mphtrilogy

Best ep of the year, looks like something bad is gonna happen to Nuckys wife and kid...

Great ending for van Alden

flashburn

Weren't they on the roof? Odd place for a pickup...

Coral

I must've missed that.

flashburn

Oh, I definitely agree, he went out on his own terms, and that was nice. I just want to see him go out guns blazing at some point in his career and this would of been a nice "make up" for Omar.

Coral

They weren't on a roof... just a back alley. You can see the truck the kid was driving to do the pickup behind him.

flashburn

Gotcha, okay so not as bad... Still a bit of a coincidence... But I guess it's not a big deal.

majorjoe23

We already know from earlier in the show that they don't have a happy ending.

Decker

Actually, Chalky went pretty damn quietly.

slop101

I didn't quite get what those girls did to Nucky - did they mug him or something?

~~ PAL ~~

Yes they did.

CPA-ESQ.

One of the better episodes - but weak story and writing.

Chalky dies because by coincidence the girl he wanted to see who managed to stay away from Narcese for 10 years, sends him a record and arranges a meeting with him just hours before Chalky finds her. Then he gives up his life with nothing more than 'hope' that Narcese will book her at a club --WoW well worth breaking out of prison for.

At least have him go out in a hail of bullets - extracting revenge - and giving everything up for that one moment.

At least Van Alden went out in a rage - if he was going to die then he would get his hands on Capone.

Decker

Question : Did Mueller/Van Alden & Eli know Mike was a Fed? I've forgotten if he was in the interrogation room or not. And if the Feds had Mike at such a high level anyway, did they really need to have that accountant in the closet covered in cockroaches?

Neil M.

Yes. He was the one that sent them there to steal the ledgers. Mike can't give up his cover so that's why he uses others. One nice detail that you may not have noticed was that Mike started to lift his gun as Eli was telling Capone who sent them to steal the ledgers. He let off when Eli told him it was Eliott Ness.

Coral

Yea, I get his sacrifice to save the woman and the kid who he thinks might be his daughter (to make up for his other daughter getting caught in the middle and dying) - but too much time spent with him in situations in previous episodes for it to lead to something so anti-climactic.

And Nucky was pretty useless this episode. We're already spending a lot of time with his back story, can't they make the present day stuff useful? They're writing this season like this isn't a shortened final season - with too much filler.

barelypure

Just remember if they follow real life Nucky didn't die until 1968 and went to jail in 1941 so we still have a few years to go before that happens.

CRM114

The Chalky thing was confusing to me.

The singer woman and child left for some period of time and came back. It was implied that Narcisse was somehow blocking her singing career. It seemed to me Chalky agreed to be part of Nacisse's gang and give up his gun in exchange for letting the singer go with her record and stop blocking her career. It seemed to me Chalky could have taken out Narcisse but chose this other "deal". Did Narcisse just fuck over Chalky or did I miss some dialog that implied Chalky was giving up his life? I admit I was dozing a bit during this part.

For the Van Alden lovers, you can see him in the new Jeff Tweedy video.

Neil M.

Chalky basically gave up his life in order to give Daughter and and what is presumed to be his daughter a life. It was an unspoken thing. There was no way that the two of them could forgive the past and work together. They didn't want Daughter to know what was going on so they spoke as if they were coming to an agreement. The whole time, Chalky knew that he was a dead man.

CRM114

OK, good. Thats what I thought. I'd still think it would be more consistent for Chalky to just put a bullet in Narcisse's head.

zuffy

Chalky never lived up to the hype imo. What a weak ass way to go.

Only Chicago was interesting. The rest was boring and this is episode 6/8 of the series finale. WTF?

CPA-ESQ.

After thinking about it more - I agree that this was a piss poor way for him to go out.

We followed Chalky from day 1, we saw his rise, him help Nucky against threats, and achieve some real power and status -- then last season some 'unknown' calling himself Dr. Narcice walks into atlantic city and some how takes over Chalky's operations.

We're not talking a historical figure like, Capone, just a made up character - who in a few episodes is able to defeat Chalky, despite everything we have seen from Chalky. Then he somehow goes to jail, escapes, and at the end surrenders to this 'unknown' character and is shot dead willingly -- punk way to go out for a man who sacrificed so much to get what he wanted, and who's only option in life now is jail, running, or death.

slop101

^ now that you put it that way, yeah, they really gypped his character bad.

Bill Needle

I agree about Chalky. It was a cheap way to have him go out "redeemed."

But if they had given him a proper B story there would have not been nearly enough time left to devote to Nucky childhood flashbacks.

Why So Blu?

Agreed. He was great as the all righteous federal agent but once he went on the run and became a reluctant gangster his character arc went downhill. He was a cartoon and I fucking love Michael Shannon but his bumbling-over-his-head-gangster-character was not very good.