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Popular Culture Review
never existed. According to Fink, “There never was such an object in the first
place: the Tost object’ never was; it is only constituted as lost after the fact, in
that the subject is unable to find it anywhere other than in fantasy or dream life.
Using Freud’s text as a springboard, the object can be viewed as always already
lost” (94). In other words, the only time one can truly have a lost object is when
it is dead, which means that one never has a lost object at all.
There are multiple lost objects/object a's that exist within Boardwalk
Empire and which drive its characters to seek what cannot be had. The two most
notable lost objects are those within scenes that concern the main character,
Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. The first lost object is liquor. Just eight minutes into
the first episode of Boardwalk, the audience is shown a parade in which a giant
casket with the corpse bottle of John Barleycorn is marched down the street in a
mock funeral. Shortly thereafter, Nucky is discussing with his corrupt league of
fellow politicians how the control of the liquor business is about to plop into
their hands. What is shown in these short introductory minutes is that
Prohibition has literally killed liquor, and it is Nucky who is to become the
owner of its corpse and ghost. What is important to note is that, in Lacanian
fashion, the only time Nucky possesses liquor, this lost object, is when it is dead.
In addition, he never really has it. Later in the series, once the initial celebration
dies down, trouble with the illegal liquor production begins. The “alcohol” that
is created, it turns out, is a cheap imitation that often kills its consumers with the
ingredients added for forgery. Not only this, but Nucky’s supply is repeatedly
stolen from him by the character Jimmy, by Van Alden’s raids, and by
competition. Nucky may own the corpse of alcohol, but he can never truly grasp
that which he owns. His alcohol is a disappointment and unobtainable. This
owning of alcohol only once it is deceased (and yet never really having it) is a
perfect representation of Lacan’s object a, and because of that, brings one’s
focus onto the lost object of liquor for a bit more analysis.
The substance of alcohol itself — and not simply in how it relates to Nucky
Thompson — is an appreciable representation of the lost object as well. Alcohol,
after all, is only created when part of what is inside it has died and fermented. In
other words, only in death and fermentation is the drink produced, preserved,
and desired. Later, it will be seen how the preservation of alcohol and the
preservation of humans become linked. For now, it is important to note that this
lost object of liquor contains the combination of death, preservation, and desire
that it evokes.
Liquor is not, however, the only focus of Boardwalk Empire, nor is it the
only lost object of Nucky’s. One other most important object a that drives
Nucky’s character through the show is the other thing that he had only once it
was deceased (and thus, never really had): his baby boy. In the last episode of
the first season, Mrs. Schroeder enters Nucky’s suite in her last attempt to
discover who Nucky really is. Nucky in this scene, most unlike himself, finally
willingly submits. The scene begins with a removal of Nucky’s defense systems.