Gimcrack & Bunkum Before Richard Harrow the last person I saw pasting fastidious images into a book was the English Patient, who also had a demolished face and suicidal thoughts. All Richard needs is some syringes and tins of condensed milk and he’s in an Italian villa, winning Oscars. Don’t do it, Richard. You’ve got so much left to live for. Plus that old Indian fighter isn’t going to scalp himself. I’m glad I watched Pelts last night, otherwise all the surprise gore this episode might have been upsetting. As it was I got to see maybe the first-ever blood spit-take—I bet Game of Thrones is itching to get back on the air now! That was a real freshet of blood to try to outdo. Harrow’s melancholy is surprising me by how much I like it, even if intrinsically it’s no surprise. He’s a looser, less finite version of Officer Bud White; I suspect his being Jimmy’s man is not long for his conscience. Beating on people is bound to be bilious, if only because he’s a sharpshooter, used to working at a physical/emotional distance. Apparently that squirrel-roasting jake in the woods didn’t want Richard to ritually kill himself there because it’s only for killing animals? I wonder how he feels about Adrienna’s body being buried nearby. Elsewhere in Jersey anachronicity, Nucky and Eli got into a fight! A really good one, with minimal stunt doubling and Nucky looking particularly feral. On the great HBO fight scale it falls somewhere between Tony Soprano v. Baccala, which it resembled tonally, and Dan Dority v. Captain Turner, which it resembled structurally. HBO really is trolling itself w/ this show, even w/o much of Uncle Junior as President Martin Van Buren yet. Honestly I just want to know what Nelson’s up to, and if he’s ID’d the w.c. perp yet. There’s a bar in the lower Haight he really really should not try to pee in.
