Boardwalk Empire Season 3 Finale

It was terrific. And it will continue. There is much to do. The next season will take place 2 years later.

 

How can you say that Darmody being killed doesnt make sense story wise? If Jimmy didn't die, it would ruin the show IMO. You cross Nucky, you die. Had he let Jimmy live, after trying to kill him, it just wouldn't be believable. Jimmy's death was necessary in order to maintain Nucky's baddassness. Making him unpredictable. Like when he shot that boy in the liquor house for stealing his liquor. I loved it.

And while Harrow is a great character, i just like White and Capone. I still cant believe Capone is Tommy from Snatch. Unbelievable.

 

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That rumor about pitt being a dick on the set was just that, a rumor. It was dismissed by the writers of the show. He needed to die. Now Owen? He was a real cunt behind the scenes. The writers felt that keeping jimmy around wasnt worth it with the direction they were going. They wanted to give Nucky a new foe each season.

 

[h=1]Boardwalk Empire' Boss on the Awkward Email That Killed Off Michael Pitt[/h] 3:25 PM PDT 6/4/2012 by Michael O'Connell
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[h=2]Showrunner Terence Winter tells THR that poor cellular service -- and Martin Scorsese's busy schedule -- forced him to break news of Jimmy Darmody's shocking demise to the series star in a rather blunt and impersonal manner.[/h] <center>
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Brigitte Sire

Most fans found out about Jimmy Darmody's (Michael Pitt) Boardwalk Empire death when Nucky (Steve Buscemi) unceremoniously shot him in the face at the end of the second season. But Pitt found out in an e-mail.
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Series creator Terence Winter, speaking during The Hollywood Reporter's drama showrunner Emmy roundtable, says that he did try his hardest to give Pitt proper notice -- but technology got in the way.
"I always knew he would die at Nucky’s hand," Winter says of the series' feuding gangsters. "In plotting Season Two, it became clear that if we were going to tell this story honestly, it was going to happen at the end of the year. He was such a huge character, and we love Michael. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make as a writer."
The move was something Pitt had braced for. He asked Winter early in the series if he had plans to kill him off -- something he eventually confirmed after a botched conference call with executive producer Martin Scorsese.
Winter says that Pitt, in upstate New York on a fishing trip, kept losing cellular service and falling off the call. After several attempts, the busy Scorsese had to get back to work and told the showrunner they didn't have time to break it to him softly.
"Marty was like, 'Let me just e-mail him.'" recalls Winter. "I said: 'We can’t e-mail. We have to have this conversation.' But we couldn’t get him back on the phone. So ultimately, I felt horrible, but I had to send him an e-mail: 'I don’t want you to get the script and read this, but you sort of knew where this was going.' He was totally fine with it."
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Pitt just requested his character go out "in the worst way possible" -- a request he shared with another actor Winter famously dispatched. While writing for The Sopranos with David Chase, Winter remembers how it went down when they decided to finally (and gruesomely) kill Joe Pantoliano's Ralph Cifaretto.
"Joe Pantoliano made that same request on Sopranos," says Winter. "He said, 'I love being on this show, but if you have to kill me, please take me out with a bang.' We said, 'Done.'"
Patoliano's final moment on The Sopranos came when he was graphically decapitated by Tony (James Gandolfini) during the fourth season.

 

[h=2]Interviews with Michael Pitt & Terence Winter about Boardwalk finale [SPOILERS][/h]
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The brooding ambitious Jimmy Darmody is no more. But the actor who played him, Michael Pitt, says he respected producers’ stunning decision to kill off his pivotal Boardwalk Empire character in the show’s second season finale Sunday night.

“I like it,” wrote the often press-shy Pitt, responding to questions from EW via email about the finale. “As much as I will miss working with everyone on this incredible project, I thought that it would be very shocking and I’m always drawn to that.”

Showrunner Terence Winter decided near the end of shooting the season that Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) should execute his young protégé-turned-rival in the finale’s last moments. The dramatic conclusion caused an explosion of shock and outrage on Twitter, as fans reeled at the loss of a favorite character.

Filming that intense final rain-drenched scene, Pitt recalled, “It was cold and very wet. We were getting rained on and having to run into tents and strip off all of our clothes to try to warm ourselves with heaters. We did that all night.”

The exit might cause some to wonder about an industry rumor in October when Pitt split with his talent agent that claimed the actor was “difficult” to work with, but Winter said that description is “absolutely not true.” “Michael is a total professional,” Winter says. “He’s intense, of course, but I don’t think you can do that job without being intense.” Pitt said,”I’m confident that I will be judged by my performance and not by the ‘he said, she said.’”

Looking back on his time on the show, Pitt writes, “Every morning I remember thinking that it is so amazing to wake up in Brooklyn, drive 20 minutes to a set, and work with such excellent professionals.”

Pitt’s breakout role was on Dawson’s Creek and he has since appeared in films like Wonderland, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and headlined Gus Van Sant’s Last Days. In addition to acting, Pitt sings and plays guitar in his band Pagoda. He says he isn’t sure of his next move. “But the sky is the limit,” he writes.


“This is the only way we could have ended, isn’t it?” Jimmy asks.
“This is your choice, James,” Nucky replies.

And with that build-up, Boardwalk Empire executed one of the most surprising moves in recent TV history — killing off James “Jimmy” Darmody (Michael Pitt), the show’s second-biggest character after Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi).

Nucky shot and killed his former protégé after a season-long power struggle for control of the Atlantic City booze trade. The Oedipal-conflicted young war veteran was the victim of his own tragic decisions, including a bungled assassination attempt on Nucky. Though many fans will regret losing Pitt’s character, the move gave viewers an uncompromising finale that allows Nucky to embrace his gangster destiny.

Below, Boardwalk Empire showrunner and executive producer Terence Winter, who wrote tonight’s finale, talks to EW about why Jimmy had to go, how he broke the news to Pitt and gives some hints about his plans for season three — which include a time jump and the introduction of new brash young character.

When did you first know that you were going to kill off Jimmy?
Probably at the very beginning of season two. The idea was to try and push things to their absolute limit, even if it makes it difficult for yourself and your writing team. If you take things to their logical extreme with the situation we created, Jimmy has betrayed Nucky, he tried to have him killed. You want to be honest about the storytelling. In the pilot, Jimmy told Nucky: “You can’t be half a gangster anymore.” We wanted with the first two seasons to follow that trajectory, where he goes full season from being the guy who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty to actually pulling the trigger himself. And what’s the strongest version of that? To pull the trigger on the very guy who told him, “You can’t be half a gangster anymore.” It’s like, “Guess what? You’re right. I can’t. And here’s me now fully becoming a gangster.” Anything short of Nucky doing it himself wouldn’t feel real, it wouldn’t be real. And it would be a cheat for us to say, “We want to keep our beloved character Jimmy Darmody alive.”

One of the things I wanted to do by design in the finale is make the audience pissed off [at the start of the episode]. I wanted people to say [when it seemed like Nucky and Jimmy would reconcile], “Oh great, after all that, it’s all going to be forgotten and Jimmy is going to be back in Nucky’s good graces.” I wanted them to think right up to the very end that Nucky is going to forgive him and take him back. It was a really hard decision. You’re sort of blowing up your own show, in some ways. Now we’re back in the writers room trying to figure out where we go from here without Jimmy Darmody.

My only concern plot-wise was wondering whether Jimmy would really go so willingly to what he likely believes is his death.
We know with [the previous week's episode] that he’s so emotionally damaged. I don’t think Jimmy ever expected to come back alive from World War I. I think he probably left for the war hoping he would die and was surprised he survived. He’s been a walking dead person ever since we’ve met him. He’s come back and gone through the motions of a person trying to make his way in the world, but ultimately becomes resigned to his fate. He gets manipulated into this run against Nucky, who was his mentor, and really the only father figure of any meaning that he has. The plot failed and he knows, as a good solider, he’s going to have to fall on his sword. He fully knows what he’s walking into at the end. He’s not armed. He says goodbye to his son. He basically gives Richard Harrow permission to not come with him. He knows he needs to be punished. The circumstances of his life have unraveled to the point where he’s willing to accept his fate. And psychologically Harrow is prepared to respect that as a soldier. [LIKE HELL HE IS. He's gonna be devastated and I will cry ALL OF THE TEARS.]

You touch on this in that last answer, but I still wanted to ask: Especially in light of what happens this week, why was it important to have the flashback that included the scene of Jimmy having sex with his mom?
We wanted to answer the questions: Why were Jimmy and Angela together in the first place? What is the basis of this weird relationship with his mother? What’s this strange hold she has on him? From the very first moment you see Jimmy and his mother together it’s really inappropriate — you think it’s a girlfriend, then you learn it’s his mother. We just wanted to pay that story off. It gives us so much insight into Jimmy’s psychology and how things got to this point.

I’m still haunted by his mom’s “I used to kiss his little winky” line from the season premiere.
Exactly.

On The Sopranos, you guys killed off plenty of key roles — you wrote the amazing “Long Term Parking” episode (where Adriana died). Arguably this is a bigger move than any Sopranos hit. Do you have any concern about losing such a popular character?
Huge concern. As we go about the business of TV, you’re constantly looking for ways to keep ahead of the audience or defy expectations. It’s a big gamble creatively, you’re killing off a major-major character very early on. But you want to be true to the story and to do the most unexpected thing. The audience is used to seeing bodies start to drop in season five. People won’t believe [Jimmy's dead] until the last second and even then some will wonder if it’s a dream. People didn’t believe it when Adriana was killed on The Sopranos and that was in season five.

Because so many people thought Adriana was still alive, I was wondering if that’s why you showed Jimmy’s gunshot wounds.
That wasn’t conscious, but it never hurts to be definitive. He’s not getting up.

When did you tell Michael and how did that go?
We talked about it during the year. I generally don’t like to give actors a lot of advance notice about what’s happening on the show, because what [the writers] think is going to happen can change. The other thing is a lot of actors don’t want to know what’s coming. If they know the future of their characters, that information might [influence] their performance.

Michael saw the way it was shaping up and he came into my office and he was all, “Are you guys considering where this is heading? Is Eli going to die? Have you thought about killing me?” And I said, “Yeah, we actually have. All I will tell you is everything is on the table. It could go this way, it could go that way. I don’t know.” Up until Episode 9, I wasn’t 100 percent sure this is where we were going to go. I was pretty sure. I wanted to reserve my right to change my mind up until the last minute so I didn’t want to tell him. So he didn’t know officially until right before the script for [the finale] came out. He had a very strong suspicion and I was certainly preparing him for it. But Michael is an artist. He’s a phenomenal actor, and part of the challenge is to keep reinventing the series. He’s very much about doing what’s best for the show and the character. In terms of the storytelling, he totally got it. He really loved doing the show, but he’s also a guy who likes to do different things. I think he understands this was the single most powerful thing you could have done on the show.

Was that a slight Godfather nod, cross cutting the wedding and the whacking?
Yeah, always. I’m not ashamed to say Godfather is one of my favorite movies of all time and any time I can steal from it I always do.

With Van Alden having run off to Cicero, is he going to still be in our story?
Yeah. People who are really students of Mob history will pick up on the fact that Cicero, Illinois is the place Al Capone became headquartered in 1924. So we put him in a place where he theoretically could interact with other characters on the show.

So can we expect to see Al Capone come into his own as a formidable force next season?
As time goes on. The plan is now is we would come back in season three a little further into the future and start to really track Al Capone’s rise and — God willing — through the course of the series. By 1925, Capone was the guy everybody recognizes — the guy in the white fedora who’s firmly in charge of Chicago. Hopefully we’ll be on the air long enough to see that guy. Certainly in [season three] we’ll start to see Capone on pretty much equal footing as Johnny Torrio in terms of who’s running the town.

You mentioned jumping forward in time for season three. How long will that be? [Note: Season two was set in 1921]
We’re thinking about 16 months and starting the [third] season around the beginning of 1923, then maybe run through the end of 1923. It was an exciting year. All the people who stockpiled liquor started to run out, so competition between bootleggers became really fierce.

I can’t imagine Nucky is going to be very pleased with Margaret donating all his land to the church.
I don’t think that will make anybody happy. The ramifications of that will be explored as the series progresses.

And I’m assuming Richard Harrow will continue as a key player?
Yes, Harrow will continue to be part of the show, absolutely.

One thing that impacted me this season was the polio storyline — a really heartbreaking move. It’s easy to forget nowadays what a horrible disease that was.
Especially with that little girl. That actress is really so sweet. It was hard for us. My wife read that script and punched me in the arm. Steve Buscemi read the script and said he threw it across the room. We did a lot of research on the subject and it just ravaged children in this country, and adults too. It was a horrific disease.

So for season three, I hear you’re looking to add a new character, Bud Matheson, described as a young James Cagney type. Might that be Boardwalk‘s new up and comer?
Yeah. As the ’20s progressed and became the Roaring ’20s, it was very youth oriented culture. Young people really came into their own, with access to automobiles. They had influence on popular music and fashion trends. We really wanted to infuse the show with some exciting young sexy energy and this guy is the sort of embodiment of that new sort of go-getter who wants to grasp things with both hands. Cagney was a great prototype — the fast-talking brash young guy who wants it all and wants it now.

Read more at ONTD: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/65038437.html#ixzz2EulOXeBX

 

I heard some things about him not wanting to say certain lines and wanting do have creative control of his character. Since he knew he was going to die, he wanted to make sure his performance made him look good enough to make it in the movies.

 

And for Pitt, he was at the season 3 premire showing with all the crew. He was laughing and having a good time, despite not being in that season. I dont know, everyone seems cool with him.

 

He has the potential to be very good. I dont know what he is currently doing. He needs to drop the leo dicap swag tho.

 

I loved the scene where gyp insulted everyone. Breadstick with a Bowtie.

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When he killed his right hand man's cousin with the shovel instead of letting him drown. Then turns to his right hand man and says "You owe me"

BWWAHAHA