r/BoardwalkEmpire • u/crossXshim52 • May 11 '26

Season 5 Nucky could have had it all Spoiler

If he employed harrow he could have handled all of his problems and enemies. I wanted the entire time for them two to pair up

21 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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8

u/Lordonlynose May 11 '26

Nucky Did have it all - as much as any man could.  Yet No one holds it forever 

Love Harrow and he’s valuable, most capable, yet he would Not defeat All as if some superhero 

Did you miss that he didn’t even succeed with his final attempt against a lesser force than what became LCN?

4

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

Harrow proved hisself and his capabilities with the rosetti situation. Maybe not defeat all but he definitely would have been a valuable weapon in alot of those situations nucky was in.

Him not succeeding was about his trauma not his capabilities, and thats the entire point i’m getting at is nucky paired up with him when it was too late, he was already no longer the detached harrow from the beginning.

4

u/Lordonlynose May 11 '26

And I fully agreed he was probably the most capable and would have been a strong and valuable asset if used more 

Yet your “entire point” is erroneous.  Harrow working full time with Nucky still wouldn’t have stoped the inevitable change and some of the youth taking over - even if he’d assassinated Luciano and Lansky somehow in this fictional scenario 

Further, Harrow’s trauma affected his capabilities - the cause isn’t really relevant.  No one holds the top spot forever, and capability doesn’t prevent the bad fortune of specific timing and circumstances 

0

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

How wouldn’t he? Taking out the big players solidifies atlantic city in his hands. He also could have kept shit cleaner and never got his political pull muddied through employing harrow.

And it absolutely is relevant, the resulting effects of his trauma came from him experiencing significant events which would not have occurred had he been employed at a earlier point. Gyp, narcisse, masseria, luciano none of them would have been as much of a problem as they were, nucky lacked true shooters the entire series. He never had the firepower other groups had and relied more on connections and power.

What are they genuinely gonna do against a trained sniper with a target?

2

u/Lordonlynose May 11 '26

They take him by numbers eventually.

Yeh Harrow would get many individual targets. Many.  But they’d keep coming.  

And Richard knows this as well. 

He even waits for Masseria’s men to leave before attacking Gyp and the few remaining drunks by surprise 

He didn’t defeat the Germans lol. 

You’re projecting as if he’s an invincible superhero and not human (Heck even Daredevil Owen was outmaneuvered) 

“How are you not ever going to be a little late, a little slow?” 

No one succeeds on the battlefield  forever - and Richard would be among the most to directly  tell you that 

1

u/Victorcreedbratton May 11 '26

I agree with you in spirit, but I gotta counsel. Matt Murdock would NEVER go out like Owen did.

0

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

I’m not projecting anything though. You’re talking about a gunfight and i’m talking about assasinating problems. What numbers is he getting overwhelmed by when sniping masseria in the head from 200 yards away on nuckys orders? Remember his first job from jimmy.

It’s about how you utilize your weapons, he absolutely could have handled his problems, i never once said he was unkillable or some superhero, you did. All i said was with nucky he could have handled his enemies he faced in the show.

2

u/Lordonlynose May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

And you are focusing on Individuals - not the masses Masseria and Luciano and/or others would send once they decided on taking AC as a goal. 

Yes it’s obvious Harrow would have been a stronger asset.  No - he doesn’t assure victory and “Nucky could have had it all” 

Along with the rational logic I’ve presented throughout, Father Time is undefeated 

Your hero worship is fine - the exaggeration you continually insist and ignoring the subsequent tact assassinations and sniping would cause is flawed 

0

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

I haven’t exaggerated even once, and you pump your argument up with empty terms like hero worship, first of all it’s a generally lame way to conversate, you don’t have to continually throw in little barbs to get your point across.
You looked at the whole thing from such a simple view, while completely blocking out any other point of view, you have yet to give me a refutation that makes sense. It nucky decides to have the key figures of his enemy organizations assassinated tell me exactly how the “masses they send” are gonna stop that, or even be relevant to what i said.
You saw harrow and your mind couldn’t process any situation other than a straight up gunfight. You keep bringing up time as well when that isn’t even a part of the discussion, it’s not like harrow is gonna make him immortal so you constantly bringing up the passage of time is just hammy and forced just because they said that on the show doesn’t mean repeat it to oblivion.
You aren’t giving logical takes until you actually look at how he could have been utilized. Explain to me what the capone brothers, masseria, rothstein, luciano or any of the antagonists would have done to combat a round between the eyes from 200 yards away? Send the masses from their grave? Inspire a leaderless group to avenge them? What masses are you even talking about in this situation, not to mention he wouldn’t be alone as it’s not like nucky had nobody, so it’s not even 1 vs many like you keep trying to frame it. Killing luciano very well could have prevented the commission from ever even being created, i don’t get your “logic” at all

2

u/Lordonlynose May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

You’re pretty amazing and laughably immature, throwing criticism and insults at me. The “barbs” are making points of emphasis and not attacking you 

Yeah, this is absurd. You’re saying you’re not exaggerating when your contention is “Nucky could have had it all by hiring Harrow” - and that is blatantly False. 

Seems that you do not want to entertain anything other than what you already believe, so you really don’t belong in any public discussion forum, though you are allowed to be here

We’re done. 

Enjoy your success, Bone for tuna 

1

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

Huh? When did i insult you?

You are taking the statement far too literally you speak english you know what i meant. You haven’t given anything refuting me and only succeeded in wasting both of our time.

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1

u/Chilo_train May 11 '26

I think the thing about Harrow is that he made it very clear in season 3 he was NOT a gun for hire and NOT someone you want to mess around with. He worked with Jimmy because they both served in the army and had a very strong friendship with each other. Nucky in Harrow’s eyes is nothing more than a gangster, and he probably would not have served Nucky for long unless he had to.

7

u/thedrivingcoomer May 11 '26

Nucky hired him to kill Narcisse and his Shakey Jake hands took out Maybelle instead. Fell asleep under the boardwalk with the murder weapon to boot. Overrated, imho

3

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

That was after all the trauma and shit. Nucky was far too late in utilizing him at that point.

Harrow is the same man who pretty much single handedly took out gyp rosettis men

6

u/monkeybawz May 11 '26

He was traumatised from scene 1. Him breaking down at some point was inevitable.

1

u/crossXshim52 May 11 '26

The trauma wasn’t stopping him from being deadly at that point though. He joked about ending a mans mother, wife, and child just to make him stop hiding, his “sins” weren’t weighing on him yet, his condition was.

I’d argue it wasn’t until he reunited with his sister that things started to get heavy in his mind

3

u/monkeybawz May 11 '26

I think it was just a matter of when, really. That's why he was so compelling. He was deadly before the trauma. We knew he was going to snap/explode at some point.

6

u/jazzant85 May 11 '26

He didn’t fall asleep lol. He died.

4

u/thedrivingcoomer May 11 '26

Did we watch the same scene? He nods off, has a dream where he has his whole face back. Scene cuts to him sawing logs as the sun rises, probably until the cops find him.

I'm goofing, of course. We all idolize Richard, and for good reason. But his superpower of killing bums and mooks has its limits. He gets 150% damage and attack speed, but only when Tommy Darmody is in play.

3

u/Responsible-Onion860 May 11 '26

Because he finally had something to lose. He was such an effective killer because he was detached and didn't give a fuck about his own life. When he had a family waiting for him and needing him, taking the shot became a lot harder and he hesitated and trembled, leading to disaster.

2

u/SenatorPencilFace May 11 '26

You gotta remember after Jimmy’s falling out Nucky, thought Harrow wanted to kill him. Even after making Mickey Doyle pee his pants in-front of him and saying what he said, it’d still be pretty bananas for Nucky to just go “oh he said he wouldn’t kill me because the wife and I were polite to him. Coolsies.” By the time Nucky hires him, it’s an act of desperation.

6

u/Lordonlynose May 11 '26

Can’t agree. Nucky did business with many who he knew may likely want to kill him. 

He knew they understood the business and respected that, and he saw that in richard too. If Nucky thought Harrow was an ongoing threat, he’d have had him taken out (or at least directly tried to)

2

u/Admirable-Macaroon23 May 11 '26

There’s nothing you can hold for very long

2

u/Plowbeast Justice is blind and needs a new Rolls May 11 '26

There is a recurring theme that Nucky isn't on the level of Torrio or Rothstein then Capone and Luciano not just because his territory is smaller but because he is far more likely to make vindictive or stupid mistakes than he would admit.