Love 'Em And Leave 'Em: Boardwalk Empire
When it comes to women, I will chew my own arm off before I give up the ship. There is always one more conversation to be had, one more issue we can solve, one more fight and this will be all good again.
But I am a terrible show boyfriend.
Seriously. Piss me off once, Ms. Television show, and I will abandon my whole fandom in a heartbeat. I can be radically in love with a show one moment, and then three weeks later I’ll be all like, “Who? Oh, that show? I forget it even existed.”
It’s like my love affairs with books. Hey, buddy book, I can leave you at any time. I can be three hundred pages in and still wander off, don’t think I’m one of those compulsive finishers. When it comes to media, I’m a “love ’em and leave ’em” kinda guy.
Case in point: Boardwalk Empire. Haven’t seen it in three weeks. May not return. And about two months ago, it was my Sunday ritual with Gini, my deep love, my favorite show on television. Then they started in on Nucky, and Nucky was no longer a canny politician but a whiny runt who seemed to have spent the past decade in power notably acquiring no blackmail material on anyone, to the point where a Senate page had more moxie than Nucky. All of Nucky’s time in power seemed to have been spent cultivating gratitude – which, as we all know, has the shortest half-life of any political sentiment. Nucky had no muscle whatsoever, to the point where two guys with guns run rampant over Atlantic City and they had to bring in an explosives bohunk to give Nucky any chance physically.
Nucky was no longer a smart protagonist, he was an idiot surrounded by people who did him favors that he never appreciated.
Now, Nucky’s wanderings could have been forgivable, but Marget? Oh, fuck you, Boardwalk Empire. Margaret was second in command to the throne, the one person who looked like she could step up and take charge of Nucky’s empire… And what do they do to her? They make her a bored housewife making googly-eyes at explosives bohunk, a plot I’ve seen a billion fucking times before. Hey, I wanted to see Margaret become the next fucking crime lord – which you don’t see on TV, women acquiring criminal power – as opposed to her sluggishly pondering infidelity with Nucky.
Boardwalk Empire always had its flaws. But that happened, and then Gini and I skipped a Sunday because we were out of town and I didn’t feel like watching it that next week, and then Sunday came around again, and now we’re way more excited about The Sing-Off than I am about returning to the turgidness of Boardwalk Empire and its unfeasibly stupid characters. Maybe I’ll return at some point. But only if someone I trust tells me it’s gotten good again.
Be warned, other shows. I’ll boardwalk out on you, too. ENTERTAIN ME OR DIE.
You know, honestly I tend to be the opposite. There is a strange tidal power that draw me to shows that I used to love years ago.
I really don’t know why, maybe they are like two pairs of ruined, but still very comfortable, slippers.
Oddly enough, I just can’t do that kind of thing with books…I always have to finish them, even if they are really horrible (Oh, War and Peace, what a horrible bitch thou were).
So I’d like to ask…how do you do it? Not as a metaphysical question, but as a practical one: how and when can you tell that a book just isn’t doing it for you, and that there are better things to do with your time?
I dunno. I get bored, I walk away. If it’s not holding my attention, I have other books.
It’s a weird question for me, because I suspect I could ask you with equal earnestness, “How do you keep reading when you hate it?” And the answer would be a similar blank.