Boardwalk Empire 1.04 – Anastasia

The cat fight has begun as we get a bit of face time with Mrs. Margaret Schroeder as she is told to attend the birthday party of Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) and deliver a dress to his sweetheart Lucy. When Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) enters the venue the look of awe and surprise on her face is only dwarfed by her expression of happiness when Nucky greets her. He has her meet men of importance, compliments her and takes her unto the dance floor. Margaret it seems, falls instantly in love and she isn’t alone, Nucky who is not a fan of the racist and sexist views of his peers has been trying to show his fellow politicians the intelligence of women but his darling Lucy (Paz de la Huerta) lived up to every stereotype that they countered with. Here was Margaret, as intelligent as they come, pretty, learned, and well spoken. For Nucky Thompson, this Margaret Schroeder was his wife reincarnated.

Their dance is beautiful and holds the eyes of everyone on the floor and when Nucky leads her to the dressing room for her to accomplish her task, he retreats back to his party where she catches a glimpse of him and his girl Lucy. The sexy Lucy had sprung from a large cake to a wide grinning Nucky and Margaret shot her a glance that could cut metal. The sexual tension has finally been brought to light and it is about time – being that I never knew the purpose of Margaret after 3 episodes.

Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) and Al Capone (Stephen Graham) are buddies in business as they further the ambition of boss Johnny Torrio (Greg Antonacci) via hostile negotiations with Irish mobsters. Jimmy’s mother plays baby-sitter to his boy back home and he has fallen in love with a cute prostitute. The prostitute plans on traveling West to become a movie star, too bad she ends up in the cross-fire between the Italians and the Irish and escapes alive but permanently scarred with a knife gash across her face. The other woman in Jimmy’s life (his mother) has taken a liking of gangster Lucky Luciano (Vincent Piazza) and his stalking attempt of her turns into a possibility of late night sexual romping. Poor Jimmy, the guy can’t catch a break!

The Revenge of Chalky White

One thing about this side character Chalky White (Michael Kenneth Williams), the guy is deep. From Chalky we learn that Nucky and he have been partners in politics for quite some time being that Chalky controls the black vote. When Elias rounds up the local Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan to answer for the lynching of Chalky’s driver, we get to see the cold side of this man for the first time. It was beautiful; Chalky sits in front of the shackled racist and recants a tale of his father the master carpenter. How his dad built a beautiful bookcase for a big shot in town only to end up lynched by a gang of 7 white males. Chalky tortures the Klan leader and removes his ring finger before deciding that the Klan had nothing to do with the lynching. It was a sequence that revealed the reasoning why he was such a man of importance to Nucky, now if we could just get an explanation behind the name.

The episode ends with Margaret saying goodnight to her employer in the clothing store, then doing a rather impulsive and crazy thing… she steals a dress and tucks it into her purse. It seems that Nucky has awakened some sort of mischievous fire within her.

Recap Highlights from Boardwalk Empire 1.4:

• Jimmy’s mother is extremely young, hot, and likes sex.
• Jimmy meets a prostitute who he likes but she ends up getting viciously cut for knowing him.
• Al Capone is a crazy sunovabitch!
• Chalky White is the coolest gangster in Atlantic City and he cuts off the finger of a Ku Klux Klan leader.
• Margaret Schroeder has the hots for Nucky Johnson but Lucy is in the way.
• Lucy is still a dumb airhead with an awesome body.