Boardwalk Empire can be too on the nose. A malevolent physician is named Dr.Cotton. The primary African-American is called Chalky White. Each episode includes an epilogue in which writers explain the poetry of the title. It pays homage to (or borrows from) The Godfather so often the series could have called itself The Corleones.
But the series about 1920’s bootleggers and crooked cops created arguably the greatest side character in television history: Richard Harrow.
Harrow is a World War I sharpshooter horribly disfigured in battle. When he returns from the war, he has to wear half a mask to cover his left eye, cheekbone and jaw, all obliterated from his face. He twitches, spasms and must force words through the gravel that is his voice box. His dialogue through four seasons perhaps would fill two pages.
But what poetry comes from the character, both in word and gesture. He pines for love, for family — for an invitation home from a war he never asked for.
I connected with him immediately: My uncle Guy, for whom I am named, lost an eye in WWII. His face also spasmed and twitched. He never married, and used his law degree to become a traveling salesman.
I summered with the man in 1984, and he never said a word about the war or his injuries. I used to squint on his extra glass eye, which he kept in a dresser drawer, just to imagine what his worldview captured. But you can’t recreate personal horror.
But Empire comes close. And that proximity manages to make Harrow beautiful.
His courtship of a woman is a fragile Valentine. His fostering of a war buddy’s son is the definition of fatherhood. His love for his sister is what Big Brothers yearns to be.
And when he must return to the bullet, he makes John Wick look like he’s struggling with a learner’s permit.
Like Breaking Bad, Empire is one season too long. And Empire doesn’t have an actor as compelling as Bryan Cranston. Steve Buscemi does a fine job as anti-protagonist Nucky Thompson. But the baby-faced, gnarly-toothed actor is not suited for menace. He’s suited to play Donny in The Big Lebowski, which he does to perfection.
Even the actor who plays Harrow, Jack Huston, seems out of place behind the mask. On the red carpet and in talk show interviews, Huston is dashing in a mane of black hair, dark features and British accent. I wish he would have insisted on staying in character when he was out of it.
But that’s the beauty of Boardwalk Empire. Pay close enough attention to the series, you’ll see it’s a retelling of The Wizard of Oz, with Nucky as Oz, his wife as Dorothy, his brother as Scarecrow, his nemesis as Cowardly Lion.
And Richard Harrow as the Tin Woodsman, beating heart and all.
