Steve Buscemi has found the role of a lifetime! In Martin Scorcese’s television series, Boardwalk Empire, he plays a politician who plays all sides of the law in 1920’s Atlantic City. Prohibition has just gone into effect, people are living it up in whore houses and dancing down the boardwalk in all of their flapper glory. This show just might do for alcohol in the 20’s what Mad Men has done for advertising in the 60’s. Entertainment Weekly wrote:

Buscemi’s shifty-eyed fixer has no scruples about ordering beat-downs, but he also has a soft heart for a few people who impress him. One is Michael Pitt’s Jimmy Darmody, a smart but indigent World War I vet who’ll do as he’s told with tortured loyalty to rise in Nucky’s operation.

I love the 20’s and the sets and details are impeccable, the costumes, the scenery, even the advertisements. Michael Pitt shines as Buscemi’s sidekick and reminds me of a younger Leonardo DiCaprio. Apparently Buscemi’s character “Nucky” is based on real-life Nucky Johnson, a political boss and racketeer. Watching a pregnant mother get physically abused by her husband in front of her crying children just about broke my heart and someone needs to give the three-year old daughter an Emmy right now because those tears left me weeping! And I also loved the historical drop-ins like Al Capone, it makes it fun and brings history to vivid, HBO-style, technicolor life. (Could have done without the Steve Buscemi sex scene.)

This was certainly a departure from my Kardashian, Bachelor, CW bubble gum shows and it is violent, complex and dark, but it is also intelligent and well-crafted. Sometimes it’s good to take a break from the light fluff and learn a thing or two. Don’t worry…tomorrow is the premiere of Dancing with the Stars and I can guarantee some thought-provoking analysis of Bristol Palin’s dance floor skills and Brandy’s chemistry with Maksim.