Boardwalk Empire Review

Nobody has recreated a period better. The boardwalk was built full scale, the interiors are dense with the right objects, the costumes are exact, and Martin Scorsese's pilot establishes a visual grammar of long lateral moves and warm lamplight that the series holds for five seasons. The supporting cast is extraordinary. Michael Shannon's federal agent, a religious man being eaten by his own repression, is the best character in it; Jack Huston's disfigured sniper is a genuinely original creation; Michael Kenneth Williams, Stephen Graham and Gretchen Mol are all doing top level work.

The difficulty is Nucky Thompson. Steve Buscemi is very good at playing a man who manages other people's violence, but a lead whose defining trait is caution gives the drama a hole at the centre, and the show never resolves whether he is a gangster or an administrator. Killing off its most compelling young character at the end of the second season was a bold decision that cost the series two years of momentum. The final season's flashbacks explain too much.