In season one, there wasn't much that I didn't like. I thought that season played out very well. The last episode in particular was really great TV.
In season two, I didn't like that they replaced Pete McGonnigle with Collin the Irish cousin. I don't think that actor or character brought anything to the table that was as good as Stivi Paskoski as Pete. One of the things in both 1 and 2 that I didn't like was the lack of interaction between Michael and Tommy. All of their scenes kind of revolve around Tommy avoiding Michael until the end of the episode and then blowing up at him, and then Michael feeling hurt.
In season three, there wasn't much that I DID like. I can watch and appreciate the skill and craft that went into creating and developing the story and bringing it to life on the screen, so it is not a matter of bad writing or directing or acting, but the storylines of season 3 were just not very entertaining. I genuinely didn't like the change in Michael. Basically, Michael was gone, and had been replaced with an paranoid, obsessive villain. I didn't enjoy his role at all, especially his treatment of Kath Perry and her family.
Jason Clarke as Tommy got a lot more focus this season, which was needed, but unfortunately these sequences were not very entertaining, nor were Eileen's struggles at work.
Collin and his pseudo-affair with Kath was really just a pain in the arse. I never liked Collin. The way this affair ended kind of personified Collin for me as a non-starter.
There were two aspects of season 2 I would have liked to have seen develop further but that did not. One is that Michael ended season two having gotten what he wanted, control of the gang. In season three I would have preferred to have seen what he could do with that role. Unfortunately, he as a character had been aborted. Secondly, the idea that Collin and Tommy were half-brothers was interesting, but it didn't get developed at all. I did like Collin and Rose filling the mother-son roles for each other, but there wasn't much of that anyway.
In season three a lot of stuff happened that didn't happen. Michael shoots the hell out of Nazzoli, but Nazzoli doesnt die. Declan finally gets his wife to take him back and then blows it over nothing. Collin almost gets killed over an affair with Kath that doesn't even get consummated until the death warrant is already issued. Freddie has to learn a new way to live but then ends up right back where he started. Tommy risks everything to get out of local politics and then just ends up more firmly entrenched than he was before.
The one thing I liked about this season was the final confrontation between Michael and Tommy. I thought that one scene played out really well.
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goldsac
12 years ago
Scrapmetal touched upon it, but i'll second it: The fact that Nazzoli actually survived. I found this to be ridiculous. Michael has him dead-bang, seemed pretty implied that he'd finished the job, and suddenly he's alive in the hospital. This could've been written better if they'd simply had Nazzoli escape completely after the first shot.
It ended well with Nazzoli surviving, but i just wish they made his survival more believable in the first place.
Small potatoes tho - this was an excellent show.
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huggybizzzle
12 years ago
But in a way, his survival was realistic. Michael shot Nazolli in front of a family of witnesses. By the time they got the F out of there, they probably dialed 911 and told them to send paramedics.
Now, if a random person happened to come across Nazolli's wounded body out of nowhere and called for help, that would be a stretch.
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goldsac
12 years ago
True enough, as far as the witnesses go. I'm actually glad that he survived as far as the overall story goes, as it illustrates his 'indestructibility' so to speak, and gives way to the idea that not every problem can be solved using the brute force Michael tends toward.
It was just portrayed a bit too outrageously for me on a practical level, and could have been easily fixed with more careful writing. You make a good point about the witnesses serving as a 911 source, and that does help. Even then, though, 3 shots to the torso relatively point-blank, edited and presented as though it were a done deal as far as typical convention goes (in my experience) - it was just too much that for my suspension of disbelief threshold. Why not have him get impaled on some spike while we're at it, and in the end write it off because it just happened to just miss his heart or vital organs?
The important thing is, my 1st paragraph trumps my second here. The grand scheme writing works for me, which is more important that the second paragraph nitpicking. To sum it up: when Freddie come out with "it looks like Nazzoli's gonna live" early in the last episode, I yelled out "oh fück off!", gave a proverbial middle-finger to the writers, and got on with enjoying the show :).
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huggybizzzle
12 years ago
I see where you're coming from. I was actually speechless when Freddy told Michael that Nazolli survived, because the scene seemed like it was implying his character was actually dead. I thought the family would serve as witnesses only for the story, not the help who saves the local Italian mob boss. I do like that Nazolli survived though; that way we're ready for a season 4 (possibly never going to happen) or a movie (possibly will never happen either).
I'm now reading books about the Bulger brothers and Irish American gangsters. It's the only way I can satisfy my BROTHERHOOD needs when I'm not re-watching the episodes.
Actually, Boardwalk Empire is a really addicting show to watch, but I still like the Caffee brothers more.
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