By Matt Schoenman
For months HBO has been hyping up its newest show, Martin Scorcese’s “Boardwalk Empire.” And although it had its pros and cons, I can honestly say that I foresee good things for this series in the future.
As most of us already know from the countless five minutes previews running every Sunday between True Blood, Hung, and Entourage, this new show takes place in the time period known as “The Roaring ’20’s” and tells the story of Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. Thompson (based upon reality’s Enoch Johnson) was the treasurer of Atlantic City during the Prohibition Era. To the public, he was an advocate of the Temperance Movement, Women’s Rights, and was an upstanding citizen of the great state of New Jersey. But behind closed doors Nucky was pursuing a much more notorious agenda: the illegal import and sale of alcohol, the sanction of underground gambling, and the promotion of prostitution rings. Sounds like a good time to me.
But anyway, back to the show. It was definitely a little bit difficult to follow as events unfolded: Two men rob a truck. We have no information about anything: What are its contents? Who owns it? Is this the present, past or future? Suddenly we’re thrown backwards a few days and throughout the hour and fifteen minutes things slowly come together until we figure out exactly what happened on that dark road in the beginning…I don’t want to ruin it for anyone hasn’t seen it, you’re just going to have to watch it. Sorry.
I can tell you that the style of the show is unprecedented. Of course that’s the case because its a television show made by a movie director. Most television programs stick to a normal continous layout: As time goes on, things happen. Simple enough. But Scorcese played with the chronology a little bit to cause a whole lot of confusion: he began at the climax (though at the time we didn’t realize it), then went back and built it up all over again so that we would understand it better the second time around. He created a moment of “ohhh! That makes sense now!” that normally doesn’t work or even exist on television.
And can I just say that young Al Capone is the man?
You’ll probably hear mixed feelings from all of your friends about how good it was. But people who didn’t like it were probably just lost in the fray, because it is a little overwhelming. There are a few too many characters, and I still don’t know most of their names or what part they have to play. And I can’t say that I understand why the episode ended the way it did. But all that confusion did was make me more curious to see the situation fully explained next Sunday. And that’s how they get you hooked.
I predict that by mid-season the show will REALLY pick up, and people will be ejaculating all over their panties to the ridiculousness that is “Boardwalk Empire.”
