Boardwalk Empire Season 2

[DeeezNuuuts83]

I still think it would have been a good scene; you don't think he's a good actor? I like him
He has his moments, but he hasn't done anything that really moved me other than when he choked out his mom.  The scene where he becomes the "king" of the city and makes that speech (where he said, "To the victors go the spoils!") just seemed really bland.  Additionally, I remember him being lame in Finding Forrester as well, as small of a role as it was.

I also see a potential scenario where Jimmy re-aligns with Nucky and kills Owen
It's possible, if they don't kill off Jimmy.  Before this past episode, I thought it might happen, but he did just kill the Commodore (who I thought would've been the main person to put out the order for him to be killed, though it's still less likely for him to kill his own son) plus his backstory has become a bit more interesting, and I'm sure that it will come to light in terms of the other characters finding out about why he's messed up.  I think Manny was in the preview for the next episode, and while he's not on good terms with Jimmy, he probably feels as if he evened the score by killing Angela.  But if Nucky and Jimmy do re-align and take out Owen in some way, I wonder how it will affect Margaret.  Obviously she doesn't WANT to have feelings for him, but she does when she seems him (even if she knows it's wrong for her to, plus she knows that he's "bad" as she told the priest during confession) and it certainly doesn't help when he flirts with her.

I can totally see how Nucky's case may be saved due to Van Alden fleeing
Speaking of the case, the new preview for the next episode shows Jimmy and Richard walking through a hall.  It's unclear if he's going to Nucky's court case (as he currently has no reason to oppose him anymore) or if he's going to court for his own purposes, as he's the primary suspect for a double-homicide.

And yes, Mickey definitely needs to be killed lol
I don't see any other purpose he'd have.  He's already basically flipped on everyone in one way or another, so I don't see who is going to take him back or what he has to offer them since I can't think of anyone who has any use for him.  His booze is watered down and not in high demand (as Nucky's booze is basically the "Blue Magic" of liquor in Atlantic City), everyone knows about at least one time he was snitched on someone he was supposedly down with, and he has no more information to give to anyone since he's not really in the loop anymore with Luciano, Lansky and Capone more or less walking away from liquor (at least in Atlantic City) while having the option of selling heroin.  It's just a matter of who has enough of a motive to kill him.  I can really only think of Jimmy, assuming he figures out that it was Mickey who gave up his information to Manny.

[krzieg]

Great discussion! I can't believe Boyd..i mean Darmody is hooked on the Heron....ya'll missed that scene? & his mom is FUCKED!

Jimmy better man up & get Richard to put in some serious work.

Van Alden's gonna go back to Mickey & orchestrate the robber..........one of them (or both) will die trying to rob Capone-Luciano-Lansky

Capone will the shooter..........capone for the win! lol

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Maybe I'm just crazy, but I didn't really understand most of what you just said, haha.

Anyway, the YouTube channel for Boardwalk Empire put up a couple of clips of the next episode.  One is of Luciano and Lansky presenting heroin to Rothstein.  He asks where they get it from, and they told him it's from a Chinese guy who imports it, though Rothstein mentions that it would be wise to import it themselves through an import operations that they oversee for Chinese lanterns (obviously carrying the heroin).  They mentioned they approached him first "out of respect," though obviously they had given it to Jimmy first a few episodes ago.  The other clip is of Margaret sitting at Esther Randolph's desk, and she asks her about how she started out as a lawyer, eventually responding to her and saying that her husband used to abuse her and her children.

[Lunatic]

The Finale was SICK! So well done, well shot. The editing was absolutely beautiful, everything was really done so perfectly

I really hate that Jimmy is gone though. I'm not surprised but am disappointed. He was easily the best character on the show from day one in my opinion.

And I love Nucky but I'm mad at him for that lol

Nucky is gonna be PISSED when he finds out Mrs. Schroeder signed over that land to the church 

[Sikotic™]

WTF? I was kinda mad about that. I was expecting Eli to get got, not jimmy. I am disappoint. Can't say it wasn't entertaining though.

[Lunatic]

WTF? I was kinda mad about that. I was expecting Eli to get got, not jimmy. I am disappoint. Can't say it wasn't entertaining though.

Yea, I was hoping Eli would get killed instead; Sucks he got away with lying (he DID recommend the hit on Nucky but it seems like Nucky believed him). Blood thicker than water.

[The Predator]

Finale, had some good lines.

''Flip a coin, when it's in the air you will know what side you are hoping for'' - Rothstein

Poor fat dumbo cop's reaction when he realized he's taking the fall, priceless.

Chalky White and his 'daddy's work tools' farm-yard beat down of the chickenshit Klansmen, payback!

Knucky explaining Shakespeare/Juliet Caesar to his brother - ''There's a character named Eli?'', haha.

Season III will chart Capone's Chicago rise and introduce a James Cagney type of character. He will be the 'Marlo' of the show.

   'Boardwalk Empire' showrunner explains shocking finale, talks season 3

    WARNING: The following interview with Boardwalk Empire showrunner Terence Winter contains spoilers about the show's second season finale that aired Sunday night.].
    boardwalk-finale

    “This is the only way we could have ended, isn’t it?” Jimmy asks.

    “This is your choice, James,” Nucky replies.

    And with that build-up, Boardwalk Empire executed one of the most surprising moves in recent TV history — killing off James “Jimmy” Darmody (Michael Pitt), the show’s second-biggest character after Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi).

    Nucky shot and killed his former protégé after a season-long power struggle for control of the Atlantic City booze trade. The Oedipal-conflicted young war veteran was the victim of his own tragic decisions, including a bungled assassination attempt on Nucky. Though many fans will regret losing Pitt’s character, the move gave viewers an uncompromising finale that allows Nucky to embrace his gangster destiny.

    Below, Boardwalk Empire showrunner and executive producer Terence Winter, who wrote tonight’s finale, talks to EW about why Jimmy had to go, how he broke the news to Pitt and gives some hints about his plans for season three — which include a time jump and the introduction of new brash young character. And at the end of the interview, there’s a link to our exclusive interview with Pitt.

    ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you first know that you were going to kill off Jimmy?
    TERENCE WINTER: Probably at the very beginning of season two. The idea was to try and push things to their absolute limit, even if it makes it difficult for yourself and your writing team. If you take things to their logical extreme with the situation we created, Jimmy has betrayed Nucky, he tried to have him killed. You want to be honest about the storytelling. In the pilot, Jimmy told Nucky: “You can’t be half a gangster anymore.” We wanted with the first two seasons to follow that trajectory, where he goes full season from being the guy who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty to actually pulling the trigger himself. And what’s the strongest version of that? To pull the trigger on the very guy who told him, “You can’t be half a gangster anymore.” It’s like, “Guess what? You’re right. I can’t. And here’s me now fully becoming a gangster.” Anything short of Nucky doing it himself wouldn’t feel real, it wouldn’t be real. And it would be a cheat for us to say, “We want to keep our beloved character Jimmy Darmody alive.”

    One of the things I wanted to do by design in the finale is make the audience pissed off [at the start of the episode]. I wanted people to say [when it seemed like Nucky and Jimmy would reconcile], “Oh great, after all that, it’s all going to be forgotten and Jimmy is going to be back in Nucky’s good graces.” I wanted them to think right up to the very end that Nucky is going to forgive him and take him back. It was a really hard decision. You’re sort of blowing up your own show, in some ways. Now we’re back in the writers room trying to figure out where we go from here without Jimmy Darmody.

    My only concern plot-wise was wondering whether Jimmy would really go so willingly to what he likely believes is his death.
    WINTER: We know with [the previous week's episode] that he’s so emotionally damaged. I don’t think Jimmy ever expected to come back alive from World War I. I think he probably left for the war hoping he would die and was surprised he survived. He’s been a walking dead person ever since we’ve met him. He’s come back and gone through the motions of a person trying to make his way in the world, but ultimately becomes resigned to his fate. He gets manipulated into this run against Nucky, who was his mentor, and really the only father figure of any meaning that he has. The plot failed and he knows, as a good solider, he’s going to have to fall on his sword. He fully knows what he’s walking into at the end. He’s not armed. He says goodbye to his son. He basically gives Richard Harrow permission to not come with him. He knows he needs to be punished. The circumstances of his life have unraveled to the point where he’s willing to accept his fate. And psychologically Harrow is prepared to respect that as a soldier.

    You touch on this in that last answer, but I still wanted to ask: Especially in light of what happens this week, why was it important to have the flashback that included the scene of Jimmy having sex with his mom?
    WINTER: We wanted to answer the questions: Why were Jimmy and Angela together in the first place? What is the basis of this weird relationship with his mother? What’s this strange hold she has on him? From the very first moment you see Jimmy and his mother together it’s really inappropriate — you think it’s a girlfriend, then you learn it’s his mother. We just wanted to pay that story off. It gives us so much insight into Jimmy’s psychology and how things got to this point.

    I’m still haunted by his mom’s “I used to kiss his little winky” line from the season premiere.
    WINTER: Exactly.

    On The Sopranos, you guys killed off plenty of key roles — you wrote the amazing “Long Term Parking” episode (where Adriana died). Arguably this is a bigger move than any Sopranos hit. Do you have any concern about losing such a popular character?

    On The Sopranos, you guys killed off plenty of key roles — you wrote the amazing “Long Term Parking” episode that killed off Adriana. Arguably this is a bigger move than any Sopranos hit. Do you have any concern about losing such a popular character?
    WINTER: Huge concern. As we go about the business of TV, you’re constantly looking for ways to keep ahead of the audience or defy expectations. It’s a big gamble creatively, you’re killing off a major-major character very early on. But you want to be true to the story and to do the most unexpected thing. The audience is used to seeing bodies start to drop in season five. People won’t believe [Jimmy's dead] until the last second and even then some will wonder if it’s a dream. People didn’t believe it when Adriana was killed on The Sopranos and that was in season five.

    Because so many people thought Adriana was still alive, I was wondering if that’s why you showed Jimmy’s gunshot wounds.
    WINTER: That wasn’t conscious, but it never hurts to be definitive. He’s not getting up.

    When did you tell Michael and how did that go?
    WINTER: We talked about it during the year. I generally don’t like to give actors a lot of advance notice about what’s happening on the show, because what [the writers] think is going to happen can change. The other thing is a lot of actors don’t want to know what’s coming. If they know the future of their characters, that information might [influence] their performance.

    Michael saw the way it was shaping up and he came into my office and he was all, “Are you guys considering where this is heading? Is Eli going to die? Have you thought about killing me?” And I said, “Yeah, we actually have. All I will tell you is everything is on the table. It could go this way, it could go that way. I don’t know.” Up until Episode 9, I wasn’t 100 percent sure this is where we were going to go. I was pretty sure. I wanted to reserve my right to change my mind up until the last minute so I didn’t want to tell him. So he didn’t know officially until right before the script for [the finale] came out. He had a very strong suspicion and I was certainly preparing him for it. But Michael is an artist. He’s a phenomenal actor, and part of the challenge is to keep reinventing the series. He’s very much about doing what’s best for the show and the character. In terms of the storytelling, he totally got it. He really loved doing the show, but he’s also a guy who likes to do different things. I think he understands this was the single most powerful thing you could have done on the show.

    Was that a slight Godfather nod, cross cutting the wedding and the whacking?
    WINTER: Yeah, always. I’m not ashamed to say Godfather is one of my favorite movies of all time and any time I can steal from it I always do.

    With Van Alden having run off to Cicero, is he going to still be in our story?
    WINTER: Yeah. People who are really students of Mob history will pick up on the fact that Cicero, Illinois is the place Al Capone became headquartered in 1924. So we put him in a place where he theoretically could interact with other characters on the show.

    So can we expect to see Al Capone come into his own as a formidable force next season?
    WINTER: As time goes on. The plan is now is we would come back in season three a little further into the future and start to really track Al Capone’s rise and — God willing — through the course of the series. By 1925, Capone was the guy everybody recognizes — the guy in the white fedora who’s firmly in charge of Chicago. Hopefully we’ll be on the air long enough to see that guy. Certainly in [season three] we’ll start to see Capone on pretty much equal footing as Johnny Torrio in terms of who’s running the town.

    You mentioned jumping forward in time for season three. How long will that be? [Note: Season two was set in 1921]
    WINTER: We’re thinking about 16 months and starting the [third] season around the beginning of 1923, then maybe run through the end of 1923. It was an exciting year. All the people who stockpiled liquor started to run out, so competition between bootleggers became really fierce.

    I can’t imagine Nucky is going to be very pleased with Margaret donating all his land to the church.
    WINTER: I don’t think that will make anybody happy. The ramifications of that will be explored as the series progresses.

    And I’m assuming Richard Harrow will continue as a key player?
    WINTER: Yes, Harrow will continue to be part of the show, absolutely.

    One thing that impacted me this season was the polio storyline — a really heartbreaking move. It’s easy to forget nowadays what a horrible disease that was.
    WINTER: Especially with that little girl. That actress is really so sweet. It was hard for us. My wife read that script and punched me in the arm. Steve Buscemi read the script and said he threw it across the room. We did a lot of research on the subject and it just ravaged children in this country, and adults too. It was a horrific disease.

    So for season three, I hear you’re looking to add a new character, Bud Matheson, described as a young James Cagney type. Might that be Boardwalk‘s new up and comer?
    WINTER: Yeah. As the ’20s progressed and became the Roaring ’20s, it was very youth oriented culture. Young people really came into their own, with access to automobiles. They had influence on popular music and fashion trends. We really wanted to infuse the show with some exciting young sexy energy and this guy is the sort of embodiment of that new sort of go-getter who wants to grasp things with both hands. Cagney was a great prototype — the fast-talking brash young guy who wants it all and wants it now.

[Sikotic™]

Chalky White is my new favorite character now that Jimmy is out. I hope they give him a bigger spotlight.

[Lunatic]

Great interview. I'll miss Jimmy but that interview really justifies it.

So next season will fast forward nearly two years and focus heavily on Al Capone; interesting

[Man On The Moon]

Jimmy was a great character. You kinda feel sorry for him, it seems like everything he did he didn't want to do.

He didn't want to get that bitch prego.
He didn't want to fuck his mom.
He didn't want to join the service (only way to escape)
He didn't want to come back from war
He didn't want to run the city
He didn't want to kill Nucky

All those things he didn't want to do and was forced or manipulated into doing ended up in him getting killed by the man he most admired.

[DeeezNuuuts83]

After watching the last episode again, I still think that Nucky and Jimmy faked his death... really well.  You may disagree with me, but this is why I think so:

1.  When speaking with the Commodore's lawyer, Jimmy went out of his way to ask if the Estate would go from the Commodore to Jimmy, then to his son, if Jimmy were to die.
2.  When interacting with his son on the pony ride, when asked if he wanted to be a soldier or a cowboy, he said a soldier (like his father), though Jimmy was looking back at his mother than away from her like he was worried (or perhaps going away for a while).
3.  Jimmy's son had his dog tags, which to me was foreshadowing.  Additionally, it was odd for him to have asked Richard to stay behind.
4.  Knowing he would be meeting up with Manny (who he knows killed his wife), why would he have shown up unarmed without a single weapon?
5.  The first shot was at Jimmy's left cheek, which you don't see at all during that scene since it's in the dark (as his car is on the other side, shining its headlights on his right side), and Boardwalk Empire is typically pretty gruesome in such scenes (like earlier when they shot the alderman through the mouth, and you could see the back of his head open from the exit wound), but you didn't see the back of Jimmy's head bleeding onto the ground, so it's POSSIBLE that he may have been sporting a fake wound already that no one would've been able to see beforehand.  He was spitting up blood, but maybe it was planned and he had some stuff in his mouth already.
6.  Nucky plays it safe and has other people do his dirty work -- why would he put himself at risk by murdering someone in front of three witnesses, all of whom have had their hands dirty before while having a reason to do it themselves?  Even though Manny already killed Angela, he'd probably still want Jimmy dead.  Owen doesn't have anything against Jimmy, but he works for Nucky and has already put in work for him.  Eli was already in disagreement with Jimmy several episodes ago and basically sold him out by lying to Nucky and saying that he didn't have anything to do with the attempt on Nucky's life.  But obviously any of those three people having done the deed wouldn't leave any question about Jimmy being dead, whereas MAYBE Nucky and Jimmy did plan something when they talked at his beach house.
7.  Nucky may not always tell the FULL truth to Margaret, but he generally doesn't lie to her.  When he told her the following morning about having run into Jimmy and "cleared the air" with him, maybe he was telling the truth to her.  While to us it looks like he killed him, what if they did plan it, and that was their next move?  I'm thinking that maybe he did really re-enlist in the military, which I thought could've been possible given the battle scene from the trenches after Jimmy was "shot," plus he had given his dog tags to his son (so maybe he's leaving that identity behind), though the episode with the flashback to Princeton shows how Jimmy can lie his way into the military, so maybe he's doing it again.  Perhaps he's realized that he wasn't meant to give orders (as his short reign was completely difficult and unsuccessful), though he made a great soldier who was fully capable of carrying out orders to the T.

My guess is that with Manny, Owen and Eli having "seen" Nucky "murder" Jimmy, he knows what only they would know.  So if there are rumors that circulate talking about Nucky having killed Jimmy, he'd know one of the three of them turned on him, though with Jimmy not really being dead but having faked his death, he can always turn up again to prove that Nucky didn't commit murder, which is definitely something Nucky wouldn't ever want to get busted for or even do.  Additionally, maybe he himself did that to appear to the other three as if he is actually capable of killing.  Similarly, I don't see Nucky really having just cut Jimmy loose like that with their history (but despite their recent troubles with one another), as Jimmy supposedly being dead will allow him to get his revenge on Manny in the future.  I'm pretty sure that Nucky sympathized with him, as he knows the importance of family life to a man while having clearly expressed to Manny that they had "even less in common" after Manny basically said that it was he who killed Angela.

[Javier]

He's dead.  That scenario would be very cheap for the writers to do.