For many of us so intrigued with Judge Johnson's non-fiction of Atlantic City making it all the way from a small publisher to HBO, the last episode this year was a bit unexpected. Some were shocked, others intrigued, many disgusted, ... perhaps a bunch reserving judgment hoping Jimmy Demody's sudden passing was a dream, ... in fact a nightmare.
Well, having such profound respect for Terrence Winters, Martin Scorsese, the other Soprano-bred directors and writers, I was one of the shocked, seeking to learn from this bad experience. My teacher?... my neice Erica Zarra, Penn State graduate, having majored in creative writing, English, etc., and an award-winning journalist and now teacher of all things literary, and focusing this year on 'THE GILDED AGE, ... THE ROARING TWENTIES AND POST WWI AMERICA. And by the way, like millions of others, hooked on Boardwalk Empire!
So without further adieu, here is her most perceptive, critical, analytical, and professional opinion of Boardwalk Empire's final episode, featuring the killing of its most popular fictional character:
By Erica Zarra
As writers, we know that the value of a character's conclusion, no matter how surprising, depends on its satisfaction to the viewer. The audience must feel a payoff. Like, aha that made sense! But this entire season was about Jimmy's character development. We knew more about his exposition, hopes, dreams, fears, and hellish childhood than any other person on the show. So to kill him so suddenly -- and to have Nucky pull the trigger -- made no sense in the grand scheme of plot. It felt like a last minute writers' room call, which it was, and the audience should never pick up on anything being an eleventh-hour decision.
Jimmy was the only character who connected to almost everyone on the show. He was the nucleus encircled by others within degrees. Without Jimmy, where is Richard, (the evil Lady Macbeth) Gillian, Tommy, Al Capone, etc.? I feel used as a viewer who cared about Jimmy's future, which is why so many people are upset. It would have been a satisfying end to the series, but not a conclusion for the second season. Plus, it rang false to Nucky’s character. He’s never killed anyone - not even Rothstein who tried to off him - but he’ll side with a psychotic butcher and shoot his foster son in the face? That does not make sense. Perhaps if the season explored Nucky’s progression from a half-gangster to a full-on killer, then the finale would have been satisfying, but his murdering Jimmy felt like a whim rather than the result of logical developments.
Also, the fact that Jimmy was only one of the show’s few fictional characters (as is his mother, the dearly departed Angela, Tommy, Richard, and Margaret, who is becoming increasingly insufferable), made him compelling. There was freedom to his narrative. The writers could explore the contradictions that drowned him: he was a killer with a horrific mother and evil father, yet Jimmy had looks, reason and academic intelligence. It was such an interesting duality, to be born blessed yet cursed by circumstance. What a waste. And perhaps due to Michael Pitt's portrayal of Jimmy, he said more than any other character with just a look. You could see the wheels turning in his head, the emotion behind the eyes. He didn’t look sad as if the script demanded it, he was sad.
We all know what is going to happen in history to Nucky, Lucky, Eli, Capone, Rothstein, etc. So the fact that Jimmy's storyline could have taken so many fictional, interesting turns is what makes his character's sudden elimination so insane. They could have done so much with him -- he and Richard were the only characters to represent the Lost Generation, the men who came home from war damaged and altered and searching for a spark, a sign that they should be alive. But it is also Jimmy and Richard who drew boundaries, who killed those deserving. They were soldiers and young men who knew too much to return to their former lives.
And Angela was such a burgeoning feminist and artist and they could have used her to explore the lives of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in Paris. But the largely male writing staff did not know what to do with her. They gave her affairs, but never touched on anything that was not superficial. She could have ended up with Gertrude Stein! The possibilities to explore a woman who was trapped in almost every aspect of life could have been a fascinating storyline. But the easy way out was to kill her, thus making Jimmy’s death perhaps more plausible.
All of the actors portraying real people look like they are simply doing impersonations, almost like a Dick Tracey movie. Jimmy and Angela allowed the writers to funnel what ifs and explore different underground aspects of an extremely complex, gilded decade without having to be factual in their circumstances. They were vessels that every show needs in order to incorporate the Al Capones and Arnold Rothsteins. Viewers make connections to the imagined, not the restored.
Many of the actual people portrayed on Boardwalk Empire lived extremely long lives. Eli dies of natural causes! So where is the mystery? Plus, the viewer needs compelling characters. Only Jimmy, Angela and Richard had real emotion or morality, even though they did bad things, so now I feel like the whole show is full of one-dimensional villains.
The writers rushed Jimmy’s arc so that the end would be shocking, which is was, but they simultaneously shot themselves in the foot. A creative Catch-22, if you will. Without Jimmy, who do we root for? Nucky is too much of a businessman, too confident. He doesn't need the audience’s support. Richard is an excellent secondary character, but should not be brought to the front lines. The others are simply murderers. And Margaret is a sanctimonious hypocrite.
And so, I do not agree with the decision to kill Jimmy, the show’s only portrayal of twisted humanity, guilt, redemption and everyman confusion. If anything, Jimmy should have killed his mother and father and rose to be a stronger personality, escaping the trauma into which he was born. That conclusion would have felt truer than Nucky suddenly becoming a one-dimensional murderer. Even the butcher had more humanity in his eyes when he shot Angela than when Nucky killed Jimmy. His being so cold-blooded felt phoned in, overdone, like a scene from a different show. There was no lead-up and therefore, no payoff.
WELL, THERE YOU HAVE IT. THANK YOU, MS. ZARRA. CANNOT ADD TO ANYTHING YOU HAVE PENNED. YOU ARE BRAVER THAN I TO TAKE ON THE EMMY-WINNING BOARDWALK/SOPRANOS GUYS. BUT JUST MAYBE IF THEY READ YOUR STUFF HERE, THEY JUST MAY DREAM UP ANOTHER ENDING TO YEAR 2 THAT CAN WIN BACK THE NEXT GENERS WHO JUST MAY BE OFF TO WATCHING RE-RUNS/DVD'S OF DICK TRACEY, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU LIKE, OR MAYBE THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF BOARDWALK, NOT INCLUDING THE LAST EPISODE.
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