Two episodes of Terence Winters epic gangster series remain. Two deaths dominate The Devil You Know, tonights episode of Boardwalk Empire. But its two random women who drink Nucky Thompson under the table, trick him out of his pants, and mug him out in the alleyway who are the key to it all. No, Nuckys disastrous would-be three-way with a pair of blowsy, boozy con artists cant compete with the deaths of there-from-the-start characters Chalky White and Nelson Van Alden, nor the departure of the two titanic acting talents who played them. But on a show as smart as late-season Boardwalk, a digression is never just a digression. The truth can be found anywhere if you know how to look.
Nucky finds said truth as he tries to sell himself as the salt of the earth to his prospective mnage a trois mates. Right up until the moment they knock him out and steal his wallet, the sequence was Boardwalk at its sexiest not the quote-unquote sexy of half-stripped showgirls and topless prostitutes but the real stuff, all wet eyes, wolfish grins, and desire. You start at the bottom. You dont have a choice. Get yourself ahead. What else can you do? Just as hes picking up steam, he derails. For what though, huh? For what? No one talks about that! Once again, Boardwalk uses Nucky to give voice to complaints viewers have about Nucky. Why is our hero the way he is? Why does he do what he does? Turns out he has no more idea than anyone else. The will to power drives him, but it gives him no sustenance or satisfaction imagine if every time you felt hungry, your body responded by making you stand on your head.
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But its not as though knowing what its all for will save you either. Just ask the late, great Chalky White, who discovers something to live for and immediately dies for it. In every excruciating minute of that episode-long rendezvous in Dr. Narcisses brothel, you can see Chalkys conflicting desires tearing him apart. But in an echo of that strange home-invasion storyline from earlier in the season, he chooses Daughter Maitlands career as a singer over his own as a gangster, and preserving the innocence of Althea, the daughter hes just met, over avenging the death of Maybelle, the daughter he lost. So he signs up for a life in Narcisses service, likely knowing full well he can count the minutes of that life on one hand with fingers to spare.
Actor Michael K. Williams has always been a master at boiling Chalky alive in his own emotions. Unlike his cast mates Steve Buscemi, Shea Wigham, Stephen Graham, Michael Shannon, or even Gretchen Mol, he never boils over; he simply burns hotter and hotter. In facing his imminent death, Chalky finally allows himself the luxury of turning off the heat. His only act of defiance is to tell the departing Narcisse Aint nobody ever been free the man cant rob him of something he never had to begin with. (Little does he know that Narcisse, turned into a snitch by J. Edgar Hoover at the end of last season, is even less free than he might seem.) And his final smile while thinking of Daughters voice is pure bliss. After a life spent seizing whatever scraps society allowed him to touch with an iron grip, its the look of a man finally letting go.
What a difference from the assassination of Nelson Van Alden by the coward Mike DAngelo. Chalky was seemingly more attached to the family of strangers whose house he broke into than Van Alden was to the family he headed and whose house he built. While Chalkys botched raid on his nemesis stronghold plays out like a Greek tragedy, Van Alden and Elis attempt to steal Al Capones ledgers is more like the Three Stooges. And where Chalky surrenders, Van Alden attacks. When confronted with his own imminent execution, he casts aside the family-man mask of Mueller and becomes the agent of Prohibition and angel of retribution he started as back in Season One. I AM NELSON CASPER VAN ALDEN! I AM A SWORN AGENT OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY! AND I SWEAR BY JESUS OUR LORD THAT JUSTICE WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU IF IT IS MY LAST
Then DAngelo blows his brains out, leaving him an eyeless husk. Its hard not to see that gory image as a grotesque parody of the quiet death of Richard Harrow, who found peace in the family hed never quite get a chance to have. Its also hard not to note the contrast with Eli, whose sole thought after witnessing Van Aldens murder is to frantically, repeatedly apologize to his wife June. Its only his own quick thinking in blaming the burglary on Elliot Ness instead of DAngelo and the ease with which Ness legend can be inflated with any hot air thats handy that keeps his own death off his list of things to be sorry for.
Where does this leave his brother Nucky? Nowhere good. With Capone seemingly back in cahoots with Lucky Luciano, the sole figure in Nuckys corner for the fight against the Syndicate is, god help him, Mickey Doyle. For one reason or another, everyone else he ever counted on in the clutch from Arnold Rothstein to Sally Wheet is now gone. And when he wakes up after his mugging, hes haunted by memories of his first encounter Gillian Darmody, a petty thief hed soon hand over to the Commodore to be sexually abused and emotionally destroyed. For what? For a wife and a baby we know hell lose in childbirth, and an empire hell keep building anyway, never quite knowing why. If only hed been on better terms with that sad evangelist Van Alden, who no doubt knew another way to phrase Nuckys big question: For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Previously: Land Ho!