in Atlantic City. Therefore, it’s the most gratifying piece of the episode that involves a violent prisoner escape, perhaps spawning an unlikely partnership with a musical and telephone-phobic compatriot.
We find that Nucky’s ex-wife Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) is still a working and single gal in New York City, for Conners & Gould. The Depression hits home in the form of her boss shooting himself in front of her and a bunch of co-workers right when he was in the midst of a very odd speech about seeing a film with his wife the night before.
And we visit with Charlie “Lucky” Luciano (Vincent Piazza) as he finally engineers the violent (read = Godfather-like assassination) of Joe Masseria (Ivo Nandi). We’ve spent long seasons with the nascent legends of organized crime, and this would seem to be a major turning point for Luciano.
Overall, I’d say this is the most intriguing season premiere I’ve seen of Boardwalk Empire since the glorious and auspicious series premiere, directed by grandmaster Martin Scorsese himself. I know I’m not the only one who has felt the series has drifted around a bit over the last few seasons, though there have always been a tonnage of reasons to keep watching, often with payoffs (see: Mr. Harrow’s altruistic rampage as just one) that were well worth the occasional draggy or seemingly unnecessary storyline. I sense a sharpening of focus as we enter the final chapter and I’m awfully excited to see how things play out.
More thoughts on “Golden Days for Boys and Girls”
* “Golden Days for Boys and Girls” is the title of a children’s book that Nucky’s mother shares with him before his father sullenly storms into the house. It’s abundantly apparent that Nucky’s childhood is anything but.
* As always the set decoration is impeccable. Havana looks and feels absolutely gorgeous, for example.
* Nucky bumps into Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef) in Havana, and it’s relayed that Arnold Rothstein AKA A.R.(Michael Stuhlbarg) has sadly passed away. Sad in that Rothstein was a fascinating character expertly portrayed by Stuhlbarg. Turns out that Rothstein was killed off, so to speak, out of broad allegiance to actual historical events concerning the real life gangster and organized crime financier. Also turns out that Meyer lied about being recently married.
* “There’s room enough.” A great line delivered by the young Nucky to his compatriots crowded together in a field. It conveys that Nucky has a spine even then, and also that he is articulate and a command of the English language that will be put to endless purpose in the years ahead.
* Many years later in Havana, Nucky exhibits a clear lust for life, so to speak, when making a fair go of fending off a would-be assassin (before getting bailed out by an ear-slitting silent bodyguard).
* I couldn’t help myself when I chose, “Going to a party, sipping on Bacardi” in this review’s title. Any good fan of Flight of the Conchords will get the joke (in addition to the plight of being on a dancefloor with far too much of one thing and not nearly enough of another).
Some stats and info about Boardwalk Empire, “Golden Days for Boys and Girls”
TV SHOW – Boardwalk Empire
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 5 Episode 1
AIRED ON – September 7th, 2014
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – HBO/Max
GENRE – Drama, Crime Dramas, Period Show
CREATED BY – Terence Winter
CAST – Steve Buscemi,Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham,Stephen Graham, Vince Piazza, Michael Kenneth Williams, Paul Sparks, Grechen Mol, Michael Stuhlbarg, Anthony Laciura, Jack Huston, Anatol Yusef
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.