NMC 430, Media Theory Spring 2015
I decided to talk about Boardwalk Empire (a TV show) in this paper. Especially season four finale. The show is an HBO production. It is an American period crime drama created by Terence Winter.
The whole show is about a gangster who is also a politician. He has the control over Atlantic City to sell alcohol. There are other gangsters who have control over other territories that are part of his group of friends, but they are not under his command, they are their own bosses. Off and on some people come to try to control his part of the country. They either try to become friend with him, or they try to eliminate him.
During the show in the first three season as well as the season four, there is a character who is loved by everybody because he is very respectful toward others, but he is also a very dangerous man, his name is Richard Harrow. Close the last episode of season three, Richard terminated a group of gangsters who had taken the lead in the area where the main character was the leader. They did not think about Richard, but this group of people abused a son of friend of his, so he went along and killed them all. The group of gangsters I am describing was pretty hated by the people. The fact that Richard terminated that group give him a high standard with the main character who put him to work for him in four seasons because Richard was married and he needed a job, and in those days there was no other thing to do.
Now let me get into detail of the season four finale. Once again there was a new character who came in that season, he name is Narcisse, he is a black guy who the main character gave that part of town in exchange of money, of course, but what happen was that there had been one already in that possible, but he failed to Nucky Thompson, the main character, and he replaces him, but he never abandons the other guy, this other guy has a very good idea, he decides to ask Richard to terminate Narcisse. In Richard’s intent to kill this guy from a windows on the second floor, he shoots at Narcisse, but exactly at the moment Richard shoots, the daughter of the one who wants to kill Narcisse get in the way and the shotgun hits her and kills her, Narcisse’s bodyguard shoots at the air the direction to where the shot comes from and hits Richard, but he does not die at the moment, he could get out of there and went into the seashore underneath the harbor and dies there.
This episode was written by Terence Winter and Howard Korder and it was directed by Tin Van Patten in November 2013. In relation to the termination of Richard from the show, Jack Huston, who is Richard in the show, comments that they, the producers, did not want to use the character the wrong way, they saw that it was time for the character to go. “[Richard] died because he does not want to kill anymore,” Huston said in an interview.
People did not like seeing Richard taken out of the show, so there were all kinds of speaking next day online. In an article written by Maricela Gonzales for the “Entertainment Weekend Magazine,” she comments that Richard’s death was “a payoff” to a murder confession from one of Richard’s friends.
On the comments from Huston interview, Joel says, “I am not sure I want to keep watching the BE [Boardwalk Empire] without Richard.” Joyce Wind says, “I see not beauty in Richard’s death.” From these comments and the empty the season finale was, you can see that Richard’s dead was something nobody was expecting.