Final Season Ruined Great Characters & Ended Terribly

1) CHALKY WHITE. They wasted possible great stories with his character, just to have him killed by an all around weak character in Dr. Narcisse. There were so many directions his story could have gone in and they gained nothing in killing him off.

I'm not sure what other directions you have in mind. Unless we were gonna spend a lot of time with him (and the season only had 8 episodes), he was either gonna kill Narcisse or be killed by him.

Killing Narcisse (and then being killed by the henchmen) might have been all he wanted when he entered that building. But he realised that would not help his (deceased) daughter in the slightest.

Allowing Narcisse to live was not Chalky giving up before he died, and Chalky was going to die either way. It was just giving the Chalky the chance to sacrifice himself to (hopefully) save Daughter and her child. I assume the child was Chalky's daughter, but even if she wasnt, sacrificing himself to save that child was the closest Chalky was ever going to get for a do-over of the events which led to the death of his older daughter.

2) NELSON VAN ALDEN. Again, they wasted this great character, and made him weaker season after season. When he came in he was tough and a person to be reckoned with, because he did things strong and his own way, but in the Final Season he was basically a scared little man getting pushed around by everyone and almost pleading with people to get by. What happened? He was a great character and they just ruined him and killed him off.

Not a character I liked, so I was not that emotionally attached to his outcome.

But my read on him was very different to yours. He was always a follower rather than a leader. The changes to his life we saw throughout the seasons were changes in who/what he allowed to do his thinking for him.

However, as far as he can tell, probably what he would have wanted for himself, as a young man, was a successful career in law enforcement. The conclusion of his arc allowed him the chance to do something for the FBI, and he did die bravely without revealing the crucial parts of the FBI operation. His silence, and brave death, led directly - in this fictional universe - to the authorities getting the evidence they needed to put Capone away.

3) MICKEY DOYLE. He was always amusing and his part got bigger over the series, but they basically killed him off and made it no big deal. I don't think his death was even mentioned by another character and he didn't even get shown in a closeup shot when he died. It was like a background character getting killed in a war film.

There was no need to mention his death afterwards. The poignancy of his death happened in the seconds beforehand. ie finally, after all these years, he became an owner of the business and not just an employee.

He chose a life of crime. He thought that it would pay. It didnt.

4) NUCKY THOMPSON. What a horrible way to end this series with Nucky getting killed by a character who was years older than he should have been if they stayed true to their own story, Tommy Darmody. Why did he wait until then to shoot Nucky? There seems no reason other than they were ending the show, so they had him pass up 1000 other chances and not even really have a talk between he and Nucky. Just super super contrived and weak. Nucky was a big character and he absolutely did not need to die at all, let alone be gunned down when unarmed and out of the game by a tiny character he actually helped in life. Sure Nucky killed his father, but his father was a piece of garbage. Nucky helped save Tommy from a life of being molested by his mother, after all.

What were all the other chances? When was Tommy with a gun near Nucky.

It seems reasonable to assume that, on the night in question, Tommy hid a gun somewhere (in his grandma's old hiding place would be poetic) and then played out a con to get Nucky close to where the gun was.

He could not have done it sooner because he first needed to get Nucky's guard down.

It was obvious - to the viewer - from when the Tommy character joined the show that he was up to something. He could have been law enforcement, or (another) Pinkerton, or a henchman of Lucky, etc, or he could have just been someone who wanted to make a name for himself by taking down a big dog. The reveal that he was Tommy was extremely satisfying.

It does not really matter whether each of us, as a viewer, think that Tommy was morally justified. That - in my opinion - misses the point of the story which, I thought, was hammered home quite forcefully and obviously.

A few decades earlier, Nucky had made a fateful decision to sup with the devil. He sold his soul to the Commodore by what he did to Gillian. That decision led to everything that followed in his life, including his murder of Jimmy, Gillian's treatment of Jimmy and Tommy, and Tommy's decision to murder Nucky.


Everything was wrapped up well, I thought. We have enough info about Eli, Gillian and Margaret, and all the other significant characters still alive are historical figures in any event.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

It was like a background character getting killed in a war film.

I totally agree with this, mickey was a great character and the way he died made no sense..

reply share

add reply

formatting help

I agree with everything you've wrote. And did anyone wonder if Nucky collected the insurance money on Mickey?

3) MICKEY DOYLE. He was always amusing and his part got bigger over the series, but they basically killed him off and made it no big deal. I don't think his death was even mentioned by another character and he didn't even get shown in a closeup shot when he died. It was like a background character getting killed in a war film.

Yeh, that was a quick shot. That standoff between Lucky and Nucky was tense, but contrived. Would a gangster kidnap a U.S. Attorney? I don't think so.

4) NUCKY THOMPSON. What a horrible way to end this series with Nucky getting killed by a character who was years older than he should have been if they stayed true to their own story, Tommy Darmody. Why did he wait until then to shoot Nucky? There seems no reason other than they were ending the show, so they had him pass up 1000 other chances and not even really have a talk between he and Nucky. Just super super contrived and weak. Nucky was a big character and he absolutely did not need to die at all, let alone be gunned down when unarmed and out of the game by a tiny character he actually helped in life. Sure Nucky killed his father, but his father was a piece of garbage. Nucky helped save Tommy from a life of being molested by his mother.

A bigger question is how would little Tommy now big Tommy know about his father's death and where his grandmother was?

And don't get me started on Sally's death. Realistically, the Cuban soldiers would have arrested her since she was an American. They wouldn't want to risk a diplomatic fallout from killing an American. And the embassy would have gotten involved.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

I agree with most of what the OP says except for the point about Mickey Doyle (but not his death) as Nucky did actually mention him being killed shortly afterwards when he was being wistful and depressed about being on of the only ones left.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

I would have loved for Chalky and Richard Harrow to have a spin off. I agree with you about Narcisse.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

I agree, the inclusion of historical characters like Capone and Luciano really weakened the whole show since they couldnt be killed off, so the writers decided to kill all the fictional ones instead.

Nucky's eventual death was shoehorned into the whole thing since Tommy Darmody would have been 13 when he shot Nuck and there was no way he was told of Nucky's activities because he was taken away from Gillian- and he hated her too.

----------------------------------------

DIE, FANBOY, DIE 

reply share

add reply

formatting help