Season 5, Episode 3: 'What Jesus Said'
A hand breaks through a pane of glass on a door and turns the key on the other side. Chalky (Michael Kenneth Williams) and his new partner in crime, Buck, enter a neat, turn-of-the-century home. First things first, they raid the icebox. After their chain-gang escape and long journey, they're hungry. Buck drinks from an old-fashioned milk bottle as Chalky cracks an egg into a glass and swallows it down. But they're hungry for more than food.
"You said a safe?" Chalky asks. "So where it at?"
"Somewhere," Buck says.
As they search the joint in the early morning light, a teenage girl in a white nightgown appears. They ask her for money, but she says, "We don't have any cash." She claims to be alone. Buck pulls out a gun and accuses her of lying.
She is; soon the girl's mother, Marie, drifts downstairs as well.
Cut to Nucky's 1880s flashback, a familiar setting in this final season of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." Young Nucky seems to have been promoted from porch sweeper to all-around lobby boy at the Commodore's Corner Hotel. Responding to the command "Boy!" over and over, Young Nucky (Nolan Lyons) scuttles around, setting up chairs on the beach, holding an umbrella over a woman in the rain, noticing a pretty young thing around his age on vacation and carrying flowers up to a man's room. The man chats with him about love and asks him to bring fresh flowers every day. As if receiving an extra-special tip, Nucky gets a peek past the door at the man's beautiful, naked companion inside.
Returning to 1931 Atlantic City, Nucky talks on the phone to Sally (Patricia Arquette) in Havana; she seems to be running a very nice-looking bar or maybe even a whole hotel. They discuss Senator Lloyd's not showing up at the Mayflower Grain Corporation meeting, but Nucky tells her of a possible new partner for his enterprise, a Wall Streeter named Joe Kennedy, the "big fish coming down from Boston looking to get into the liquor business." "Happy Days Are Here Again" comes on the radio, and Nucky and Sally listen to it together on opposite ends of the phone. "How's that for an omen?" Nucky says.
He opens his mail as they listen. One letter has a return address: Miss Nellie Bly, The Pirate Sea, En route to Cathay. Nucky looks concerned. Is it from the real Nellie Bly, one of the first female muckraking journalists? (Seems unlikely, since she died in 1922.) Could it be the letter that Gillian (Gretchen Mol) was writing from the psychiatric ward? Is it his young, lost love from the flashback? Are she and Gillian one and the same? Hmmm.
In New York City, Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) is being questioned by some company men about Abe Redstone, the alias that Arnold Rothstein used at her investment company. They explain that although Rothstein died in 1928, his account was kept "very much alive" and that there had been 18 cash withdrawals over the years, amounting to $111,000. Margaret's boss, Mr. Bennett (of the self-inflicted bullet to the brain), had been siphoning funds and using them to play the market. But Margaret was the signer of many of the checks. She explains that she often signed off on much of Mr. Bennett's business. The widowed Mrs. Rothstein is about to sue the firm, and they're looking for someone to take the fall.
Back to the home invasion, which borrows heavily from Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood." (The episode's co-authors, Cristine Chambers and Howard Korder, must be fans.) Readers of that nonfiction classic will recall that Dick and Perry break into the Clutter home because Dick heard from a cellmate who had once done work on the Clutter family farm that there was a safe there. Buck (whose name is close to Dick) says that he once delivered ice to a fancy party here years ago and that the man of the house just watched him haul the 100-pound block. All he gave Buck was a "that'll do." Buck seems to still hold a grudge.
He says he saw a safe in the basement. The women, Fern and her mother, Marie, claim not to have it any more but offer $9 from Marie's purse. "Take it and go," Marie says.
Fern tells them that her father is away on business. Buck menacingly aims a gun at them, while Chalky tries to defuse the situation by asking her what grade she's in. Tenth, she answers.
Chalky knows, from having children, that if the girl doesn't go to school today, someone might send a truant officer around. The mother agrees. "Yes, they've very vigilant," she says. Chalky is itching to leave.
"Get the green, and let's get ourselves gone in daylight," Chalky says.
But Buck is not backing down. "There's a safe in that cellar," he says. "I done seen it with my own eyes. I never forget it."
Fern and Marie claim to no longer have the safe, having moved everything to a safe deposit box in the bank. They offer to go to the bank to get the valuables. "I'll stay, and Fern can go into town," Marie says, nervously.
Chalky suggests they forget it and just tie the women up and leave. The father will find them when he returns home, and he and Buck will be long gone. But Buck refuses to give up.
In Harlem, Chalky's old nemesis, Dr. Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright), is meeting with Lucky Luciano (Vincent Piazza) and Bugsy Siegel (Michael Zegen). Maranzano wants to continue the drug business that Masseria conducted with Narcisse. But that's not all: Maranzano wants to offer Narcisse protection.
"Against what?" Narcisse asks.
Luciano explains: "People are losing things all over. Some guy, he's a millionaire, next thing you know he's selling Chiclets in the street."
"Or worse," Bugsy says.
But Narcisse is not easily rattled. "I thank you both for your concern," he says, "and I'm sorry you came up this far for nothing."
Back in Atlantic City, Kennedy (Matt Letscher) is visiting Nucky and brags that he has eight children. Nucky claims to have two and mentions that his nephew is an assistant in the United States attorney's office in Manhattan. (So Willie got the job after all.)
Over veal parmigiana and an offer of red wine, Nucky discovers that Kennedy doesn't drink. "It's hard enough doing business as an Irish Catholic," Kennedy explains. "I try my best to thwart the notion that we're all drunkards." So Nucky changes his own order to seltzer.
Buck, meanwhile, falls asleep in a rocking chair with the gun in his hand. Marie and Fern, still in their nightgowns, are tied up with rope, just like the Clutters from Capote's book. And I'm hoping, nervously, that they won't meet the same fate. Marie tries to persuade Chalky to take the gun and leave, but Chalky tells her to shut her mouth.
Fern asks Chalky about his own daughter. He says he called her Maybelle. He doesn't mention that Maybelle was accidentally shot and killed at the end of last season while in his Onyx Club. So anything is possible. Innocent young women get murdered all the time on "Boardwalk Empire." I'm on the edge of my seat, worried there will soon be "hair all over them walls" – to quote Dick.
"There's forgiveness for everyone," Fern says. "That's what Jesus said."
"Baby girl," Nucky answers, "Jesus was wrong."
There's a knock at the door, and a package is left on the doorstep. It's a dress for Fern's spring formal. Buck, now awake, unties Fern and tells her to put it on. She starts to put it on over her nightgown, but he demands, "Put it on proper." As she starts to slowly take off her nightgown, Chalky makes a move to stop what's unfolding, (just like Perry did to Dick when he proposed raping the young Nancy Clutter), but not before Marie blurts out, "The safe is upstairs!"
Margaret, back in New York, sits down to tea with Mrs. Rothstein, who serves it black. "I don't keep milk in the house any more," Carolyn Rothstein (Jennifer Ferrin) says. "It turns my stomach." (You'll recall A.R. loved his milk and cake.)
Carolyn, one tough cookie, gets right down to business and lets Margaret know that she knows all about her. Not just that she was living in a Rothstein apartment but that her husband is Nucky Thompson. "Nineteen years of marriage — do you know what I have to show for it?" Carolyn asks. "This tea set, that hideous chair, this ring and humiliation. Arnold left me buckets of that."
She wants the money that was taken from the account. When Margaret says she doesn't have that kind of money, Carolyn shoots back, "Your husband does." Carolyn's ring, she explains, came from a treasure chest at the Egyptian-themed party hosted by Margaret and Nucky years ago, a party Rothstein attended. The chest was hauled out, and all the guests got to choose from a lavish display of jewelry. Ah, the good old days. If Margaret doesn't pay up, she may have something in common with Carolyn: seeing her name in the paper next to the phrase "notorious husband."
In other flashbacks, Nucky is bringing flowers to the man in the room with the naked woman again, but no one answers. The Commodore (John Ellison Conlee) sends him off to drive a pony cart for some vacationers. Nucky is parked with the pony as a couple sleep on the beach. Their daughter, the young girl he spied earlier in the episode, comes over the dunes after taking a pee and recites some lines from the Bible having to do with Enoch – who walked with God and was taken up to heaven without dying. They discuss the passage. She then offers Nucky 10 cents to kiss the pony. So much for scholarly Biblical debate.
When her mother calls, she quickly turns away. But when she looks back, Nucky walks over to the pony and plants one on his snout. He then sees the man who asked for the flowers standing on the beach, alone. Nucky explains that he had brought the flowers again, but no one answered. "Be sure she gets them," the man says.
Chalky, meanwhile, is hammering away at the upstairs safe, to no avail. He and Buck are arguing over the fact that they can't open it. When Marie says her husband has the combination, Buck breaks the wall to pieces with the hammer. Since anything can really happen in this show, and since – spoiler alert to anyone who's never read "In Cold Blood" — the Clutters were massacred by Dick and Perry, I expect Buck to bash their heads in as well. Instead, even worse, he grabs the gun and holds it to Fern's head, at which point Marie yells out, "I'll open it!" (This woman has got to be kidding. I would have opened that safe hours ago.)
Inside are liberty bonds, the only thing the father – who was never really coming home — left them. Buck cocks the gun, but Chalky hits him in the head with the hammer. When that doesn't do the trick, and Buck attempts to choke Fern, Chalky plants the sharp end of the hammer in his neck. (Those writers, always looking for new ways to kill people!) So much for new friends.
That feisty Fern grabs the gun and points it at Chalky and asks if his own daughter knows what he is. "She knew what I was," Chalky says.
"Take the $9 and get out of our house," Marie orders.
Back in the present, Nucky is entertaining Kennedy in his burlesque club, trying to persuade him to join him in the bootlegging trade. In the upstairs office overlooking the club (a staple in many film noir movies), Kennedy is talking about his kids, how he's teaching them to sail. He calls Nucky out on the fact that there are no photos or drawings anywhere from his own children. "What's that got to do with making money?" Nucky asks.
"It's what you're making it for," Kennedy answers. A tense conversation ensues, in which Nucky admits, "I want to leave something behind." Kennedy pours him a drink and then goes off to meet with one of the burlesque dancers.
Nucky, oh so lonely, downs it and then pours himself another.
While Mickey Doyle rounds up some hobos to help load Nucky's liquor trucks, Bugsy and another friend are paying a visit to Harlem to one of Narcisse's whorehouses. (It seems Narcisse has branched out into other enterprises over the past seven years.) They execute the pimp and kill all the prostitutes.
In a flashback, Nucky returns to the man's room to deliver the flowers, but the sheriff answers the door. The naked woman lies dead behind him, her throat slashed.
Nucky tells the sheriff (Boris McGiver) that he saw the man in the room. "On the beach south of town." To which the sheriff replies, "It's taken care of."
"You caught him?"
"I did what's right."
"He said he loved her," Nucky says, obviously confused.
The sheriff tells him to keep the whole episode "just between us."
Nucky opens an envelope left for him by one of the guests. (Which echoes the earlier letter he got from "Nellie Bly.") On the postcard is a boy and a girl and a pony cart. And the other side reads: "We are here for a few weeks every summer. Mabel Jeffries. PS I would have let you kiss me." Serious "Boardwalk" aficionados know that Mabel was Nucky's first wife, who died in 1913. (Nucky Johnson, the real Atlantic City boss whom the series is based on, was married to a woman named Mabel Jeffries, who died of tuberculosis.)
Nucky is dreaming of this moment in the present after having fallen asleep on the sofa. He hears a noise and sees a woman sitting in the dark on the other side of the room. "Mabel?" he asks, still half asleep.
"I'm afraid not," Margaret says in that familiar brogue. She turns on the light.
And Nucky smiles.
Cold-blooded questions and talking points:
Will Dr. Narcisse start a war with Maranzano now that his prostitutes have been slaughtered? Or will be simply pay the protection money?
Will Nucky and Margaret get back together and live happily ever after? Or will he write her a check for $111,000?
Now that Chalky has $9, where will he go? Will he try to visit his old buddy, Narcisse?
Is that letter to Nucky from Gillian, Mabel, the ghost of Nellie Bly or some other secret admirer?
Will Kennedy and Nucky go into business together? Maybe Kennedy, Rose, Nucky and Margaret will go on a double date now that Margaret's back. But will they drink Coca-Cola or moonshine? Will they get the families together? Maybe a young J.F.K. will make a cameo.
Helene Stapinski is the author of "Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History," a chronicle of New Jersey crime and corruption.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
ArtsBeat: ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Recap: ‘Jesus Was Wrong’
Dengan url
https://dunialuasekali.blogspot.com/2014/09/artsbeat-aboardwalk-empirea-recap.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
ArtsBeat: ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Recap: ‘Jesus Was Wrong’
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
ArtsBeat: ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Recap: ‘Jesus Was Wrong’
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar