The Chase Lounge

conkom wrote:I don't know if it's a homage or just the way thing are done. When rivals in the world of organised crime decide to get the upper-hand then it usually means a very bloody gang war.

My initial reaction was this episode reminded me of Tony ordering his crew to wipe out Junior's power base at the end of the first season.

What makes BE compelling is that it is set in the 1920s when the Mafia was trying to establish itself.

I'm not saying it's a bad show at all, probably the best hour-long drama on television right now besides "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men".

But if you didn't see how obviously that sequence aped the ending of "The Godfather" then you need to go watch the movie again. I understand what they were going for, it just came off (to me) as lazy. Just replace the Christening with Nucky's speech.

I had another look at the scene showing the four D'Alessio brothers' killings and the baptism scene in the Godfather. I wouldn't say it was all that derivative of Godfather or the Sopranos (except when Al Capone killed one of the D'Assessios when the latter came home with his groceries - similar to when Tony shot his cousin Blundetto).

Nucky made a deal with Meyer Lansky and then used the press conference to cover up his involvement in the bootleg crimes by pinning it on the Italians.

It's all subjective I suppose but I thought it was well plotted and constructed.

Watch both scenes side by side and you can see the differences. The GF is drawn out, suspensful, ironic and climatic. The BE scene is in the middle of the episode and lasts under three minutes.

Personally I think if anything it's a subtle homage that doesn't detract from the whole.

I don't know if anyone watched the little "Inside the Episode" featurettes that accompanied each episode, but in the final one Terence Winter himself compares the BE montage to the Godfather baptism.

I'd suggest checking the other videos out too. The Nights in Ballygran featurette is particularly interesting in how it explains the interactions between Nucky and Margaret.

Billy Bass wrote:I don't know if anyone watched the little "Inside the Episode" featurettes that accompanied each episode, but in the final one Terence Winter himself compares the BE montage to the Godfather baptism.
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Good catch!

Interestingly Winters says that the BE montage is "sort of reminiscent" of the Godfather scene, although he calls it the Communion scene.