Georgia Peaches
Spoiler galoshes on? Okay. Angela dies. Among the last words Jimmy says to her are: “I know there are things you think about me that you’re afraid to say”. Fleetingly, it turns out, they were one of television’s great conflicted couples: a mediocre artist and better mom banished to an archipelago of anguish by the once and future king who wouldn’t even marry her, lest he languish in the closet forever.
This greatest theory of all, Jimmy’s gayness, may yet flourish. But at what fucking cost? One angle, the really progressive one, is HBO pushing Jimmy in a more unmitigatedly-Harrowian direction. The other is that they just executed the lesbians. Really, you guys?
I was always whatever about Boardwalk Empire having a woman problem, any more than every show has a woman problem or the whole world has a woman problem. Now I can’t decide if that shit was deliberate or if Angela’s undignified death is shambolic retroactivity at work, a period-perfect excuse for the show not to take any responsibility for itself. Women lived and died hard in the ol backin days, is that the ontology we’re doing business with?
I am ruffled.
Manny Horvitz is still my favorite new character. His hair is steamrolled straight down the middle and if butchers have acumen, he’s got it in kilovolts. He is also a slab of beef you have to cook all the way through, get me? Jimmy Darmody doesn’t.
Jimmy’s like, the worst heir apparent ever. Is there a resource he hasn’t misallocated or decision he hasn’t fucked up? Chris Moltisanti, is that you? We’re going to find Jimmy in a hotel kitchen somewhere, shot by a stranger, and the only thing missing will be the rosary.
Mass wasn’t rewritten soon enough to save Margaret from the world’s most hilarious case of misplaced guilt. After being taunted by her own son, who fakes no feeling in his legs and clearly has none in the rest of him either, she takes a grip of Nucky’s cash and deposits it at the nearest rectory. The priest is like “this is unorthodox” while eyeing the dough like it wouldn’t melt in his mouth. If all Margaret wants is to be absolved of Nucky, why doesn’t she leave his thieving ass altogether? Oh right, bennies.
Technically we’re supposed to validate Margaret despite her Anne Neville vibes. She wants her kids to be taken care of and Nucky is genuinely good with them. But her freaky Beyonce streak from season one is about to peter the fuck out, honestly.
The last shot of Jimmy and the Entering Princeton sign is about the loneliest thing I ever saw. Steady, boychik.
