5.4 Cuanto Knowing the destinies of characters like Capone and his almost-associate Charlie Luciano might threaten to rob them of any dramatic tension, but as we see this week, there’s more than enough of that to go around. The near exposure of Van Alden’s fraudulent life not only provided us with the first hint that this exceptionally long character arc might yet have an appropriate conclusion (a suspicion bolstered by Mike D’Angelo’s trawl through the records office) but also gave us a Capone scene that was tense, terrifying and blackly hilarious. Van Alden’s pleas for his life were a masterpiece of deadpan theatre, as repressed and calculating as any other gambit in which he’s been involved. He was clever enough to mix a smart cocktail comprising two shots of lies with one shot of truth and, having seen Capone at close quarters for so long, he knew exactly where to pour. His master’s ego. Van Alden’s smartness and D’Angelo’s soft intervention couldn’t defuse the threat entirely. Had he been minded to, Capone could have pulled that trigger simply to prove that he was prepared to kill his own men. Van Alden would have dropped heavily to the floor, a mook would have been given mop-and-bucket duty and the show would have carried on to its conclusion. Van Alden lacks the historical domain body armour that protects the man with the gun in his hand. Capone’s dramatic effectiveness comes not from what happens to him so much as it comes from the things that he might do to others. He will remain a source of constant menace to the bitter end. Whatever the manner of her exit, Sally was always going to suffer by comparison to Margaret, and especially a drunk, playful, flirty and murderously scheming Margaret. The exception that proves the rule about female characters, Margaret has travelled the furthest in character terms (with the possible exception of Capone), as Nucky’s reminiscences of her demonstrated. The timid Margaret who first walked into Nucky’s office (to be ‘saved’ by him, as he flatters himself) is very different from the confident but under-resourced ‘partner in crime’ who kisses him on the boardwalk. He looks on her with a mixture of propriety and pride, quietly defensive over Kennedy’s seduction attempt (oysters, really?) but darkly gloating that he has something that Kennedy does not and that he, unlike the amorous Joe, has the discipline to put her up at the Blenheim rather than consummate the reunion. It could perhaps be seen as Nucky taking Kennedy’s advice about not being seen to indulge, but it appears more likely the result of the melancholic temperament that he’s been carrying around these past few episodes. Taking Cuanto’s flashbacks for context, Nucky comes across as a man who is tired of grasping for things that are just out of reach. His dinner with Lindsay family bring him to tears in recognition of the family life that was beyond him as a boy and, with the deaths of Mabel and Enoch Junior and his estrangement from Margaret and her children, impermanent as an adult. Having Margaret standing before him warm, smiling and available is just too sharp a reminder. The business with Carolyn Rothstein needs to be attended to, as does the problem named Charlie but that’s just work. His brief conversation with Eli -cold, unfamiliar and distant- underlined his situation. He lacks even the proxy family with whom he once loved to surround himself. He’s now just an emptiness, parading his boardwalk through little other than long established habit. Read Michael’s review of the previous episode, What Jesus Said, here
