Boardwalk Empire- Broadway Limited review/recap

Agent Van Alden suspected that Jimmy killed the men in the woods (in the pilot). There was one last survivor, who appeared at the end of last episode, and Agent Van Alden was aiming to question him. Elias Thompson tried to smother the fat, dying witness with a pillow in a spectacular, sickly funny scene. You know that’s how smothering someone with a pillow would really god down. Most movies and TV make it seem nice, neat, and quick. Agent Van Alden tricked Elias’ guards by saying that he had a “writ of certiorari” to take the witness. Alarm bells immediately went off in our heads. Thank you law school. He tried to take the witness to New York, but he had to make a stop because the witness was dying. Agent Van Alden hauled the witness into a dentist’s office, where the dentist shot him with cocaine and Agent Van Alden mildly tortured him into naming Jimmy as one of the men in the woods.

In this episode, we met Chalky White, who now runs a bootleg distillery for Nucky. One of Chalky’s men was hung outside the distillery, and Nucky agreed to split the profits 50-50 if Chalky wouldn’t make a fuss about the murder, because it’s an election year. Nucky doesn’t need a race war during an election year.

Nucky got the widow Margaret a job dressing rich ladies in a French clothing store. Nucky’s girlfriend stopped by, and Margaret had to help her out. Lucy looks like she’s had some work done in the face, and her voice betrays her possibly intentional idiocy immediately. She has a GREAT body though. Holy moly. The girlfriend, Lucy, informed Margaret that Nucky got her the job because he’s “a soft touch for charity cases.” We know from an earlier episode that Margaret has a touch of pride when it comes to taking charity, preferring getting work to getting money from Nucky. We don’t know what her problem is, because everyone needs help once in a while, but we hate Lucy for needling her about it. Lucy asked Nucky if he wanted to have a child with her, and he put the issue off until later (meaning, “No, you’re dumb as a rock, and I don’t want you raising my children”). We really hope Nucky dumps her for Margaret. That'd show her.

Jimmy’s mother told Nucky that she had trusted him to be a role model to Jimmy and help him. She also wanted Jimmy to go to college, but then he went to war and took a job from Nucky, and now he is a shell of himself. Nucky told Jimmy that he had to leave Atlantic City/that he was done there. Jimmy suspected his girlfriend of cheating on him with her photographer friend while Jimmy was at war, so it made leaving her and his son easier. We’re not that sad for her, because early in the episode, when Jimmy started talking about guns they used in the war and opening up about that subject, she got annoyed and said, “We used to talk about books.” The guy is hurting, ok? Let him talk about what he wants. We sort of hope they patch up their relationship though, because their kid is adorable. We really like Jimmy’s mom. She’s pretty, interesting, strong, and she seems really smart.

We would call this the most accessible episode so far. Everything is set up for us to see the characters interact, fight, and mob around. It probably ran the smoothest of the episodes. While it was not as visually exciting as the pilot, we think it was the easiest episode to watch and follow. We also enjoyed the song about how a guy likes dumb girls. Delightful. And we aren’t being sarcastic; that song was funny, a little true, and catchy. This show continues to impress and entertain.

Episode grade- B+