I ended the last piece of writing with a summary of the penultimate first series of Boardwalk Empire which launched the Atlantic channel on Sky. The series is intended as a history of how the Mafia organisation developed into the national crime incorporated and last night I stayed up to watch the last episode of the series in which two scenes summed up the organisation and morality of the series.
Margaret who is an archetypical leader’s wife asked how he could be sensitive caring man and a ruthless killer and received the response that being an adult is deciding how much sin you can live with. Hmmm.
In the previous episode Margaret had gone away unable to cope with aspects of his reality especially his enjoyment of any woman available when he felt the need for one, She had become a replacement for his wife who could not cope with the loss of their son only after a few days his birth, while breakfast with her and the children assuaged some of the guilt he experienced knowing that he had been to busy at the time to appreciate how ill his son was becoming and how desperate was his wife at the loss. The moral is therefore killers, rapists; gangsters are human being too, as if we did not really know!
Margaret reappears towards the end of this episode looking more sophisticated than ever and it is quickly evident she has decided to become his partner again which he willing accepts despite the threat she poses in knowing his personal vulnerability as well as having seen the crime books.
The second structural aspect of the series was underlined in a scene in which Chicago’s Mafia boss Torrio accompanied by the new serious Al Capone meets with Nucky and Jimmy from the City and Rothestein and Lucky Luciano from New York to do a deal creating a truce between their competing and warring national ambitions. Nucky agrees to arrange for Rothestein not to be indicted for fixing the World Series baseball series result in return for $1 million and the whereabouts of the D‘Alessio. Family. The barely veiled aspect of the meeting is that all three assistants are planning take overs of their masters.
Nucky has the least idea of Jimmy’s intentions given his preoccupation with the Republican Party retaining control of the City through his nominee Mayor. His gives Chalky a new car and an invitation to the all white election night party for delivering the Black Vote, Margaret worked hard to win the new female vote before her departure and Nucky’s master stroke is to first to dismiss his brother from the job as city justice controller and appoint the deputy and then to claim responsibility for bringing to justice the rest of the killers of the five bootlegging gangsters after first blaming Margaret’s husband as the leader of the assassins. This all helps to defeat the anti crime and corruption Democratic Party rival.
What Nucky fails to appreciate is that his brother, married with eight children, deeply resents the way he is treated and has opened a dialogue with Jimmy’s father who is recovering from the attempt on his life using arsenic The Commodore plays on the fact that Jimmy is upset that it was Nucky who found the 13 year girl for the Commodore although his mother has no regrets saying she was languishing in a child care institution at the time. Jimmy also appears to be working at re-establishing relationship with his wife although she has received a card from Paris saying sorry for running off in the way the lesbian lover did.
The Republican Party on Election night continues until Warren Harding is elected President. His young concubine is expecting that she and her child will return to having a major place in the man’s life.
Van Alden, the Prohibition FBI agent is back in the good books of his superiors after discovering the Still which Nucky had revealed to his deputy Sebso in an effort to re-establish Van Alden’s confidence in his deputy who remained suspicions at the events which led to the death of the witness who could have sent Jimmy and Al Capone to the electric chair. Instead of finding the Still they encountered a baptismal gathering of an evangelical preacher among the black population and Van Alden had been much affected by what was being said given his recent fall from grace. In this episode he forces his deputy back to the site after he put in a request to leave, and shoots the man in front of another baptismal group claiming the deputy was killed by bootleggers. He then decides to leave the force himself much to the horror of his wife and buy into a business opportunity offered, unless he has some sign from God to stay. He does so in the form of the gangsters tart he fornicated after his drinking binge at the club. She arrives to announce he has made her pregnant. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, so it is claimed.
The episode- A return to Normalcy ends with Margaret and Nucky surveying their empire from the Boardwalk.
The ninth episode of the first series of the Sopranos, Bocca is concerned with hypocrisy and double standards. Tony’s daughter is a goalie in the High School British style soccer team and her best friend is the leading striker who is going through some kind of crisis, slashing her wrists at some point. Tony and two other members of his fraternity all have daughter’s involved with the team are much impressed with the progress under the coach and after one winning game take him back to their pole dancing and drinking club where he is offered a free session with one of the girls which he rejects being a happily married man with children. Hmmmn
When they find that he is leaving to take up a better paid job at a University they attempt a mixture of bribes and threats to make him stay. The mood changes when Tony learns from his daughter that the attempted suicide is because the coach had a relationship with the girl who fell in love and became suicidal after he said he would not leave his wife. Tony and the others talk of murder until the girl’s father pleads for a legal solution and the man is arrested. This happens after Tony has visited his psychiatrist, Dr Melfi who queries why he feels such a responsibility for the rights and wrongs of society.
Meanwhile Tony finds he has a hold over Uncle Junior on learning details of his sexual behaviour towards his long time mistress after the return of the couple from a long vacation in Florida to get away from the attention of the Feds who are closing in. Because Junior has two previous prison convictions he faces the strikes and indefinite imprisonment if he is successfully indicted as the head of the DiMeo crime family. Other captains congratulate Tony on his manoeuvre to put Junior in charge. Meanwhile Tony’s mother is attempting to poison the relationship between Tony and Junior suggesting his visits to the psychiatric are endangering the family.
Junior’s woman is so thrilled at his willingness to address her individual sexual needs that despite his warning that talking about his approach endangers his position she does so on return to her hairdresser and this is overheard by a friend of Tony’s wife. This results in Junior beating up the woman after being taunted at length by Tony.
I enjoyed Blue Bloods After Hours much more than last week where the theme was marital fidelity and the impact of the job on relationships. The detective son Frank is called to a murder outside a night club where the doorman is shot after refusing entry to someone where his female escort is permitted. I was reminded of my time over fifty years ago when demand to get Cy Laurie and the 100 club was such that even if you arrive early entry was controlled by someone with whom it was important to become a familiar and trusted face. By coincidence I learned that a classical guitarist was performing at the 100 club in Oxford Street and that the Wetherspoon’s in the Charing Cross Road (105) had been the home of the Marquee club after it had transferred from 165 Oxford Street where I had attended the opening night with the Johnny Dankworth Band in April 1958. The club had moved to 90 Wardour Street with a tiny stage in 1964 when the Trad Jazz and jazz in general waned and rock and roll came to the fore with the Rolling Stones have their first London gig at the club with Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Flloyd among those who played there. The club moved to the pub site in 1988 and this lasted only 8 years after which there have been several attempts to revive the club including by Dave Stewart in Islington, then in Leicester Square and then St Martin’s Lane. Each time the ventures were shortlived, I assume the difficulties of getting good bands and audience to make the venture financially worthwhile.
Returning to Blue Brothers, Frank is pursued by the owner of the club a more alluring and seductive creature than Joan Collins when she starred as the predatory cougar in a couple of films promoting the expensive social disco night club fashion. His wife immediately senses the threat on seeing a photo of the notorious celebrity owner in the press and when he then buys her a fashionable sexy top. The investigation takes a couple of twists, first when it appears the doorman was doing a deal to help open a new club with a rival and the owner becomes the prime suspect. Then an enhanced security camera film reveals that the doorman was killed by a ricochet and was not the prime target which appears to be the club owner and at the end it is reveals that the the assassin was the doorman‘s pregnant girlfriend after she learned that he was also having a relationship with the club owner.
The younger brother reveals that his girl friend has taken up the offer of an six month job in London and is consoled by his father (Tom Selleck) who in turn is under pressure when he is thought to be recommending a colleague for promotion much to the disgust of his own father. The subject “took” two bullets intended for Selleck the early days of their career when they worked as partners on the street, On the anniversary of this event the two have a meal together and it was during this year’s event that the officer now the head of a unit raises the possibility of gaining promotion. Selleck’s father is opposed to man because he left his wife and children for a younger model. Selleck not only decides against the appointment but requires his friend to take early retirement on learning that the man had been cooking the figures by classifying major crimes as lesser to the detriment of the victims.
As usual the TV treat of the week is Treme with the episode All on Mardi Gras. I can understand the enjoyment of those who use Mardi Gras as the opportunity to get drunk, high on drugs or to have casual sex. I also understand that some people like dressing up in costumes and playing roles different from their usual personalities and life experiences. I am less convinced of the value of Mardi Gras carnival as family entertainment.
In this episode everyone is focus on proving something to others as it is the first big carnival since Katrina. John Goodman as the voice of thinking New Orleans takes his daughter on a visit to destroyed areas of the city to put the day in perspective and reminisces with his family over previous experiences. They dress up in a vivid and garish blue outfit with the daughter looking attractive, the wife looking OK and John absurd. They eat out at the street side kitchen operated by Jeanette. John feels less and less like celebrating and returns home alone to make a morose rant for You Tube and then gets drunk on his own and sleeps off among sheets of completed typescript. He is told to sober up by his wife when she finds him in such a state in the morning.
Jeanette get drunk after a hard day’s work from which she makes a lot of money and appears to be at risk as she wanders aimless around the city as it begins to quieten down.
Her casual lover Davis visit his parents who are celebrating the festival with a garden house party and he then goes off and finds the busker violinist Annie on her own and they have an enjoyable day together in which he shows her the fun side of carnival. She has reunited with her lying and cheating drug taking boyfriend only to learn in the morning of the day that he is going out on his own. She still dresses up and goes out on her own until she meets Davis having uttered a few words about the behaviour of the boyfriend Sonny. Sonny ends up enjoying drugs, drink and sex with a woman who is impressed by what he has to say of himself.
Another pair who enjoy an illicit encounter is bar owner LaDonna who struggles to keep her silence over finding that her brother is dead until after the festivities, both missing out on family meals of Gumbo, the southern states dish brought from Africa comprising stew of shellfish or fowl with Creole and Cajun variations. She meets up with the lawyer who represented the city opposing her requirement for action to reveal the whereabouts of her brother. The lawyer hopes there are no hard feelings as she was doing her job and hopes the brother will be found.
Madonna’s partner in crime is Antoine who she meets after he has played at a gig. The episode ends with La Donna outside a Funeral Parlour although it is not clear if she has yet told her mother. Antoine had met up with the Asian man who gave him the new Trombone so he feels obliged to explain that he had recovered his own Trombone and gave the gift to his teacher who has since died. Antoine is impressed that he man was aware of the death and also expresses approval on being told that the Trombone had been passed down to the grand son of the former teacher. Although it is evident the two have a romantic encounter it is not clear how far this develops given that on leaving the home of his partner and daughter Antoine checks on the parameters of his freedom for the day and the partner is firm about the limits.
This just leaves Albert in jail after his protest over the failure to open the State controlled housing project. His son who is staying at a good hotel with the band and bails his father out but only after the Carnival Day. Delmond is impressed by a group of half naked female “Indians” to whom he throws necklaces of colourful beads (made in China) traditionally thrown by those participating in the main parade each day of the two weeks season in New Orleans along with fake Doubloons, decorated plastic cups and small toys for the children. I am assuming that the episode attempts to communicate the flavour of the events, the parades, the masked balls, and parties of various forms and sizes.
Margaret who is an archetypical leader’s wife asked how he could be sensitive caring man and a ruthless killer and received the response that being an adult is deciding how much sin you can live with. Hmmm.
In the previous episode Margaret had gone away unable to cope with aspects of his reality especially his enjoyment of any woman available when he felt the need for one, She had become a replacement for his wife who could not cope with the loss of their son only after a few days his birth, while breakfast with her and the children assuaged some of the guilt he experienced knowing that he had been to busy at the time to appreciate how ill his son was becoming and how desperate was his wife at the loss. The moral is therefore killers, rapists; gangsters are human being too, as if we did not really know!
Margaret reappears towards the end of this episode looking more sophisticated than ever and it is quickly evident she has decided to become his partner again which he willing accepts despite the threat she poses in knowing his personal vulnerability as well as having seen the crime books.
The second structural aspect of the series was underlined in a scene in which Chicago’s Mafia boss Torrio accompanied by the new serious Al Capone meets with Nucky and Jimmy from the City and Rothestein and Lucky Luciano from New York to do a deal creating a truce between their competing and warring national ambitions. Nucky agrees to arrange for Rothestein not to be indicted for fixing the World Series baseball series result in return for $1 million and the whereabouts of the D‘Alessio. Family. The barely veiled aspect of the meeting is that all three assistants are planning take overs of their masters.
Nucky has the least idea of Jimmy’s intentions given his preoccupation with the Republican Party retaining control of the City through his nominee Mayor. His gives Chalky a new car and an invitation to the all white election night party for delivering the Black Vote, Margaret worked hard to win the new female vote before her departure and Nucky’s master stroke is to first to dismiss his brother from the job as city justice controller and appoint the deputy and then to claim responsibility for bringing to justice the rest of the killers of the five bootlegging gangsters after first blaming Margaret’s husband as the leader of the assassins. This all helps to defeat the anti crime and corruption Democratic Party rival.
What Nucky fails to appreciate is that his brother, married with eight children, deeply resents the way he is treated and has opened a dialogue with Jimmy’s father who is recovering from the attempt on his life using arsenic The Commodore plays on the fact that Jimmy is upset that it was Nucky who found the 13 year girl for the Commodore although his mother has no regrets saying she was languishing in a child care institution at the time. Jimmy also appears to be working at re-establishing relationship with his wife although she has received a card from Paris saying sorry for running off in the way the lesbian lover did.
The Republican Party on Election night continues until Warren Harding is elected President. His young concubine is expecting that she and her child will return to having a major place in the man’s life.
Van Alden, the Prohibition FBI agent is back in the good books of his superiors after discovering the Still which Nucky had revealed to his deputy Sebso in an effort to re-establish Van Alden’s confidence in his deputy who remained suspicions at the events which led to the death of the witness who could have sent Jimmy and Al Capone to the electric chair. Instead of finding the Still they encountered a baptismal gathering of an evangelical preacher among the black population and Van Alden had been much affected by what was being said given his recent fall from grace. In this episode he forces his deputy back to the site after he put in a request to leave, and shoots the man in front of another baptismal group claiming the deputy was killed by bootleggers. He then decides to leave the force himself much to the horror of his wife and buy into a business opportunity offered, unless he has some sign from God to stay. He does so in the form of the gangsters tart he fornicated after his drinking binge at the club. She arrives to announce he has made her pregnant. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, so it is claimed.
The episode- A return to Normalcy ends with Margaret and Nucky surveying their empire from the Boardwalk.
The ninth episode of the first series of the Sopranos, Bocca is concerned with hypocrisy and double standards. Tony’s daughter is a goalie in the High School British style soccer team and her best friend is the leading striker who is going through some kind of crisis, slashing her wrists at some point. Tony and two other members of his fraternity all have daughter’s involved with the team are much impressed with the progress under the coach and after one winning game take him back to their pole dancing and drinking club where he is offered a free session with one of the girls which he rejects being a happily married man with children. Hmmmn
When they find that he is leaving to take up a better paid job at a University they attempt a mixture of bribes and threats to make him stay. The mood changes when Tony learns from his daughter that the attempted suicide is because the coach had a relationship with the girl who fell in love and became suicidal after he said he would not leave his wife. Tony and the others talk of murder until the girl’s father pleads for a legal solution and the man is arrested. This happens after Tony has visited his psychiatrist, Dr Melfi who queries why he feels such a responsibility for the rights and wrongs of society.
Meanwhile Tony finds he has a hold over Uncle Junior on learning details of his sexual behaviour towards his long time mistress after the return of the couple from a long vacation in Florida to get away from the attention of the Feds who are closing in. Because Junior has two previous prison convictions he faces the strikes and indefinite imprisonment if he is successfully indicted as the head of the DiMeo crime family. Other captains congratulate Tony on his manoeuvre to put Junior in charge. Meanwhile Tony’s mother is attempting to poison the relationship between Tony and Junior suggesting his visits to the psychiatric are endangering the family.
Junior’s woman is so thrilled at his willingness to address her individual sexual needs that despite his warning that talking about his approach endangers his position she does so on return to her hairdresser and this is overheard by a friend of Tony’s wife. This results in Junior beating up the woman after being taunted at length by Tony.
I enjoyed Blue Bloods After Hours much more than last week where the theme was marital fidelity and the impact of the job on relationships. The detective son Frank is called to a murder outside a night club where the doorman is shot after refusing entry to someone where his female escort is permitted. I was reminded of my time over fifty years ago when demand to get Cy Laurie and the 100 club was such that even if you arrive early entry was controlled by someone with whom it was important to become a familiar and trusted face. By coincidence I learned that a classical guitarist was performing at the 100 club in Oxford Street and that the Wetherspoon’s in the Charing Cross Road (105) had been the home of the Marquee club after it had transferred from 165 Oxford Street where I had attended the opening night with the Johnny Dankworth Band in April 1958. The club had moved to 90 Wardour Street with a tiny stage in 1964 when the Trad Jazz and jazz in general waned and rock and roll came to the fore with the Rolling Stones have their first London gig at the club with Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Flloyd among those who played there. The club moved to the pub site in 1988 and this lasted only 8 years after which there have been several attempts to revive the club including by Dave Stewart in Islington, then in Leicester Square and then St Martin’s Lane. Each time the ventures were shortlived, I assume the difficulties of getting good bands and audience to make the venture financially worthwhile.
Returning to Blue Brothers, Frank is pursued by the owner of the club a more alluring and seductive creature than Joan Collins when she starred as the predatory cougar in a couple of films promoting the expensive social disco night club fashion. His wife immediately senses the threat on seeing a photo of the notorious celebrity owner in the press and when he then buys her a fashionable sexy top. The investigation takes a couple of twists, first when it appears the doorman was doing a deal to help open a new club with a rival and the owner becomes the prime suspect. Then an enhanced security camera film reveals that the doorman was killed by a ricochet and was not the prime target which appears to be the club owner and at the end it is reveals that the the assassin was the doorman‘s pregnant girlfriend after she learned that he was also having a relationship with the club owner.
The younger brother reveals that his girl friend has taken up the offer of an six month job in London and is consoled by his father (Tom Selleck) who in turn is under pressure when he is thought to be recommending a colleague for promotion much to the disgust of his own father. The subject “took” two bullets intended for Selleck the early days of their career when they worked as partners on the street, On the anniversary of this event the two have a meal together and it was during this year’s event that the officer now the head of a unit raises the possibility of gaining promotion. Selleck’s father is opposed to man because he left his wife and children for a younger model. Selleck not only decides against the appointment but requires his friend to take early retirement on learning that the man had been cooking the figures by classifying major crimes as lesser to the detriment of the victims.
As usual the TV treat of the week is Treme with the episode All on Mardi Gras. I can understand the enjoyment of those who use Mardi Gras as the opportunity to get drunk, high on drugs or to have casual sex. I also understand that some people like dressing up in costumes and playing roles different from their usual personalities and life experiences. I am less convinced of the value of Mardi Gras carnival as family entertainment.
In this episode everyone is focus on proving something to others as it is the first big carnival since Katrina. John Goodman as the voice of thinking New Orleans takes his daughter on a visit to destroyed areas of the city to put the day in perspective and reminisces with his family over previous experiences. They dress up in a vivid and garish blue outfit with the daughter looking attractive, the wife looking OK and John absurd. They eat out at the street side kitchen operated by Jeanette. John feels less and less like celebrating and returns home alone to make a morose rant for You Tube and then gets drunk on his own and sleeps off among sheets of completed typescript. He is told to sober up by his wife when she finds him in such a state in the morning.
Jeanette get drunk after a hard day’s work from which she makes a lot of money and appears to be at risk as she wanders aimless around the city as it begins to quieten down.
Her casual lover Davis visit his parents who are celebrating the festival with a garden house party and he then goes off and finds the busker violinist Annie on her own and they have an enjoyable day together in which he shows her the fun side of carnival. She has reunited with her lying and cheating drug taking boyfriend only to learn in the morning of the day that he is going out on his own. She still dresses up and goes out on her own until she meets Davis having uttered a few words about the behaviour of the boyfriend Sonny. Sonny ends up enjoying drugs, drink and sex with a woman who is impressed by what he has to say of himself.
Another pair who enjoy an illicit encounter is bar owner LaDonna who struggles to keep her silence over finding that her brother is dead until after the festivities, both missing out on family meals of Gumbo, the southern states dish brought from Africa comprising stew of shellfish or fowl with Creole and Cajun variations. She meets up with the lawyer who represented the city opposing her requirement for action to reveal the whereabouts of her brother. The lawyer hopes there are no hard feelings as she was doing her job and hopes the brother will be found.
Madonna’s partner in crime is Antoine who she meets after he has played at a gig. The episode ends with La Donna outside a Funeral Parlour although it is not clear if she has yet told her mother. Antoine had met up with the Asian man who gave him the new Trombone so he feels obliged to explain that he had recovered his own Trombone and gave the gift to his teacher who has since died. Antoine is impressed that he man was aware of the death and also expresses approval on being told that the Trombone had been passed down to the grand son of the former teacher. Although it is evident the two have a romantic encounter it is not clear how far this develops given that on leaving the home of his partner and daughter Antoine checks on the parameters of his freedom for the day and the partner is firm about the limits.
This just leaves Albert in jail after his protest over the failure to open the State controlled housing project. His son who is staying at a good hotel with the band and bails his father out but only after the Carnival Day. Delmond is impressed by a group of half naked female “Indians” to whom he throws necklaces of colourful beads (made in China) traditionally thrown by those participating in the main parade each day of the two weeks season in New Orleans along with fake Doubloons, decorated plastic cups and small toys for the children. I am assuming that the episode attempts to communicate the flavour of the events, the parades, the masked balls, and parties of various forms and sizes.
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