Steve Buscemi channels Humphrey Bogart for Nucky Thompson. His appraising eye has the same distrust and disbelief we saw in George Haley’s eyes when he couldn’t believe he’d been shot by Eddie Bartlett. Going down yelling “Eddie. Crazy.” You would think Nucky would borrow more from James Cagney because of the Irish connection, but Buscemi captures the physicality of Bogart, himself a product of speakeasies. Having The Onyx on the boardwalk and on Boardwalk Empire gives it a gangster’s legitimacy, cinematic street cred. Gangsters knew how to throw a party and they knew how to design a party room. And if they didn’t they knew people who did. Owney Madden’s Cotton Club was the Taj Mahal of gangster chic long before Las Vegas was anything more than too much sand. Sure, by the fifties most gangsters went to The Copacabana for a good time. But even today, gangsta rappers open the best clubs. Keeping up a grand tradition that they’ve studied from the inside. Gangsters and music, hot and cool, go together. A lot of bootleggers opened speakeasies, nightclubs and saloons. And they played music. It kept people thirsty. Gangsters helped bring rock and roll to the cities when they ran jukeboxes. Sure it was a racket, but it was a loud racket that got things jumping. In Chicago, Al (Stephen Graham) is doing his own dance. Trying to show his brother Frank (Morgan Spector) that he’s on the move in Chicago, he makes the newsmen jump to his tune when they get his name wrong. I think I read that somewhere, that Al Capone did correct a misspelling, what they never reported is that he also found a whole bunch of split infinitives that he fixed by dangling some participles. The new prohibition agent is a smart dirty cop who’s going to be too stupid to play ball. The Rolling Stones were right when they sang “every cop is a criminal” especially when it came to gangsters. Either their hands were out or they were breaking rules to bust or turn them against each other. The Hoover era, where agents let gangsters bleed to death to avoid paper work. Breaking Bad is not my beat, so I normally wouldn’t get the chance to make this observation, but it applies here. On last week’s episode, “Rabid Dog,” the final decision to put a hit on Jesse is very realistic, based on thousands of true crime books and stories. Walter didn’t want to kill Jesse, not until Jesse balked at meeting him because he thought the hit was on already. Sam “the Bull” Gravano didn’t flip on John Gotti until after he thought Gotti put a hit on him. Gotti didn’t put a hit on him until after Gravano flipped. A few words could have worked it out. They were never said and it took down the Gambino Family. Joe Valachi wouldn’t have ratted if he wasn’t targeted and he was only targeted because word was he was spilling secrets. The world would never know about cosa nostra if they just had a conversation. Den of Geek Rating: 3.5 Out of 5 Stars Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
