Boardwalk Empire - Season 3 (Discussion, Spoilers)

[Rhaven]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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I think she's naive to think Richard wouldn't do anything to her, with what he's already done. What I don't really get is why she doing this to him, why she's so concerned in preventing him from finding someone he can love, like it affects her? It's not like she's ever been in love with him. They've certainly never showed any inkling of that.

I think it's because Gillian has becomed a self entittled witch. She's killed to get what she wants and lies as if there will never be consequences. She looks down on Richard with a cruel eye and words. She does cruel things, because she can.
I do hope Richard shoots her. I hope she sees it coming and that she lingers a bit before she takes the boat to hell.

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, that's very true as well. She's very manipulative, and as mentioned, she's crazy and she might be passing her blame onto Richard, him being the closest person available, and she's thinking she can get away with this just like she's gotten away with everything else she's done, like Jimmy's lookalike. I do think however, that it would be ironic if she didn't see it coming because of being so self-absorbed and too confident.

[ITL]

Also, she can see Tommy bonding with him and doesn't like it.

[Count Zero]

Yeah, I think she's primarily jealous of Richard's close relation to Tommy and possibly sees him taking over the role that would be Jimmy's if he was still alive. At the same time, Richard's falling in love is seen as a distraction by her from the job he's doing for her. We've already seen her being a dominant and capricious boss to the girls. Anyway, her actions have resulted in pushing Richard away from her to the point where he apparently plans to kill her.

Great episode. Nucky on the run was very exciting and also insightful. We saw that he still has some decency (trying to save Eddie, storming out in what must have looked like certain death to save his nephew). Chalky's loyalty was also quite impressive.

I loved Capone's appearance at the end.

[Owain Taggart]

That's another good point. I forgot about Tommy being close to him being a problem, but it makes a lot of sense in that context.

As for Capone, are we to expect that he'll be on Nucky's side? Maybe he'll help Nucky take back the city? I certainly expect Rosetti will take a bullet, and it might as well be by a figure like Capone.

[Count Zero]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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As for Capone, are we to expect that he'll be on Nucky's side?

Well, that's what he said - for the right price, of course.

[TheGodBen]

Count Zero wrote:

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Yeah, I think she's primarily jealous of Richard's close relation to Tommy and possibly sees him taking over the role that would be Jimmy's if he was still alive. At the same time, Richard's falling in love is seen as a distraction by her from the job he's doing for her.

Not only that, but she fears Richard, Julia, and Tommy becoming their own little family. Gillian sees Julia as a threat for the position of Tommy's "mommy", a threat that was greatly reinforced upon seeing the picture of the three of them together. She did what she could to sour Richard and Julia's relationship, and when that didn't work she chose to remove Richard (and therefore Julia) from the equation.

Great episode this week. The first fifteen minutes were particularly exciting. There's an awful lot that needs to be wrapped up next week though and I'm worried that it might be rushed, particularly considering this episode was 5-10 minutes shorter than usual.

[Anwar]

Gillian is PO'ed because Richard defies her and her plans (at first she was trying to make Tommy forget about Angela completely) and now it's worse because Richard is genuinely closer to Tommy than she is and in fact acts more like family to him than she ever has.

It would've been funny if Capone brought Van Alden with him as hired muscle with both Eli and Nucky being "WTF?" over it.

[Joe Washington]

I see Richard killing Gillian and raising Tommy as his own which I think would be better than Gillian raising him which I fear would lead to the same twisted motherly treatment that messed Jimmy up. Or maybe Rosetti kills her during sex. Either way, I don't see her going on past this season.

[Anwar]

It is kind of funny how no one blames the Commodore or Nucky for their role in warping Gillian. I mean, Nucky was the one who pimped her out to the Commodore all those years ago and the Commodore was the one who raped her and got her pregnant. All that happening at the age of 12 would mess anyone up for the rest of their lives, and yet Gillian gets no sympathy for this.

[Joe Washington]

What happened to Gillian was terrible and you're right. The Commodore and Nucky are both to blame for that. But Gillian made choices of her own like sleeping with Jimmy, manipulating him for years, trying to erase Angela from Tommy's life, and killing that poor Jimmy look-alike. Her day of reckoning has been a long time coming.

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ True - any good will that she might have garnered from the tragedy that was her early life has quickly evaporated due to her recent behavior. She is an adult, acting like a petulant child and has lived a relatively consequence-free existence during the show's entire run. True, Nucky and the Commodore should share in much of the blame of her current state (and the Commodore DID have quite a poetic and violent death in the end), but that does not excuse what she's done and the damage she has caused by it. It's time for some accountability on that one and the show is clearly setting her character up for that reckoning.

[Icemizer]

A simple death is far to good for Gillian. She deserves something far more vile to happen to her. I really dont expect Richard to kill her, all Rosettis guys in the house yes, her no.

[137th Gebirg]

I dunno...when she said he wasn't a "complete man", or something to that effect when she dismissed him, you could see his face twist up in some serious rage that, ostensibly, seemed to be the catalyst for his "Commando Prep" scene.

[Owain Taggart]

I see it going both ways. Gillian could end up overstepping her bounds on Rosetti, getting too smug and getting herself killed. But yes, Richard is clearly preparing for his revenge on her for her thinking of him as a lesser man. I don't think Gillian knows what he's truly capable of, and that's going to be her undoing. Also, there's the way she ordered Rosetti's men to look after Richard. I don't think Rosetti would take it very kindly for her to order them around, so maybe Richard can make a deal with them. It'd be a hoot to see her surrounded.