Boardwalk Empire Recap: “A Man, A Plan”

by Veronique Medrano:

Boardwalk Empire Recap: “A Man, A Plan”
Original Air Date (HBO): Sunday November 18, 2012
Season 2 Episode 10

Never trust a big box that gets delivered to your house in the wee hours of the morning…just sayin’

Just a friendly reminder: This recap covers the characters you should pay attention to, and while other recaps give you the rundown of the episode from start to finish, I want to cut the fluff and take you to the milky caramel center. So before we enter let me remind everyone, just so ya won’t forget, that the following recap contains spoilers (i.e: info about the episode that you may not want to know before watching).

The important pieces of the puzzle in today’s episode are: Owen, Margaret and Al Capone.

This was Owen’s swan song.  It all starts with Nucky’s simple plan to  send Owen off to kill Joe Masseria, leaving Gyp Rosetti  without an army  and making him easier kill. All the while, Owen has slept with Nucky’s wife and is promising wedding bells for  Katie. Of course, while many people expected that his clock was slowly running out, due to his and Margaret’s plan to run away together; it seems foolish to think that anyone really wanted him to die, but I’m sure there are some of you out there that did want that.

So like the scene in Se7en, all our suspense leads up to the enveiling of what is inside the box. Thankfully, unlike that film, we actually get to see Owen in all his dead-mess up glory. Since this review is a tad behind, I took the time to research what was up with his death; was it premeditated or not? In an interview with HBO, Charlie Cox, aka Owen Sleater, was asked what he thought about the ending set for Owen and why it might have happened?

Charlie Cox: Hey, it’s an amazing, beautifully written episode. It was a shock to me, so it’ll probably be shock to the viewers. I mean, Owen was never safe – he’s not one of those characters. But it still comes unexpectedly. I feel like you think, “If Owen is going to die, it’s because Nucky is going to discover something and shoot him in the face.” So, because we’re not quite there and he’s killed by Joe Masseria on a job … It’s kind of beautiful how it happens. Owen finds out he’s going to be a father and that he and Margaret are going to run away with each other, and I think that’s why he died. I don’t think he’d get this wrong; I think he got distracted. In one of the earlier scripts there was a fight scene we didn’t end up filming. But the hit wasn’t well scouted-out, and Owen wasn’t on his game. He was thinking about other things, and the beautiful irony is that discovering how his life would turn out ended up killing him.

Now we go to Margaret, it is quite beautiful the lead up to her and Owen’s escape to St. Louis.  As a videographer, I applaud the clean editing and placement of the shots of her and Owen’s conversation littered with her routine for the day. She goes from talking to Owen, on to the shut down of her women’s health classes. It was a weird victory, when the nun acknowledged that the classes were useful. Dr. Mason hands her the diaphragm she requested, after the nun leaves and makes a point to say that she looks a bit pale. Margaret shrugs it off. It was bittersweet to know that after planning to run away with Owen, Nucky comes to her later in the evening, as she sits alone in the dark one night, and apologizes for all the craziness since the explosion and promises to make it up to her, calling it a new beginning. She agrees, but we the context is different than his.

Then the  box came, and it was by far one of the top ten scenes in television, that required little to no words, and really reminds us that these actors are soooo amazing. Don’t need to say a word, and you get it. I won’t even try to explain it, but just show you what I saw. ( you should watch this if you can)

If I can be honest I  didn’t see the big reveal towards the end of the episode coming at all, but I will say that Margaret’s foresight into family planning methods were too little too late, and as the last scene with Owen talking with Margaret play again, we wonder if it is just reiteration that they were going to escape together, but it turns out to be her declaring that she is pregnant.

Finally we take a look at Al Capone, he has been in and out of our view throughout the season, but I honestly feel that seeing his growth in the ranks will lead to his explosion in the bootlegging scene Season 4. So, despite his funny interaction with Van Alden/George Mueller after Capone finds him selling his Norwegian wife’s booze to a local barkeep in Capone’s territory. I don’t think you should take it lightly that the situation is a side-trip in the episode. It is important.