BOARDWAlK EMPIRE, 9/23/12, "Spaghetti and Coffee"

Always good to see Jimmy James. And I love the actress who plays Nucky's new mistress, the round-faced showgirl. Such a relief after the shrillness of the Paz de la Huerta character and Margaret, who was such a nag to him. The trouble is that there's not much now to do with Margaret (this hospital subplot seems like part of a different show), and the Bobby Cannavale character is so irritating.

• BoardwaLk Empire, rather--sorry for the typo.

  OP

• Does anyone REALLY care about Chalky White and his story lines?

• The whole episode was geared around people in situations where they feel like aliens. That would include Chalky's future son-in-law, Eli, and Bobby Cannavale's loose cannon stuck in Tabor Heights. However, I am growing weary of Nucky, and this season, Buscemi looks like shit. Is he healthy?

• this show is so boring without the depressed hottie playing Gillian's son. Has he gone to rehab yet?

• So, is Nucky's mistress also sleeping with Rothstein? If so, who is the bigger schmuck in this deal? A relationship with Rothstein was implied in last week's episode during the discussion of whether she was sleeping with Eddie Cantor. If she's also with Rothstein, he must know that she is sleeping with Nucky (Nucky basically announced this during their meeting when he mentioned her apartment needed repairs). For Nucky's part, he knows she is definitely fucking at least one other man so he must suspect that it's Rothstein. Furthermore, he seems to suspect that every man she talks to is someone she is fucking. Is Rothstein using the showgirl to keep Nucky distracted and off his game? Why would Nucky want to share a woman with Rothstein or anyone else for that matter?

• Nucky is a cuckold twice over

• Don't get too attached to Nucky's new mistress. Just sayin'.

• The new mistress is adorable. Now she will be gone just like Pitt? argh. Kelly is a wonderful actress but really she does not seem even part of the action anymore. Hey, I like Chalky White. W/o him, there would be no link or insight into the African American community. I love the family story and his impending marriage to the young doctor. best part of the show on sunday.

  anon

• I'm already sick of the Gyp Rosetti/Bobby Cannavale character, not that I liked it to begin with. It's just so completely absurd and over the top. He's supposed to be a cliché brutal gangster but it's being written and over-acted as if it's an SNL parody. In other news, I think I'd like to get nekkid with Arnold Rothstein. I find something about the guy incredibly hot.

• Question: Is the Eddie Cantor character supposed to be gay or just an over-the-top vaudevillian? Even for an entertainer of the era he seems like a flaming queen and he doesn't seem to be connected with any women. Was Eddie Cantor known or suspect of being one of the gays?

• ...and is anybody else over the tiresome, now common habit of series television picking random, otherwise insignificant quotes or situations from episodes and turning them into titles? "Spaghetti and Coffee"? Really? I know it's a trend used in nearly every other series drama but what was once somewhat clever or 'edgy' is not just fucking over-used and stupid. In this case, the episode and storyline has absolutely nothing to do with spaghetti and/or coffee, not even if a psychological way. Yet somebody on the writing crew apparently thinks it sticks out. Any writers here who'd help explain why this is a trend and why it's done?

• [quote]In other news, I think I'd like to get nekkid with Arnold Rothstein. I find something about the guy incredibly hot. Did you see Hugo? The actor had an important role in that, looking totally different but still such a hot daddy.

• [quote]Was Eddie Cantor known or suspect of being one of the gays? Cantor was clever and funny however his humor was very much based on performing blackface and performing the 'sissy'. He was married and cheated with many women. No one has (to my knowledge) come forward and claimed he ever slept with a man.

• In Cantor's movies, not only is much made of the fact that he's a sissy but also much is made of his ass. He's always being kicked there or slapped there or poked there with broomsticks. His schtick was clearly based on his being coded gay, but in real life the man was married and as r13 says, there's been no gossip about him. The guy who plays him on "Boardwalk Empire", Stephen De Rosa, has a great body (though they mostly hide it with his clothes--but you can especially see how muscular his legs are underneath his pants). He's a real sexy daddy in real life.

  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0220531/

• I didn't get the gas station thing, was Rothstein setting Nucky up? Who is Rossi working for with? It's clear Nucky's brother and the Irish guy are going to break off into their own syndicate.

• [quote]I didn't get the gas station thing, was Rothstein setting Nucky up? No, Rosetti wanted the product Nucky was delivering exclusively to Rothstein. Rosetti figured out that the filling station in Tabor Heights would be the place where Nucky's convoy would have to stop for gas, ambushed them and made it impossible for them to refuel (by spilling all the gasoline on the ground). The convoy was forced to turn around and return to Atlantic City.

• I wonder if Rosetti killed the diner waitress.

• Spaghetti = Italian(s). Coffee = Black(s). Also, at the diner Gyp Rossetti ordered spaghetti & coffee, but first requested wine. The police officer who immediately then showed up from out of the shadows suggested they get coffee; the waitress also implied wine was illegal (it was).

  You%20do%20da%20math

• Yeah R18, I think everyone here remembers that. Gyp got coffee with his spaghetti. Okay, so what? The episode might as well been named "Tea and Cake" which is what Margaret and her gal pal were having in one scene.. Or why not "Sex & Radiators" since Nucky was fucking the dancer chick just before draining her radiator.. (GET IT? DRAINNN HER RADIATOR?!? Yuck yuck...) Makes about as much sense. I get that they have to 'brand' the episodes some way, but the mundane, random, idiotic ways dramatic series are choosing to name them is just really dumb, IMO.

• Why does Buscemi look ghoulish, is it the makeup or is he ill?

• [quote]I wonder if Rosetti killed the diner waitress. I assume he killed everyone in the diner as well as the gas station proprietor.

• R20, pretty sure it's the make up, and when you add that to his already overly thin, and a bit odd, face you end with that look. They've gone overboard with it tho. He does look goulish

• Christ R21. I'm sure if they wanted us to believe Gyp killed everyone in the diner, they would have insinuated as much, but it's doubtful. I suppose they could revisit it, but what would it gain killing an entire diner full of people? Then again, they're already letting that scene devouring Cannavale shit-up the show, so it's possible I suppose.

• Sorry, R19, clearly you are "just really dumb." The episode was about the sub-cultures of the blacks and Italians and how they don't mix very well with the rest of society in 1922 NYC/Atlantic City... sort of like ordering spaghetti and coffee at a diner; it doesn't mix. Get it yet? It was a perfect title. If not...

  Get%20outta%20here

• [quoteThe episode was about the sub-cultures of the blacks and Italians and how they don't mix very well Uh, no. No, it wasn't. Chalky White has been a character since season 1 and there was nothing in this episode remotely meant to contrast the "sub-cultures" of blacks and Italians. Stop grasping at bullshit that doesn't exist. The title had nothing to do with anything other than a laziness about putting thought into it.

  Jump%20off%2C%20ass%20napkin.

• Right, R19/R25, and Gyp didn't order spaghetti and coffee at the diner either. You're a fool.

  Hit%20the%20road%2C%20toots

• R26, you sound deranged and warped over a television show so, hope that works out for you. I'm done humoring you.

• You may be done humoring, but I'm still laughing last, R19/R25/R27. I suppose they should just call us.. spaghetti and coffee.

  Beat%20dat

• Sketti!

  better%20redneckognize

• Rothstein was in the amzing Coen Bros' movie A Serious Man. Also I saw him in The Pillowman with Billy Crudup on Bway. He's amzing actor.

• R28/26/24 = unhinged and the reason we can't have nice things.

• Spaghetti and Coffee = The new Norwegian Catholics.

• R11, R3 got close to explaining the title. Spaghetti and coffee don't go together; they don't 'fit.' A lot of this episode dealt with people in situations where they don't 'fit': Chalky's (possible) future son-in-law at the speakeasy, Nucky at his mistress's shoddy apartment (not the Ritz), Rossetti stuck in Tabor Heights, Eli having to work as a laboror (no longer with any senior position), Margaret at the hospital.

  You%27re%20welcome

• This show, like Treme, is a gigantic ball of suck. It will have two more lackluster, meaningless seasons, and then be done. Thank god.

• [quote]Don't get too attached to Nucky's new mistress. Just sayin'. R7, are you the behind-the-scenes guy who posted about Jimmy's death because of Pitt's drug use and his being impossible on set? You also pointed out a scene in which they were filming around him. If so, well adios, Billie. Too bad. She's a cute kid.

• When Nucky took that razor blade out of the razor, I had the horrible feeling he was going to cut her adorable face. Instead it was the black doctor who got cut...! I hope to Christ they expand Jack Huston's role this season. I LOVE that guy.

• r33's answer to the title is right on the money. And I would indeed bet money that the person who keeps incessantly whining about the title is the same person who incessantly whined on the Mad Men threads that there were no Norwegian Catholics in Bay Ridge. LET. IT. GO.

• If you want the definitive answer to why the episode is entitled "Spaghetti and Coffee", listen to Howard Korder's commentary at the end of the episode, which is only available if you watch the show on HBO On Demand. It's about characters feeling like fish out of water in environments they might not really belong. Hence, the first scene with the goldfish being poured into the sink by the middle man character. OK?

• I was just really glad to see Nucky's brother back. He's the only eye candy left and don't say Gyp b/c he looks like he just stepped off of Jersey Shore and his acting is terrible.

• Missed it last night but I heard Bobby Cannavale has a full-frontal nude scene??? Details and descriptions please!!

• R40, it's true! Big swinging cock. It's the very last scene of the episode.

• R11 just isn't ......[italic] getting [/italic] it.

• Good ep overall. This show veers between utter boring and gripping. Like Michael Corleone it keeps dragging me back. Yes Bobby C was hot but get rid of that character and the bad Joe Pesci imitation already. Also kill off Nucky and replace him with the furry Irish guy.

  Mindy in Accounting

• New hot guy fucking Gretchen Mol on the show. He resembles her dead son so she can work out a few of her more kooky issues. The guy has nipples of death!

• And he'll be in Chris Durang's new play at Lincoln Center, playing Sigourney Weaver's boy toy.

• Wow..thanks for the info.

• [quote]Don't get too attached to Nucky's new mistress. Just sayin'. ***SPOILERS*** Well damn, r7. Hated to see her go. What a cute, sassy kid. I'm guessing that Richard will join Nucky's side in the upcoming gang war. I thought Richard's terrible wound was just great makeup. Didn't realize it was CGI until I ran across this short video about Boardwalk Empire's amazing special effects.

  http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/21/2724289/boardwalk-empire-special-effects-vfx-hbo-brainstorm-digital

• Wow. Just watched. That poor girl! What an explosion!