Boardwalk Empire: Difference between revisions

* [[Bad Boss]]: Van Alden to Sebso, Nucky to Eddie, Madame Jeunet to Margaret, Margaret to Katy and the other girls, Eli to Halloran ...

* [[Bad Guys Play Pool]]:

** Lucky Luciano's a pretty decent pool player, apparently having picked it up from Rothstein.

* [[Badass]]: More than a few.

** Nucky, Eli, and Manny Horvitz pull it on Jimmy in "To the Lost": {{spoiler|Manny isn't a prisoner and Eli's really on Nucky's side. Unfortunately, Jimmy [[Driven to Suicide|doesn't care]].}}

* [[Battle Butler]]: Despite his usual clumsiness, Nucky's German butler, Eddie Kessler, can act fast when needed, like say, {{spoiler|shooting a would-be assassin targeting his boss}}.

* [[Bedmate Reveal]]:

** {{spoiler|Angela and Mary, the photographer's wife}} in "Home."

* [[The Cast Showoff]]: Anthony Laciura, who plays Eddie, is an opera singer, and in "What Does the Bee Do", Eddie sings beautifully at a birthday party, although [[Hookers and Blow|given what else was going on]], the guests probably weren't paying too much attention.

* [[The Chains of Commanding]]

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:

** Jimmy's combat knife, which we see early in "Family Limitation" as he slides it into a special holster in his boot, is a [[Chekhov's Boomerang]]. He later {{spoiler|sneaks it into a meeting with local crime boss Sheridan, but it's discovered as he's reaching for it. Then it turns out this was just a distraction from the real plan to take out Sheridan.}} It also appears again in "A Return to Normalcy" when {{spoiler|Jimmy uses it to pull a Sweeney Todd on the eldest of the D'Alessios}}. It appears again in "Two Boats and a Lifeguard", when Jimmy and Richard {{spoiler|scalp Parkhurst}}, and finally, in "Under God's Power She Flourishes" when Jimmy uses it to {{spoiler|kill the Commodore}}.

{{quote| '''Eddie''': You want me to frisk him down?<br />

'''Nucky''': You're Tom Mix all of a sudden? }}

* [[Dawson Casting]]:

** 37 year old Stephen Graham as 21 year old Al Capone.

** Margaret also has her moments.

** Rothstein has them too, usually at the expense of one of his employees.

** The Klansmen who shoot up Chalky's distillery and kill three of his people in the Season 2 premiere meet an ugly end in the season finale.

* [[Deceased Fall Guy Gambit]]: Done in the pilot, and numerous times afterward.

** Margaret loses her baby due to a particularly brutal beating.

** It's strongly implied Eli beats his wife.

** "Big Jim" Colosimo is never going to get it.

** Happens a few times with [[Al Capone]] as well.

** Richard Harrow lost an eye in the war, and is introduced with a startling closeup of the wound.

** {{spoiler|Big Jim getting shot through the back of his head and out his eye, causing gore to splatter over the camera.}}

** {{spoiler|Jimmy}} goes to his execution pretty calmly. He doesn't even take a gun with him.

* [[Facial Horror]]: Richard Harrow.

* [[The Gambler]]: Arnold Rothstein is a consummate high-stakes gambler and approaches life like a game.

* [[The Gambling Addict]]: Margaret's husband.

* [[Gold Digger]]: Margaret, arguably, although she's a fairly sympathetic variant. She gets along with Nucky well enough but doesn't really seem to love him all that much, and the Season 1 finale makes clear that she goes back to Nucky because he's rich.

** Lucy follows the trope pretty closely in season one. She's only with Nucky because he buys her pretty things and pays her for it, and throws fits when he takes up with Margaret.

* [[Gory Discretion Shot]]: Averted constantly. There are, however, a few straight uses scattered about.

* [[Grammar Nazi]]: Nucky.

* [[Handicapped Badass]]: Richard Harrow.

* [[Have a Gay Old Time]]: The result of using period music.

* [[Hazy Feel Turn]]: Eli and Jimmy, conspiring with The Commodore to overthrow Nucky. But especially Eli, who flips back and forth between Jimmy and Nucky constantly in Season 2.

** {{spoiler|Van Alden may be conspiring with Nucky in exchange for supporting Lucy and their daughter, and he turns his back on the feds after being exposed as Sebso's murderer.}}

* [[Hero Antagonist]]: Van Alden starts out as one, but his insane [[Knight Templar]] streak and growing moral corruption dump him from Hero status. In the second season, Assistant US Attorney Esther Randolph is a more straight example.

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: WWI turned Richard and Jimmy into this. Van Alden was sliding towards it before {{spoiler|his daughter was born}}.

** Van Alden moves to Cicero at the end of season 2, which historically savvy viewers will know will soon be the place where Al Capone first makes a name for himself.

** Blink and you'll miss it, but the poker chips on Rothstein's desk in "To the Lost" are from The Brook, his infamous high-stakes casino.

* [[Hobos]]: A pair of wise, understanding ones and their tough dog makes Richard reconsider {{spoiler|killing himself in the woods}}

* [[Holier Than Thou]]: The fact that Agent Van Alden is very religious only serves to make him that much more menacing.

* [[Hot-Blooded]]: Lucky Luciano, in contrast to the [[The Stoic|unflappable Arnold Rothstein]].

* [[Hookers and Blow]]: Pearl introduces Jimmy to opium.

* [[Hot Dad]]: Jimmy.

* [[Hot Mom]]:

* [[Ironic Nickname]]: As if Albert White wasn't ironic enough already, everyone calls him "Chalky".

* [[It Gets Easier]]: {{spoiler|Jimmy}}'s last words, talking to his own killer.

* [[Jerkass]]: Nucky, Van Alden, the Commodore, Mickey Doyle, Lucky Luciano... it's [[Black and Gray Morality]], what do you expect?

* [[Joisey]]

** Manny's response to Jimmy ducking his debt, {{spoiler|murdering Jimmy's wife and her lover}}.

** Eli {{spoiler|unabashedly endorsing Nucky's assassination}} and later {{spoiler|letting one of his deputies get beaten to a pulp by some thugs for talking to the prosecutor, even though the deputy didn't actually give them anything.}}

** In "What Does the Bee Do", it might seem cruel to {{spoiler|brutally and continually slap an 80 year old man who's suffered a stroke}}. When the man is The Commodore and the attacker is {{spoiler|Gillian Darmody, finally enacting revenge for his rape of her twenty-odd years previously}}, it's hard to find much fault.

** Nucky's {{spoiler|beatdown of Eli}} in "Gimcrack and Bunkum".

* [[Let Me Tell You a Story]]: Occurs a lot.

** The journalists waiting for Nucky outside jail in "Ourselves Alone" [[Lampshade]] his tendency toward this.

* [[Light Is Not Good]]: The scene in which Van Alden {{spoiler|drowns Agent Sebso}} is filled with much light and Christian-based imagery. Van Alden's fundamentalist religious views and [[Knight Templar|severe self-righteousness]] also play into the trope.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: As of the second season ''sixteen'' actors are series regulars and a few dozen more make up the recurring characters. No HBO show since [[The Wire]] has had a cast this sprawling.

* [[Modesty Bedsheet]]: Margaret wears a nightie for sex with Nucky in numerous episodes.

** Esther has the bedsheet version in "Battle of the Century" when she's talking to Clifford post-coital.

* [[The Mole]]:

** Agent Sebso.

* [[Psychopathic Manchild]]: Al Capone, before getting called on it.

* [[Punny Name]]: Albert "[[Ironic Nickname|Chalky]]" White, the black mobster, has three names meaning "white."

* [[Quizzical Tilt]]: Harrow will do this in reaction to violence, showing his detachment. He does it as he regards a crying, panicky twelve-year-old boy, right before shooting him as well as when Al callously suggests that he kill Nucky.

* [[Raised Catholic]]: Margaret Schroeder. Nucky and Eli too, actually, but far more prominently with Margaret, who starts feeling guilty about living the good life as Nucky's kept woman and has a Catholic relapse in Season 2.

* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: Jimmy is not the same guy since he volunteered to serve in [[World War One|The Great War]]. Richard Harrow is even more messed up.

* [[Shout-Out]]:

** In the second episode, the Commodore humiliates his servant, by asking her opinion about politics and finance, just to prove his point: women shouldn't be allowed to vote. There is a very similar scene in ''[[The Remains of the Day]]''.

** [[Molly Parker]], who starred as Alma Garrett in HBO's drama ''[[Deadwood]]'', is shown in a framed photograph as Nucky's deceased wife.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: The producers spent millions painstakingly recreating 1920 Atlantic City in modern-day Brooklyn. As with HBO's earlier series ''[[Carnivale]]'', the writers have put much time and effort into creating an entire world in the show and doing the proper research into real life figures.

* [[Sibling Yin-Yang]]: Nucky is single and a womanizer (at least initially), [[Equal Opportunity Evil]], and is pretty much a [[Non-Action Guy]] relying on intellect and charm; Eli is married with a large family, is a [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]], and relies more on brute force than smarts.

* [[Sickbed Slaying]]: Nucky arranges for the hospitalized gangster who survived the first episode's massacre to be silenced, but this is prevented by federal agents, although the gangster still ends up dying.

* [[Single Mom Stripper]]: Gillian.

* [[Sir Swearsalot]]: Many, but in particular the Commodore and Chalky, to the extent where Chalky can be jarring, considering the actor previously played [[The Wire|Omar Little]], who made it a point ''not'' to swear.

* [[Slashed Throat]]: A ''lot''. It seems to be Jimmy's calling card.

* [[Sleazy Politician]]: All of them.

* [[Smug Snake]]:

** Mickey Doyle, a smirking schemer prone to giggling.

* [[Spiritual Successor]]: To other HBO period dramas such as ''[[Deadwood]]'' and ''[[Carnivale]]'', with its lavish production values, use of foul language, and nudity; and other mob themed shows, most notably ''[[The Sopranos]]''.

* [[Spousal Privilege]]: One of the many [[Courtroom Antics]] Nucky plays to get his case dismissed.

* [[Stating the Simple Solution]]: ''Eli'', of all people, suggests that killing is how the new coalition of gangsters deals with {{spoiler|Nucky}}.

* [[Stepford Smiler]]: Jimmy's mother has acted cheerful and nice to the Commodore and even tried to bring him together with his son, but after he has a stroke she [[Beneath the Mask|drops the act]] and tells him how much she loathes him for raping her as a child.

* [[Straight Edge Evil]]: Rothstein doesn't drink or womanize and uses some of the least profane language in the series. Van Alden could probably also be seen as this / [[Family Values Villain]] with a dose of religious fanaticism and hypocrisy.

* [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]]: {{spoiler|Angela Darmody}}

* [[Tarot Motifs]]: Gillian gets a reading in episode 3, including the High Priestess (a woman with significant power), the Moon (mystery and danger), and the Knight of Swords (a hot-tempered man). The tarot deck used as the prop, however, was [[Anachronism Stew|first published in 1985.]]

* [[A Taste of the Lash]]: Self-inflicted by the [[Knight Templar|pious]] agent Van Alden: the most obvious reason are his [[Seven Deadly Sins|<a-hem> impure thoughts]] caused by a [[Fetish Fuel|16-old Margaret's photo]]. [[Casual Kink|He keeps staring at the photo while he flogs himself,]] though.

** Even at his advanced age and suffering from partial paralysis, the Commodore manages to {{spoiler|skewer Jimmy with a spear}}.

* [[Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?]]: A grateful Margaret announces her intention to name her unborn child Enoch, to which Nucky replies that [[Harsher in Hindsight|he can't think of something more cruel]].

* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Richard seems to regard Owen Sleater as this in "A Dangerous Maid".

{{quote| '''Owen:''' Why did you not shoot me?<br />

* [[World War I]]: Barely fifteen months in the past when the show starts, and frequently referenced. Jimmy Darmody and Richard Harrow are veterans with PTSD, Al Capone lies about being in the Lost Battalion, and Nucky reminds his German valet of how Nucky stood up for him during the recent wave of anti-German sentiment.

** In "To the Lost" we get a brief flashback of Jimmy in a trench in France, going over the top.

* [[Young Future Famous People]]:

** In the pilot, Nucky meets the crime dons of Atlantic City, New York and Chicago at a restaurant while Jimmy waits outside with one of Jim Colosimo's thugs. After a rather long conversation, the thug identifies himself as [[Al Capone]].