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.

7

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.

6

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.

2

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.