I know this is going to shock a lot of Boardwalk Empire
fans, but I actually felt a pang of sympathy for Gillian Darmody last night. I
thought my brief compassion for Gillian might stem from the fact that she is
one of the only vulnerable female characters on the show this season,
but that can’t be so. We have Harrow’s sister, Emma—pregnant, recently widowed,
with very few prospects –and we have Sally—a savvy booze slinging roadhouse
owner who is pushed around by Tampa con-artist, August Tucker. Boardwalk Empire
has many male characters to empathize with as well, so why Gillian Darmody? Why this week?
Gillian is telling the hardscrabble life of my mother. To my
recollection, my mother didn’t resort to prostitution or heroin, but she did
marry a bootlegger at 18—a man who could show her the comforts of life that she
wouldn't dare to dream of as a child raised in a Jewish Orphan Asylum with no
prospects of a higher education or pulling herself up by her bootstraps.
Just like Gillian lost her son, Jimmy, to Prohibition
related crime, my mother lost her husband, my father, to the mafia during a
bootlegging turf war in 1924. When my father died, my mother was no longer the
attentive housewife and mother. She embraced the 1920s culture of debauchery—drinking,
staying out late with her ‘boyfriends’, and neglecting her children.
By the end of the episode I was routing for Gillian to win
Roy’s heart. Maybe it will give her the chance to repair her life and “call
herself to account” as Emma suggests to Richard during their good-byes. I can’t
help but hope that Gillian becomes the exemplary mother and has a wholesome life
with her grandson, but maybe this is a wish from my past and only the writers
of Boardwalk Empire can make it so.
Read More by Babette Hughes
For a recap of Acres of Diamonds
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