Sorting out the sins and sinners in the final eight episodes of Boardwalk Empire promises to be as intriguing as it will be intense.

You don't need to pay attention to the authentic background characters, or the glorious music, or the exquisite clothes, or even the textured dialogue to appreciation the majesty of Boardwalk. In fact, you can strip away the majesty--which the show loves to do--and still have a killer drama.

Enoch clearly loves the drink, and enjoys the bad work he does, and the final season of Boardwalk Empire suggests that no matter what cloaking his ilk partially hid under, it's nothing compared to the whitewashing that's about to come.

Forgoing its recent dip into somnambulism, Empire is (literally) all guns blazing again.

Things are more subtly chaotic on Boardwalk Empire this season as well, marked by a season premiere that feels more menacing and violent than the HBO hit often has in the past.

Boardwalk shows no signs of losing its identity. All signs point to a bloody proper finish.

There’s a lot of thread here, and less time than usual to knit. In the first three hours anyway, there’s too much Empire, too little Boardwalk.

The must under-appreciated show on television, the visuals are stunning and the acting is always on point. I remain convinced that the cinematography is the best I have ever seen on television, and I hope the show some day achieves the mainstream success it deserves.

Just finished watching the season 5 premiere and, wow, it looks marvelous. The show has not lost any of its beauty, grand scope, and charm. Pity there are only 7 episodes of this masterpiece show remaining.

Loved the first episode of season five. Second and third episodes were still consistent with the previous seasons. Somewhere in the fourth episode, it almost felt like a different team took over writing and directing. Even the music was uneven. By the end of the eighth episode, I felt very sad that an otherwise excellent series was given such a shabby, rushed send-off. I can't believe there hasn't been a greater outpouring of fan disappointment. It was a great series overall, but damn, i wish it could've ended strongly.

B.E. is one of the best made show I've seen. The picture, the acting, the historical facts, the dialogue etc. Season 5 had a really good start and promised to end the series in the best way. Unfortunately this season should have run the usual 12 episodes.... This season is rushed, some characters die stupidely and the ones that should have developed are not given enough time to do it. The additional 4 episodes would have given the writers time to develop aspects like the mob war, the downfall of Capone etc etc. It's really a shame.

An average build up to a snore of a final episode. An obvious twist and an almost pointless back story. Nucky's character becomes distant and boring while others simply go through the motions. A promise of a mob war turns out to be nothing but a kiss goodbye. Great series followed by a big let down.