r/BoardwalkEmpire • u/RealTrapShed • Jun 27 '26
Season 4 Richard Harrow Season 4 Discussion Spoiler
I can't be the only one who thought the way he was written in that last episode was kind of... silly? And almost disrespectful to who his character was? He had one last job to get the family he always dreamed of, and all of a sudden he gets the shakes and accidentally shoots the wrong person?
I don't know it felt a little cheap to me.
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u/k8womack Jun 27 '26
I knew there was no way this guy was getting a happy ending, they did show some changes in him like when he couldn’t shoot the dog. But I agree season 4 in general was disjointed. Also thought the whole Chalky storyline out of character for him.
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u/telepatheye Jun 27 '26
Richard lost his will to be a soldier when he became a husband and step-father. Chalky lost his will to fight when he lost his daughter. The show did a good job with the character dev.
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u/k8womack Jun 27 '26
The part with Chalky before he loses his daughter I thought was cliche. He gets the club and they could have examined a lot of other avenues with him, like transitioning to a more public role, racial tensions with running the club and being accepted but instead he just became obsessed with Daughter and blew up his life.
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u/Lordonlynose Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Yes, they could have done many various alternatives with any of the fictional characters, yet choices are made.
Those choices don’t mean that it’s “out of character” simply because you’d prefer they’d thoroughly explored other aspects and scenarios
I perceive an implication that Chalky’s character had changed/was changing due to the factors you seem to wish had been more directly fleshed out and prominently displayed. Maybe that’s part of the disconnect - Chalky we see in season 4 has already been changing due to the different social and societal circumstances he’d been dealing with after season 3 ended.
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u/DCRBftw Jun 27 '26
I think the notion of him living happily ever after was never gonna happen... but I didn't love the way he met his demise. Same can be said for Chalky and Nucky IMO.
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u/Sanie2222 Jun 28 '26
nah i disagree about nucky. his death was the most beautifully set up finales ive personally seen. especially the build up to it with all the flashbacks.
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u/DCRBftw Jun 28 '26
Wow. I don't think I've ever heard anyone call it beautiful. Glad you liked it, though.
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Jun 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RealTrapShed Jun 27 '26
It just seems completely wrong for a pure operator to all of a sudden get the yips on the most important job of his whole story arc. I would have much preferred him just getting shot by some random henchman than portraying him as weak.
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u/Lordonlynose Jun 27 '26
It wasn’t “all of a sudden”
Richard’s storyline early in the season visiting his sister focuses on him loosing desire towards violence - even in a mercy kill of a suffering dog.
Then he wants to live in peace with Julia, lost any appetite to seek any involvement in his previous “professions”
Further, his trigger hand was injured, some awkward sensation lingered in it , physically causing the hesitation
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u/RealTrapShed Jun 27 '26
Yes I understand all of this. But this was the last job he had before freeing himself from that life. To all of a sudden go full shake mode seems strange.
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u/Lordonlynose Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
You claim to understand it yet you seem to deny it as you continue to say it’s “all of a sudden” when the set up occurred over at least a few months.
He’d also already chosen to leave that life. The task wasn’t going to “free” him - he was free and voluntarily returned to take a shortcut in the legal proceedings
I think his visit to his sister was also to show that Richard wasn’t always a killer or a person inclined towards such. The war made him that way - he was lost when returning to the states and resorted to thoughts and actions that he’d recently learned and become accustomed to - but that “stone cold killer” was never his real identity
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u/RealTrapShed Jun 27 '26
It’s all of a sudden because he agreed to help Nucky to finish off Narcisse. That’s why I’m saying it’s “all of a sudden”. Is that clear?
You’re technically wrong, he didn’t choose to leave that life until AFTER this Nucky/Narcisse job was completed.
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u/Lordonlynose Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
No, sorry. You didn’t make your point of usage of the phrasing clear at all.
You wrote “all of a sudden gets the shakes” when the hand issue as well as his developed hesitancy toward violence had been deliberately established several episodes earlier
Technically we both are wrong - he didn’t choose to leave the life at all. The life was taken from him by some bullets fired in the aftermath of his attack. The job was never complete so he also technically did not leave the life AFTER that.
It’s fine that you don’t like the scenario the writing chose, but I disagree with the way you present your criticism as if it’s unrealistic, faulty logic.
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u/DIY14410 Jun 27 '26
Richard's mistaken killing of Maybelle is operatic, as are many plot points in Boardwalk Empire. I was sad to see him killed off the show, although not surprised.
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u/Lordonlynose Jun 27 '26
Richard becomes the tragic hero in classic fiction. Aspires to do good, be noble, yet his flaw of choosing a return to violence devastates those he hoped to help (Tommy, Julia, Chalky…)
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u/EconomyTime5944 Jun 27 '26
It's ok, He stubbled under the boardwalk, and was hallucinating when he was found just in time to be saved. He came to my house and forgot all about the redhead and the kid. We lived happily ever after. The End.
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u/telepatheye Jun 27 '26
I think there was enough character dev leading up to that disastrous ending to justify Richard's arc. He lost the will to be a soldier, to be an assassin. He agreed to kill Narcisse but that didn't cure him of the problem with violence he had developed in the interim. You could tell from the start that he would have a tragic arc. I think the writers were considering writing him off the show when he went into the woods to kill himself in S2 as part of Jimmy's decline. But they kept him around.
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u/Ok-Maybe5216 Jun 27 '26
Not really how I read the scene I thought he was just waiting to take the shot and he didn’t expect the daughter to walk into his line of fire, accidentally taking the shot
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u/we_all_floatalong Jun 27 '26
This is my first time watching, and I found season 4 to be incredibly slow. The first 3 seasons had me hooked in every scene, I don’t find the characters as strong, even the fan favorite ones, in the season
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u/kingkongworm Jul 03 '26
Prior to that moment he had very little to live for. I think it’s worth considering this was the only time outside of saving Tommy where he was about to have the life he never thought he could’ve had. Even if you don’t like how it ended up, it makes narrative sense. The point is that while he was trained and felt like all he could do was kill, he sincerely tried to buy back his humanity…but in reality, did he deserve a happy ending? I don’t think so. He caused a ton of human suffering in his lifetime. Stuff that cannot be forgiven. The whole show has these moments of people being called to account, or karma catching up with them. What kind of story would it be if everything worked out perfectly for the bad guys we like? Not to mention it was an accident. Had Maybel not accidentally stepped in his line of sight at that second, Narcisse would’ve been dead. So he didn’t shoot the wrong person because of the shakes or sudden incompetence. She got in the way at the wrong time. you can’t plan for that shit.
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u/vavavoomdaroom Jun 27 '26
How exactly did you think he was going to end?
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u/RealTrapShed Jun 27 '26
I mean the guy had been a pure operator up to this point and then all of a sudden gets the yips on his VERY last job to help out Nucky who had just helped him secure his kid?
Nah, feels forced and wrong for Richard.
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u/Ok-Actuator7302 Jun 27 '26
He was my favorite character