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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Boardwalk Empire: "Bone for Tuna" Review

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

So after three episodes, this has really become Bobby Cannavale's season. And let's face it, in "Bone for Tuna," we all knew there was no way Rosetti was leaving Atlantic City, for the second time, as anything other than bitter and angry. No matter how much Nucky tried to repair their working relationship. As Nucky put it so well, Rosetti could find an "insult in a bouquet of roses." And Cannavale is just crushing it. The way Rosetti not only gets offended when tells him something he doesn't know, but also when people who state the obvious is terrifying. And it was fun to see the fat corrupt cop get incinerated at the end since we all probably had him marked for death when he spoke out of turn in the diner at the top of the episode. Well, as fun as seeing someone burned alive can be. "You think you have friends. They're all dogs with bones."

"Everyone's a person though, right? How else are they supposed to take it?" Rosetti has a point, although taken to a psychotic extreme. Nucky's finding out the hard way that you can't remain cold and detached from a business that takes people's lives. Killing is personal, and now Nucky's repressed anxiety is manifesting itself in dreams. Now, I'm not a huge fan of dream sequences. Often they're a cheap way to show us what a character is thinking. In fact, I usually just deem most of them to be time fillers. And your enjoyment of this season will have a lot to do with how invested you are in Nucky's loneliness. Which is not an easy thing to care about when we're presented with people of great power. Nucky's obsession with Billie Kent is helping us empathize a little here since he's mistakenly fallen for a woman who simply can't give him what he needs. So he's actually making things worse for himself.

I do enjoy how much Nucky has Rosetti pegged though. "Are we starting with this now?," Nucky says right at the moment when Rosetti might be spiraling into one of his fits over a monkey comment...that Nucky actually said to diffuse a possible misunderstanding. So for Nucky nothing's personal and for Rosetti everything's a slight. And I have a feeling that, when all is said and done, Nucky's going to start to creep down to Rosetti's level, possibly even entering a state of rage. Of course, knowing how Rosetti is, Nucky should have known that him not being there to see Rosetti off would cause trouble. But, like I mentioned, he's distracted these days. Nucky's numbers might not come close to Harrow's "63," but he's still feeling the ill effects of an increased body count.

Harrow's scene with Nucky was great; telling Nucky that he blew out Manny's left eye for Angie, not Jimmy the soldier. I was also reminded of Eli's "How the f*** are you still alive?" from last week concerning Micky's hair-brained idea to start spreading the rumor that he killed Manny. Over in Chicago, Van Alden was having a harder time than usual bonding with the "Brotherhood of Bulls*** and Blarney." It was easy to tell that a raid was going to go down, as soon as the other salesbullies mentioned the speak easy, but I thought Van Alden was actually going to be the one to call it in, as payback on them for the ink prank. But no, he got caught in the raid himself. Actually taking more offense to the corrupt booze officer who asked for a bribe to let him scram. It's funny to watch for when and where Van Alden's "morality" rears up. Especially considering that he's now living a fake life and taken a new bride in Sigrid.

I don't particularly like not liking Margaret, so I was happy to see that she didn't make a giant scene in front of the Bishop regarding prenatal care. I expected a haughty lecture in front of unappreciative bores, but instead she actually acted a bit devious and played Dr. Landau for a fool. In the end, she just needed to present her case in front of someone who outranks Landau, and give the credit to Landau so no one thinks they're being upstaged by a woman. So I was happy to be able to leave this episode without being frustrated with her. Plus, she and Nucky were able to act nice and be civil with one another during the award ceremony. With even a slight undercurrent of caring.

On the less interesting side of "Bone for Tuna," Lucky and Lansky are still beefing with Joe Masseria. Not a lot of time was given to this story, and when you add to that the fact that viewers will have to remember back to last season in order to place the lesser Masseria storyline, it doesn't add up to anything interesting. On a more intriguing note, having to do with Rosetti naturally, Rosetti's infatuation with Gillian was nice touch. As gentle as he is around her though, I don't see this ending well. I just don't think anything can end well when Gyp wants something. Because that just means there's a possibility he can't have it. And then watch out!

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN. WARNING: No Nudity!


Source : ign[dot]com

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