The man’s world of “Boardwalk Empire”
A shocking twist highlights the drama's inability to make space for great female characters
By Matt Zoller SeitzTopics: Boardwalk Empire, HBO, TV, Entertainment News
Presumptive Atlantic City crime boss Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) strikes a contemplative pose on "Boardwalk Empire." (Credit: HBO)On one hand, yes, oh my God, oh the humanity, poor Angela Darmody (Aleksa Palladino), rest her soul; what a ghastly exit. Philadelphia gangster/butcher Manny Horvitz (William Forsythe) avenged a botched assassination attempt by Angela’s husband, Jimmy (Michael Pitt), by invading the Darmodys’ seaside house and putting Angela and her girlfriend down like livestock. It was obscenely dark, and I mean that as a compliment. Violence that’s supposed to mean something — to feel “real” and hurt the spectator — can’t be clean, abstract or comic bookish. It needs to have that ’70s movie nastiness, and this killing definitely had it. It reminded me of the murder spree that ended “Boys Don’t Cry,” with the bodies on the floor and the bloodstains on the wall. Horrifying.
But on the other hand: sooner or later “Boardwalk Empire” had to kill off somebody who was listed in the show’s opening credits, otherwise it would have seemed like Guest Star Murder Theater, and Angela was definitely the most disposable major character. She never drove important plotlines; mostly she reacted to her husband’s macho shenanigans, sometimes suffering in silence, sometimes acting out. Her appearances tended to tease the same question over and over: “Is Angela being true to herself and flirting with women this week, or trying to pass for straight again?” That’s a fascinating predicament for a female character in male-dominated 1920s Atlantic City, with its boho influence bubbling just under the surface, but “Boardwalk” has yet to address it in a meaningful way. We got a parting taste of Angela’s internal conflict during her final episode, but it ultimately felt like a glorified setup for the surprise of seeing a woman coming out of that bathroom instead of Jimmy. (On TV, when unhappy characters try to set things right with the people who mean the most to them, it often means that death is right around the corner.)
Angela’s demise is mainly notable for what it will or won’t do to Jimmy. He already seems to be in way, way over his head. In the past few episodes, he made a public spectacle of himself by tossing an underling off a balcony at a celebratory party, got outmaneuvered by the supposedly retired Nucky in the liquor business, and failed so miserably at handling the African-American hotel workers’ strike that the stroke-addled Commodore finally blurted out a comprehensible sentence: “Why don’t you show them your cunt?” I’m guessing Angela’s demise will either drive Jimmy to even more hotheaded behavior or send him into a depressive trough of inaction. Either way it’ll reduce Angela to a facet of Jimmy — a catalyst for a gangster’s grief and rage — rather than illuminating her on her own terms.
“Boardwalk Empire” never really knew what to do with Angela, just as it never really knew what do with any of its female characters — except maybe Jimmy Darmody’s mother, Gillian (Gretchen Mol), the Oedipal Lady Macbeth of the seaside. Margaret’s distress over her daughter’s polo paralysis has been more compelling, mainly because it put Kelly Macdonald, one of the best actors in a fine cast, at the center of several episodes in a row. (It also showed a warmer, gentler side of Nucky.) I get the sense that the confession that Margaret really wants and needs to make isn’t that she had sex with that hunky IRA soldier, but that she’s living with (and off) the man who had her husband killed. But as morally and metaphysically fraught as these developments may be, Margaret has never regained the spark that she showed early in Season 1, when she charmed Nucky and proved herself a dazzling social butterfly who could talk politics with actual politicians. Like Angela — and Gillian, and Lucy Danziger, and every other female character of note — she’s diminished by a show that’s ultimately more interested in pissing contests and whackings. It isn’t just Nucky who put her in her place, it’s the series.
The reflexive counter-argument that “Boardwalk Empire” is set in a man’s world almost a hundred years ago — and that deeper, more sharply defined, even autonomous female characters would be unrealistic, or anachronistic — doesn’t wash when you compare it to similarly testosterone-driven but superior shows. “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood,” “Breaking Bad” and even the current “Homeland,” which is set in the male-dominated world of spies, soldiers and politicians, all managed to create women characters who seemed to have a life apart from whatever men they happened to be living with, sleeping with or working for. Carmela Soprano was married to Tony, but she wasn’t overshadowed by him. Alma, Trixie and Calamity Jane on “Deadwood,” Skyler White on “Breaking Bad,” Carrie Mathison on “Homeland” and almost every major female character on “Mad Men” have more depth, more fire, more inner life than any female character on “Boardwalk” save Margaret, and even she often seems to be more of a human pincushion than a character.
U.S Assistant Attorney General Esther Randolph (Julianne Nicholson), who’s loosely based on Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the assistant U.S. attorney general from 1921-29, is a fascinating addition to the show, tormenting Nucky and challenging Van Alden to climb out of his personal shame spiral and recommit himself to law enforcement. But “Boardwalk” also made sure to show her sleeping with a subordinate, and gave us a nice head-to-toe nude shot while they were at it. How long, I wonder, before she ends up in a clinch with Nucky?
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
Burt Bacharach opens up on daughter's suicide
-
Steven Spielberg to produce "Halo" television series
-
Amazon set to launch fine-art gallery
-
Twitter torches Dan Brown's "Inferno"
-
Brad Pitt keeps breaking his silence on how boring marriage to Jennifer Aniston was
-
Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" to use porn star body doubles
-
New Beyoncé single leaked
-
The sweet, sure to be short-lived "The Goodwin Games"
-
Damon Lindelof admits barely-clothed scene in "Star Trek" was "gratuitous"
-
Justin Timberlake: I'm a mediocre folk singer!
-
Ray Manzarek, founding member of The Doors, dies at 74
-
Beware of book blurbs
-
Did a Salon excerpt ruin Penn Jillette's chance to win "Celebrity Apprentice"?
-
Zach Galifianakis to take formerly homeless woman to "Hangover 3" premiere
-
Seth MacFarlane will not host Oscars again
-
"SNL's" uncomfortable Garner/Affleck moment
-
"Celebrity Apprentice" finale ratings hit a new low
-
Worst National Anthem fails
-
The truth in Kanye's anti-prison rap
-
Stephen Colbert to UVA: "You must always make the path for yourself"
-
"Game of Thrones," season 3, episode 8: A salon
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
Related Videos
Most Read
-
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid "totally different" from Sandy aid
Jillian Rayfield
-
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook
Mary Elizabeth Williams
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
"Jodorowsky's Dune": The sci-fi classic that never was
Andrew O'Hehir
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
Paul Buchheit, AlterNet
-
My open relationship went awry
David Farley
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
Scott Timberg
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
Jonathan Bernstein
-
GOP attorney general candidate tried to force women to report miscarriages to police
Katie Mcdonough
-
Will you marry me -- once you're done peeing?
Tracy Clark-Flory
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com

2965 points2966 points2967 points | 1551 comments

136 points137 points138 points | 42 comments

25 points26 points27 points | 13 comments

Comments
26 Comments