About Last Night: Monday

Mini caps of Boardwalk Empire, The Walking Dead, and Sarah Palin’s Alaska (yes, recaps are coming soon!)

Boardwalk Empire: Alejandra

Kind of a slow one this week, but full of lovely moments, so the lack of general excitement is somewhat forgiven. Richard Harrow is Margaret’s new live-in guard and starts the episode by scaring the shit out of her daughter when the little girl sees him without his mask on. Nucky and Margaret are predictably insensitive about the whole thing, and Nucky tells him to keep the mask on at all times. Then Margaret remembers she’s a human being, and uses a Wizard of Oz moment to welcome Richard into her home, and appears to gain abject loyalty.

Van Alden’s remembering he’s a human, too, but he’s not being nearly as healthy about it. He catches not some, but ALL the flack from Billy Winslow’s “botched” transport to Manhattan, and is threatened with reassignment if he doesn’t give up his obsession with the Schroeder/Thompson/Darmody affair. So what does he do? Heads straight to Margaret’s house, her immigration picture in hand! He proceeds to tell her that she is not beyond salvation, and threatens her with hellfire when she tells him to give her that picture and get the fuck up on outta her house. Needless to say, Nelson’s experiencing some frustration. Some frustration he decides to let out by drinking one and half drinks and falling into bed with… LUCY! It’s so gross, you guys…

As for Rothstein, he’s understandably pissed that the Thompson assassination was botched so spectacularly, and tells them that if they want to make it better, money’d be a good start. Which is exactly what they don’t have. Mickey knows this, and knows that his usefulness to the D’Alessio operation is fast fading, so he changes sides back to Nucky’s. An uneasy partnership is formed, and his information does play a big part in Nucky gaining significant ground back by the end of the episode. The ground is gained violently and two of the D’Alessios are killed. The shitty ones, if you’re interested.

Jimmy and Angela are still working out their issues – Angela really can’t seem to decide if she wants to have lots of sex with Jimmy or move to Paris with her ladylove. The decision process is moved along when Tommy appears to identify Mary’s husband as Angela’s partner in infidelity. Jimmy immediately finds the guy and spectacularly kicks the shit out of him. I’d be more appalled at Jimmy’s behavior if Mary’s husband weren’t such a colossal dick only interested in the parts of an alternative lifestyle that involve him sleeping with two women at once.

And finally, Nucky and Margaret continue to suffer relationship problems, not that Nucky’s aware of any of it. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to Margaret just how corrupt Nucky’s whole operation really is, and even though she speaks beautifully on behalf of the new Republican mayoral candidate to the League of Women Voters, she’s having a seriously hard time sleeping at night. It also doesn’t help that she’s sort of afraid for her life and Van Alden lets is slip that Nucky had her husband killed. She ends the episode staring at herself in the mirror, evidently disliking what she sees.

Oh, and Al Capone gets Bar Mitzvahed and puts away his newsboy cap for a fedora. Mazel Tov!

The Walking Dead: St. Claire of Assisi

This week’s episode begins on a minor character at the encampment, Jim–i.e., the dude who’s mostly just fixed the RV and kept to himself. Today, he’s taken a shovel to a nearby field and begun digging hole after hole after hole for no discernible reason. Dale tries to talk to him, then the entire group of survivors, and they realize Jim’s starting to go nuts. He’s remembering how he only survived the initial zombie onslaught because the walkers were busy eating his family. He’s not really sure why he’s even digging the holes…he had some dream he can’t remember now. Shane tries to calm him down, but Jim swings his shovel, leaving Shane no choice but to cuff him to a tree.

Back to Atlanta, where the rescue party has just discovered Merle is missing. They track his blood trail through the building until they reach a kitchen with a still-lit stove: meaning, Merle cauterized his own bloody stump. Nearby is a broken window over a two-story drop. Merle jumped. He’s out there somewhere. Rick agrees to lead Daryl and the others on a search for Merle, but not before they retrieve the gun cache. So they go down to the street, send Glen out to retrieve them, and come face-to-face with…some Latino gangbangers? Now they have to fight a turf war on top of the zombie apocalypse? That’s shitty. The gangbangers, whom the episode calls the Vatos, kidnap Glen, but Rick, Daryl and T-Dog manage to capture one of the Vatos, named Miguel.

Rick and co. manage to get Miguel to lead them to the Vatos’ hideout, where they meet the leader, Guillermo. A shrewd negotiator, Guillermo won’t agree to a simple Glen-for-Miguel exchange; he wants Rick’s bag of guns too. The guys all retreat to discuss this. They don’t trust Guillermo, but they also can’t just flee. Glen saved Rick once, and Rick can’t abandon him in return. But Rick also won’t give up his guns. Their only option is a shootout.

The Vatos and the survivors meet once more, guns leveled at each other. It’s heading for a blood bath when suddenly…one of the Vatos’ grandma’s shuffles in? She demands to know what all the ruckus is. When she learns Rick and his friends merely want to find their pal Glen, she gladly takes them through the hideout, which opens up into a nursing home. Glen’s there helping some elderly folks, and he and Guillermo explain what’s really going on: these are kindly Vatos, you see. Guillermo used to be a janitor at this nursing home, but the rest of the staff fled, so he felt obliged to stay and protect them. Rick is touched, and voluntarily gives Guillermo some of the guns. With their business in Atlanta concluded, the rescue party returns to the spot where they left the moving van, only to find it missing. Merle! He must have found it and headed back to the encampment to exact revenge!

Back at camp, the survivors enjoy a fish fry, (including Jim, who’s calmed down by now and apologized to everyone), and they wax philosophical about whether the concept of time is still meaningful after the apocalypse. Everyone seems relaxed and happy to have each other’s company. And this is when the zombies find them. Ed’s the first to go, thankfully. Unfortunately, Amy goes next. Shane and the encampment survivors try to fight them off, but there are too many of them. Luckily Rick and the rescuers arrive on foot and proceed to lay waste. The zombie threat is put down for now, but the survivors have lost two more members, and they’re shaken. Seeing the encampment strewn with dead bodies, both zombie and human, Jim remembers his dream, and why he dug those holes in the first place.

Come back WEDNESDAY for the full recap, How else are you going to enjoy your Thanksgiving break?

Sarah Palin’s Alaska: IceQueen

The second episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska was called “Just for the Halibut,” a title that tells you everything you need to know about the episode: corny and reeking of fish. It also came with a viewer discretion warning. I was hoping for nudity, but all I got were blood and fish guts. Typical. This week, a bunch of Palins hopped in the RV and headed south to Homer. Sarah Palin — codename Juicy — told a joke about the town, but it was unintelligible unless you’re from Alaska, I guess. That Alaska humor — corny and reeking of fish.

Most of the episode was about Juicy bonding with Bristol who “has had a challenging” couple of years. First they go to a shooting range. In true redneck fashion, it’s where Juicy’s friends held her baby shower when she was pregnant with Piper. Next, they get on a commercial fishing boat where their job is to club and stab the halibut that the fishermen drag on board. Juicy really gets into it, and it’s pretty obvious that she’s picturing Bristol’s baby daddy flopping around on the deck when she’s bashing those halibut with a billy club.

What do you call a celebrity from Alaska? That’s not a joke. I’m wondering what list that would be because we also learned that Todd is a celebrity there for winning the Iron Dog, which is a super long snowmobile race. We’ll call him an AK-list celeb — somewhere between the Z-list and the Khazak-list. Juicy was quite surprised when Joe Q. Public walked up to her with a camera… and asked if she’d take a picture of him with Silent Todd. Also in this episode: the slime line, the Alaska version of a spray tan, and the Palin girls show how high their self-esteem is when they list which of their physical attributes they hate most. Tabloids and internet trolls — take note! If you want details you’ll have to read the re-cap…