Episode Title: ‘Acres of Diamonds’
Writer: Terence Winter
Director: Allen Coulter
Previously on “Boardwalk Empire:”
This week, “Boardwalk Empire’s” roulette wheel of characters stops on Gillian, Richard and Eli’s son, Willie, in an episode that seems more focused on allegory than advancing the plot.
In case you forgot (it’s easy to do with so many characters), Willie Thompson (Ben Rosenfield) is off at college, where he’s taken up smoking and drinking, much to Eli’s dismay. When he hears about a party his friends are having, Willie offers to supply the booze. He stops by Mickey Doyle’s warehouse and gets the liquor, along with a slap in the face for trying to steal it when Mickey (Paul Sparks) initially denies him. The booze makes Willie a hit with his friends and a girl he has a crush on, but things soon go sour when his classmates catch him in the middle of a makeout session in the library. Like Eli, Willie’s got an inferiority complex and a violent temper to go with it. And like his father, Willie could be a really compelling character, but this show has plenty already and not enough time, as it is.
Unfortunately, Nucky (Steve Buscemi) isn’t one of them. Nucky spends most of the episode thwarting off salesmen in Florida though his meeting with speakeasy owner, Sally Wheet covers some interesting territory, like his estranged relationship with Margaret’s children, who he still considers his own. It’s also a nice change of pace to see Nucky interact with a woman whose way more his equal than the showgirls and actresses he’s usually cavorting with.
Though he ultimately decides to go in on Bill McCoy’s Florida deal with August Tucker, it doesn’t look like Nucky will be back in Tampa, anytime soon. McCoy (Pearce Bunting) kills Tucker in self-defense when he shows up at his apartment in a rage over the failed deal. When Nucky finally comes around to the idea, it’s too late. The reveal of Tucker’s dead body, with a machete entrenched in his head isn’t especially shocking. We’ve already see Dunn Purnsley beat a man to death with a bottle and it’s only the third episode.
Back in Atlantic City, heroin is the word of the day. Gillian’s (Gretchen Mol) using it to cope with new beau, Roy Phillips’ (Ron Livingston) nearly finding out about her seedy past when a friend of the Jimmy doppelganger she drowned in a bathtub recognizes her. Of course, Roy probably has his secrets, too, which are hinted at when he asks Gillian to pretend to be his wife so as not to let a potential business partner know he’s in the middle of a divorce. The two soon realize they make a good couple, but it’s only a matter of time before Gillian’s past resurfaces.
In New York, Dr. Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright) makes a deal with Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) to sell heroin in Harlem. Despite putting Dickie Pastor’s murder behind them, the tension between Narcisse and Chalky (Michael Kenneth Williams) is still high. And things will only get worse if Dunn Purnsley (Erik LaRay Harvey) takes the doctor up on his offer to get in the drug trade and cut out Chalky.
Out in Wisconsin, try as he might, Richard (Jack Huston) can’t just bury and walk away from his past. Carl Billings isn’t happy to find out the man he paid Richard to kill is still very much alive and he shows up at Emma’s barn to let him know. Having buried his gun in the yard, Richard stabs one of Billings men, but he isn’t able to kill the gangster before he draws his gun. Just as he’s about to shoot Richard, Emma (Katherine Waterston) appears with a rife and kills Billings. In the aftermath, Richard decides to leave home once again and Emma advises him to “call himself to account.”
Though we’ve likely seen the last of Emma, her character served a purpose. Both Richard and Hugh, a would-be suitor, think Emma needs assistance in some form, be it money or a man to keep her safe, when really it’s the two men who need Emma. For Richard, it’s a case of his life of violence keeping him from putting down roots and forming real relationships, even in his childhood home with his sister. It’s a sad existence, but Richard’s struggle to redefine it is what makes him such a fascinating character.
Unfortunately, “Boardwalk Empire’s” exhaustive list of characters and locales makes it hard to get too invested in any one person. Just as soon we connect with one character, it’s time to focus on another. It’s makes an episode like this one a little bittersweet in that it spends time with some great characters but leaves us wondering when we’ll see them again.
