Boardwalk Empire Review: “The Good Listener” (5×02)

That’s much more like it. “The Good Listener” may be the second episode of the season, but it feels like the first. Certainly it’s the first real indication this season that Terence Winter does, in fact, have some kind of endgame in mind that he’s working toward. This week also provides significantly more, and better, justification for jumping ahead all the way to 1931. What seemed last week to be an arbitrary decision to bookend the series’ treatment of prohibition, this week is revealed to be something entirely different.

In 1931 we have arrived at a flashpoint, and it’s that flashpoint that gives this episode its newfound verve and urgency. Al Capone is a bona fide celebrity now, giving interviews to Variety and generally trouncing about with the same manic energy that Stephen Graham has gotten so excellent at embodying. He’s also still employing Van Alden and Eli, neither of whom are very well off after these seven years. Luciano, Lansky and Siegel are up to no good together, and one gets the sense that they are in way over their heads. Eli’s son Will is desperate to join the U.S. Attorney’s office—whether this is to take down Nucky, or to get information for him, is left up in the air for now. We even check in on Gillian Darmody, who has been committed to an insane asylum that feels like something out of a retro-Orange is the New Black.

Gillian’s story this week feels the most out of place, like it’s there for the sake of keeping Gretchen Mol on the payroll, but Mol is excellent, and there is a lingering cloud of uncertainty that hangs over both her performance and the staging of her scenes. Especially in a season that seems determined to expound further on the nature of both the Commodore and Nucky’s youth, I expect we will be exploring much further the specific reasons for Gillian’s institutionalization, as well.

Where this episode succeeds, and where the premiere more or less failed, is that everything is interesting in its own right, but also is sufficiently related to the central story of Nucky’s return to the alcohol business. We are here, at this moment in time, because this is where the story ends. Already we can see those threads coming together, if slowly. This feels very much like a premiere episode, and one wonders why we didn’t just cut to the chase sooner; but then, if the rest of the season keeps up at this clip, then the plodding-by-comparison premiere might feel like a more natural deep inhale.

The flashbacks continue, and while they still feel a little gimmicky to me, especially when I’d rather be spending time with the absent members of the ensemble (Narcisse has yet to show up this season, and we don’t follow up with Chalky or Margaret either this week, though I’m only really upset about one of those things), but they do feel more confident this week, and so I feel much more confident about them. As they persist, they accumulate meaning, and begin to develop their own sense of narrative. I’m reminded of nothing more than the flashbacks on Lost, which similarly developed narratives of the characters’ pasts that were meant to reflect their struggles in the present. It might not be the most original way to highlight Nucky as we wind down, but it at least is now showing signs of effectiveness.

Overall this is a much more entertaining and effective episode, and I’m glad to see the season pick up the pace so early on, considering the shorter episode order. I hope very much that we spend more time with Van Alden and Eli as the weeks go on. Both stories are tinged with tragedy, yet the pairing of characters feels like its own sort of buddy cop movie, with the witty repartee and physical comedy that comes with that territory, and it all works tremendously well. Shea Wigham and Michael Shannon have excellent chemistry, and on a show that very rarely finds justification to pair off many of its central characters, this particular pairing is a real treat.

As always, the show is much more interesting when all the other characters orbit around Nucky, while Nucky himself rests in stasis at the center of the whole thing. There is very much that sense here, and thanks to the flashbacks, there is a specific request from the show for us to consider Nucky the way we would the Commodore—as a toxic, manipulative, corrosive villain, in too many lives to count. We’ll see if the narrative plays out. The episode leaves us with a shot of Tonino’s open earhole, the first shot in what will likely be a much bloodier war. Nucky’s attempts at outright gangster-ism have landed him in trouble before, and this one is likely to do so again. Thankfully, on the strength of this episode, we have reason to look forward to the playing out.

Stray Observations:

– Just a note on the scoring this week: In the Emmy Spotlight series it was useful to highlight acting, directing, and writing as separate categories. Reviewing weekly, though, a lot of these things are consistent from week to week, purposefully so. I’ll call out specific notes of interest in the review, but I’m not breaking the score down into categories, as it requires way too many mathematical gymnastics to get to an appropriate overall score. I’ll still grade the episode out of ten, but it’s going to be much more holistic. I’ll break down a full season score at the end, and that’ll be where we go from here.