As Chekhov taught us, if a blue dress appears in the first act, it must be covered in the blood of an innocent bystander in the third act. Or something. "Belle Femme" was a small step back for Boardwalk Empire after a month of improvements, but that's only because it featured too much castigation and not enough action. Well, until Nucky almost got assassinated on the boardwalk.
He wasn't assassinated, of course -- the aforementioned innocent bystander and the trusty Eddie got in the way -- but the attempt did cap off an episode of opportunism. Everyone in "Belle Femme," from Margaret to the D'Alessios, was playing some kind of angle; most of the time, they failed.
That seems to be the prevailing theme of Boardwalk Empire. In the early stages of the series, any moment of sexual connection was met with some form of tragedy or self-flagellation. Now it seems that any untoward instinct gets met with a comeuppance. This is what sets Boardwalk Empire apart from The Sopranos and Mad Men: Those shows rarely had time to really punish their anti-heroes; Boardwalk Empire seems to do it weekly.
Of course, the show does seem to punish its lady leads much more severely than its male ones. Take Margaret and her blue dress. The B-plot of the episode dealt with Nucky's moll attempting to use her feminine wiles to save Belle Femme from going out of business. (Why Margaret would actually want to do that since Madam Jeunet was such an awful person to her is beside the point; also forget that dramatic moment last week when Margaret found out how much money Nucky made -- it was also ignored.) Margaret succeeds and then gets immediately punished -- the blue dress she took as payment for helping Madam Jennet winds up covered in blood. There goes that Chekhov again.
Margaret gets off easy though, in comparison to Angela. If you're wondering who Angela is, she's Jimmy's baby mama. But you'd be forgiven for knowing her only as the Naked Bohemian Lesbian, since that's about as much character development as Boardwalk Empire has allotted her thus far. During "Belle Femme," she was all set to degrade herself for her art by having a threesome when Jimmy walked in. Whoops! Mood killed, but not enough to prevent Jimmy from forcing himself on her in one of those, "I don't want this but now I do!" weird rape-y scenes that Sunday night dramas seem to do best. Or worst.
That wasn't all for Angela: She later got basically bullied into having another kid with Jimmy (whaaaaaat?) and was then dumped by her boyfriend/girlfriend because of her lousy art. Nothing says romance like Boardwalk Empire. Why exactly is the show rough on Angela? Other than her gender, that remains to be seen.
(I didn't mention Jimmy's mother, Gillian, if only because: Gross. What son would use their mother as a pawn in some sexy-times game to get their enemy in a most vulnerable of positions? Also, her "only" punishment was being called a "t---," which is at least slightly better than being called the c-word.)
But you aren't watching Boardwalk Empire for the ladies -- unless you're a 14-year-old boy, in which case the lack of nudity probably kept "Belle Femme" from reaching the heights, ahem, you had hoped. You're watching for Jimmy and Nucky. And that's where "Belle Femme" dragged its feet. Our "heroes" had their "half-a-gangster" chat in the first episode -- doing it again around the idea of assassinating the D'Alessios had less of an impact. To wit: The D'Alessios are clearly scum -- or as Arnold Rothstein put it, they're like monkeys -- ordering a hit on them doesn't seem like some reach. In the annals of Nucky's muddy footprints, the D'Alessios are but a smudge.
(I know: This was meant to show how far Nucky has fallen and how high Jimmy has risen; I got it, but we just didn't need it.)
So where are we now? Well three episodes remain, meaning the D'Alessios will have to be taken out, Rothstein and Luciano will not (history is one helluva spoiler) and Van Alden will probably be left sorting through the mail. Before we head off though, just one question: The Commodore is Jimmy's father, right?