Boardwalk Empire season 2, episode 12.
If you watch Boardwalk Empire, or you will, and you don't want a MASSIVE BIG FUCK OFF SPOILER... you should have stopped reading about one and a half second ago... because shit is going down:

Ok? Spoiler.

In case that wasn't clear...

Ok. I feel the need to rant.

Episode/Story wise: The season two finale was fucking amazing. It made sense character-wise, it was beautifully shot, acted, and edited... and it was one of the most emotional hours of television to rope me in on HBO since Six Feet Under. Nucky WOULD have removed any threat to him, and he would have kept any relationship that can bring him money, or keep him out of jail. So Jimmy dying, Eli living, and Manny living makes sense ...

Boardwalk Empire season 2, episode 12.
If you watch Boardwalk Empire, or you will, and you don't want a MASSIVE BIG FUCK OFF SPOILER... you should have stopped reading about one and a half second ago... because shit is going down:

Ok? Spoiler.

In case that wasn't clear...

Ok. I feel the need to rant.

Episode/Story wise: The season two finale was fucking amazing. It made sense character-wise, it was beautifully shot, acted, and edited... and it was one of the most emotional hours of television to rope me in on HBO since Six Feet Under. Nucky WOULD have removed any threat to him, and he would have kept any relationship that can bring him money, or keep him out of jail. So Jimmy dying, Eli living, and Manny living makes sense story-wise 100%. Perfect.

Creatively/Looking to the future of the series: HBO just murdered any sustainability Boardwalk Empire had in the long term. They have doomed not only the entire next season (at least to 90% probability in my estimate), they may have flat-out jumped the shark here.

I get that Empire is supposed to be about Nucky and his effect on everyone around him... but let's face it. The show stopped being about just Nucky (by the writer's own choices) in the finale of the first season. If you look back with a critical eye over the last season... it was 80% Jimmy, 15% Van Alden, and 5% everyone else. This means that the goodwill and interest of the audience was damn near all on the story of Jimmy. And they set it up in such a way that his story could have gone in ALL kinds of directions. VERY interesting directions. So they did what? Shot Jimmy in the fucking face twice. While this means that the focus of the show can go back to Nucky... it also means that season 3 is fucked right out of the gate.

Why?

Think about where all the characters are now. Where we'll pick up for the start of the next season. Nucky and Margaret are primed to fight over morals vs profit, Van Alden will be in a new place trying to deal with a relationship, Rothstein is making business deals, Meyer is trying to develop business deals... I'm not even going to go on. The point is they are pretty much all right back to where the show started. Nothing new at all is going to happen for at least 10 out of the next 12 episodes. The only ray of light is Richard Harrow dealing with his grief before killing people who are responsible (and mark my words that Jimmy's mom will end up fucking him... because that's totally not predictable at all...). That's 10 to twelve hours of fluff with the only payoff being Richard getting laid and killing Manny, then Nucky killing Margaret, and Al "surprising" us and killing Rothstein.

I no longer care about Boardwalk Empire.

Spoilers end.

God dammit.