Nucky and Margaret’s relationship sours in a blood-soaked episode of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
Warning: Article contains spoilers.
Last season, Boardwalk Empire ended with a bang – two bangs, to be exact – as Nucky Thompson fired two bullets into the head of the boy he raised, former protégé Jimmy Darmody.
Shocking as it was to see the show’s second male lead die, these gunshots were a necessary period at the end of Jimmy’s now-immortal words from the show’s pilot episode, “You can’t be half a gangster.”
And indeed, Nucky can’t be half a gangster – as season three premiere “Resolution” opens, 16 months have passed and Nucky has given himself completely to crime under the weak guise of philanthropy. Still, his once-soft heart still won’t let him admit that he has become nothing more than a lord of petty criminals.
Our reintroduction to Nucky is our indication of how much things have changed. Surrounded by his lieutenants and soldiers – including the perpetually nervous Mickey Doyle and some of last season’s best new cast additions, Irish bodyguard Owen Sleater and badass butcher Manny Horvitz – Nucky is interrogating a small time thief who robbed Mickey’s stash of alcohol.
First, we see the old Nucky, sharing donuts while dryly blaming Mickey for his stupidity and seemingly preparing to let the thief go. But, instead, Nucky remorselessly orders the thief killed on the spot. It’s a darker Nucky, one intent one surviving the plots of his gangster peers and unencumbered by ethics. The show was once defined Nucky’s moral compass; it should be interesting to see what, if any, shred of decency viewers will be left to hold on to beneath the layers of blood.
But it’s already clear that creators Terrence Winter and Tim Van Patten don’t want us to believe that Boardwalk Empire is just going to be about the skyrocketing body count. Yes, there are plenty of bodies to be had – five dead in this episode alone, if you count the one graphic miscarriage – but the true horror is in the people still fighting to survive.
By setting the episode on the eve of New Year’s day 1923, Winter and Van Patten have forced every character to turn over a new leaf, both good and bad.
Former prohibition agent and resident religious psychopath Nelson Van Alden – portrayed by Michael Shannon, who deserves more credit for his work – is now selling electric irons in Chicago instead of busting bootlegger heads in New Jersey after running afoul of the law in season two. He’s now, apparently, married to his live-in maid and saddled with two children in a small apartment, and a chance encounter with real-life gangster Dean O’Banion – the real-life enemy of series regulars Al Capone and Johnny Torrio – seems to indicate he’s destined for a life of crime.
Elsewhere, disfigured hitman Richard Harrow is raising Jimmy’s orphaned son Tommy almost entirely on his own, suggesting he’s recovered from last season’s suicide attempt. Despite his new charge, Richard is the character most desperate for, and deserving of, the retribution promised in the episode’s title, culminating in his violent shotgun murder of Manny.
On the flipside, only a year after her business-related marriage to Nucky – and subsequent backstabbing in the name of the church – the estranged Margret Schroeder is looking for a cause to call her own, set against the backdrop of supposed aviatrix Carrie Duncan’s attempted cross-country flight. When she stumbles out onto a beach at sunrise to see Duncan’s bi-plane flying off into the west, we understand that she is struggling, tentatively, with the idea of breaking away from her life and forging her own way.
Margret’s reasons for needing to set off on her own are never clearer than after Nucky’s lavish, Egyptian-themed New Year’s party ends and the façade of the pair’s relationship comes crashing down in a wonderfully executed shouting match that sets the tone for Margret’s emotional journey this season.
Amidst all the changes – and the notable absence of Nucky’s counterpart in the black community, Chalky White – it would be remiss not to mention the season’s most important addition: the hot-headed, ultra-violent Gyp Rossetti.
It’s tough to call Gyp the show’s new antagonist, seeing as how everyone on Boardwalk Empire inevitably becomes their own worst enemy, but his unprovoked murder of a kindly old man certainly seems like an omen of escalating gang wars to come.
When Nucky announces he will only be selling his booze directly to Arnold Rothstein – and not Rossetti – the enraged Sicilian passes off the murdered old man’s dog to Margret in an awesomely subtle warning of retaliation.
As is typical of Boardwalk Empire, “Resolution” offers viewer’s just enough to know that there are pieces ready to fall into place. The gun is being loaded and we just have to wait for Nucky to pull the trigger – again and again and again.
berman@umdbk.com
