Best TV Shows 2010: Boardwalk Empire

Something that I haven’t thought about until recently is that we’re seeing a new trend of shows that are producing high quality serialized stories for what would traditionally be a feature film format.

For example, The Walking Dead is the first time we’ve seen a show about zombies, or going further, a show that lives deep within the horror genre (forebears such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Reaper, or Supernatural are genre-benders/blenders that lean heavily on comedy, camp, or teenage romance).

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And now we have Boardwalk Empire, a franchise that in any other era would have been made into a movie. It’s about gangsters and immigrants and corrupt politicians in Atlantic City, New Jersey circa 1920 amidst the oncoming Roaring Twenties and the age of Prohibition. It is about those things, but it also manages to create great characters that get to do and say interesting things (Michael K. Williams, famous for portraying Omar on The Wire, steals a number of scenes as Chalky White, for example) while also exploring the history of the era, bringing in historic figures ranging from Al Capone (Stephen Graham, who lends the infamous gangster a deliciously imbalanced and passionate sensibility) and Lucky Luciano (Vincent Piazza) to politicians such as future President Warren G. Harding and Senator Walter Edge (Geoff Pierson).

Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) is a natural lynchpin for the multiple storylines running through the series as he holds the seemingly innocuous position as Atlantic County Treasurer. From that office, he wears many hats (all expensive ones at that), including ruthless boss of a Republican political machine (and we’re told many times that as goes Atlantic City goes Atlantic County, and as goes Atlantic County goes New Jersey) and bootlegger-in-chief for all the thirsty souls of Atlantic City and beyond. Therefore, it makes sense when he attends the Republican National Convention in one scene and is involved in selecting the next President of the United States while at other times he’s crafting plans for all out Godfather-like war against mobster enemies (including Arnold Rothstein, played by Michael Stuhlbarg, yet another magnificent character on a show jammed to the rafters with them) in New York City.

I don’t really get the fairly widespread questioning of Steve Buscemi as lead actor of a TV series as I love him in just about everything (including the little seen and brilliant Trees Lounge, which Buscemi wrote, directed, and starred in). He’s not your typical “leading man” but I believe that plays into why his portrayal of Nucky Thompson helps to anchor the show. Buscemi’s Nucky is complicated and likeable enough that when he does bad things you want to stick with him. Maybe it comes down to the fact that he feels the weight of the sin (a topic that comes into sharp focus during the final string of episodes in this first season) he brings into the world and spends some goodly amount of energy (which we see in his slumped shoulders, his tired eyes, his tight grimace) justifying his actions, or perhaps rationalizing them.

While there are many things going on at once, Boardwalk Empire does a remarkable job of holding story threads together so that the audience doesn’t get lost. If there’s a second lead in the show, it’s Michael Pitt as Jimmy Darmody, a World War I vet with ties to Nucky that we learn more about over the course of the season. Through Jimmy we’re able to see the world of the show through a wider lens – including a several episode arc that focused on Chicago, which included truly great gangster-related and dramatic action – and to get a sense of what people think of Nucky when he’s not around. Jimmy’s a complicated guy himself – haunted by memories of a brutal war, intelligent, ambitious, impulsive, violent – and his role grows to the point that he becomes a very real and present rival to Nucky by season’s end, both in terms of screen time and controlling the reins of power in Atlantic City.

As great as Williams is as Chalky (and in particular the scene where he explains to the detained Ku Klux Klan leader how his father was lynched comes to mind) in an as yet limited role, I became increasingly fascinated with Jack Huston’s portrayal of disfigured war veteran Richard Harrow as the season wore on. Huston gives us one of the most compelling “quiet” performances that I’ve ever seen. A man obviously haunted by his war experiences and the facial scarring that came with it, he’s painfully polite and well mannered with half his face hidden behind a mask that literally scares children. But there’s a blankness about Harrow too, as though the war literally ripped away some of his morality (something one can certainly understand, even from afar, after enduring HBO’s The Pacific, for instance) and perhaps humanity too, leaving not evil, but simple emptiness, in its place.

Jimmy is Harrow’s friend yet has no problem putting the latter’s skills to use as sniper and assassin. Both came back from the war broken in some ways, and therefore perhaps don’t have the relative “burden” that non-veteran Nucky has in weighing the choice between good and evil at times. But what’s ingeniously slippery about Boardwalk Empire is that the line between good and evil is fuzzy, and “good” choices can lead to “evil” outcomes (or at least “bad” relative to the decision-maker), and vice versa.  

I realize that I’m neglecting so much here as this year-ending wrap draws to a close and I could easily go on for another several thousand words. But before I allow you to glaze over, I’m most painfully skimping on covering the many women that take part in this show. Kelly Macdonald as Margaret Schroeder is simply marvelous as we see her arc transition from battered wife to Nucky’s conflicted yet empowered partner. And Gretchen Mol as Gillian, Jimmy’s mother, is terrific and I have a sense she’ll have an important role to play in Season Two. And, finally, while certainly not a woman, Michael Shannon as “Probie” Nelson Van Alden is riveting, (increasingly) crazy, strange, and unsettling all at once.

With the first season of Boardwalk Empire now behind us, it seems that all we have seen is merely an introduction of what will come next. We now are familiar with the players, dynamics, politics, and culture of this world, and the conflicts coming (more of Rothstein v. Atlantic City, Eli and Jimmy and The Commodore v. Nucky, the rise of Al Capone in Chicago) should be some of the best television to behold for years to come.

Video: Best TV Shows 2010: Boardwalk Empire
Head inside the season finale, “A Return to Normalcy,” from HBO: