Boardwalk Empire Review (First Two Seasons so far)

Boardwalk Empire debuted in the fall of 2010. It received a ton of publicity and was being pumped up to be the best crime drama on HBO since the Sopranos. The buildup it was receiving was understandable, because the legend Martin Scorsese was named director for the pilot, the  mastermind behind the Sopranos, Terrence Winter, was named the chief writer, and the main character was said to be Steve Buscemi, who is an incredibly underrated actor.  If none of that was enough, the show set the record for most money spent for a TV pilot ever. So, given all that information, one would have just assumed that this show would be producing some of most top of the line television ever seen

Sadly, that has not been the case so far.

But before we nosedive into why its been underwhelming, let's start off by naming some of the good traits the show has. For starters, the acting has been about as top-notch as you are going to get for a TV series, as everyone portrays their character exquisitely. Moreover, the clothing, setting, music, weapons, and the dialog are precisely similar to the 20s-esque lifestyle. And, the directing has been just flat out superb. The directors have done an incredible job of making scenes exceptionally intense and vivid, picking the most suitable camera angles, and really getting the best out of cast.

So, what seems to be the problem then? Well, that would be the writing. 

Originally, Terrence Winter’s strategy seemed a good idea. He slowly articulated the story and was very anal about not leaving out any critical details. He wanted it to be as clean and unadulterated as possible.  He tediously kept building and building storylines up to the point of where everyone was anticipating a massive eruption. And there is nothing wrong with all of that. However, there aren't many eruptions at all. Because just when Winter would foreshadow something massive to happen, the story ends up spinning into a completely different direction. Throughout most of Boardwalk’s existence, Winter became excessively fixated on preserving storylines and has done this by putting them on the shelf and relaunching them at a seemingly later time. Those actions have frustratingly resulted in a handful of caution-free episodes where the fans were left with feeling of emptiness. 

At the end of the season two finale, Winter finally wanted to payoff something he wrote in a newsworthy fashion, as in a shocking twist of events, Nucky Thompson murdered his once protégé Jimmy Darmody. It was admirable that Winter finally wanted to do something would spark emotions out of its audience, but it was unfortunately a poor choice. The reason it was a poor choice goes farther than them killing off one of the most interesting and beloved characters in the series. The real reason it was a poor choice was that it made Nucky Thomas invincible as possible heading towards the next season. Nobody stood as even a minuscule threat towards Nucky, which is, for a lack of a better term, boring.

This is far from a terrible show. As stated previously, the acting, directing, and the setting are magnificent. The writing, however, is holding this back from developing into a great show. As a result, Boardwalk Empire is nothing more than an average show that is failing to come anywhere close to meeting its expectations. To be quite honest, it would have been better suited fulfilling a 30-minute commercial free show, or by simply doing fewer shows, because of handful of lifeless and aimless scenes that serve no purpose other than being filler that stretches the show out far enough to meet its time duration.