Have you ever watched a fictional character do something unrealistic on TV and then wish you could get his attention by throwing something through the screen? Simply yelling at the screen won’t do it, you know. You have to “make a statement”, as Al Capone said in last week’s miserable episode.

Well, I felt like doing that several times during episode 4. Like for instance, when the sheriff and his deputy came barging in to the Ku Klux Klan meeting pointing shotguns at everybody. What did they think they were doing? There must’ve been 50 Klansmen in that meeting, most of them probably armed, and they burst through the door, just the two of them, like the US Marines, to arrest the Klan leader for the lynching of Chalky White’s driver.

Say what???

They couldn’t wait till the meeting was over, then quietly apprehend him as he left the building? And why were they after him in the first place? Did it not occur to them (ie, to Nucky) that Mickey Doyle, who lost his liquor concession to Chalky, might be behind the lynching? I suspect it was all done just to show a room full of Klansmen in full regalia. Compelling television, you know.

There were several other times when I sat watching in disbelief at the flagrantly lazy turn this show has taken. You can read a full review here.