- Nucky's organizational skills are put to the test as the election approaches, his judgment's questioned as he handles the Commodore's poisoning, and he reveals his part to Margaret.
- Nucky's flexible organizational skills are tested in the days leading up to election day as his choice for mayor and President prove successful, and he comes to an uneasy truce with Rothstein on getting the World Series indictment quashed. Several question his handling of the Commodore's unsuccessful assassin and Eli is resentful of what he considers his brothers handling of his situation. Nucky makes up with Margaret by revealing his vulnerabilities and Jimmy and Angela do the same. Van Alden struggles with his conscience and future direction.—duke1029@aol.com
- Nucky and Atlantic City brace for change on Election Day; Torrio brokers a deal between two nemeses, with far-reaching consequences; Jimmy ponders his future, as do Margaret, Agent Van Alden and Eli.—HBO Publicity
- Van Alden warns aspiring agents about the temptations and bribery that await in Atlantic City if any of them aspire to replace him. One jokes, "bring on the dancing girls" and Van Alden slaps him, saying he doesn't want Sebso's memory sullied with "infantile humor." He also claims Sebso died of a heart attack. Supervisor Elliott asks Van Alden if he'll reconsider leaving and Van Alden says, "There's nothing here for me, sir."
Nucky and his cronies worry about the election as the Democratic candidate appears headed to victory. They talk about conspiring in election rigging, such as double counting votes and even casting votes from dead people. Chalky pulls Nucky aside and says he's been "approached by the other side." He tells Nucky he told Fletcher and the Dems he believed they'll take care of him, but just pocketed their money. Chalky, aside from $10,000 and a new car, wants an invitation to the victory party at Babette's as a public recognition from Nucky for his loyalty.
Margaret recites poetry to the kids for Halloween. Margaret tells Nan she's considering moving to Margate after the election. She's baking a traditional Irish cake that has a sixpence, a ring and a small rag inside. According to folk tradition. "if you get the money, you'll be rich; the ring, of course, means you'll be married; and if you get the rag, you'll be destitute."
The Commodore is getting an update from the doctor about the arsenic poisoning. Louann is being blamed and the Commodore hurls some serious insults in her direction. She says she poisoned him, "because if I used a shotgun, I'd have had to clean the mess up myself." Nucky says Halloran will not arrest her. Nucky pulls Louann aside and tells her she can't go around poisoning people. He hands her a stash of cash and tells her to go far away and not come back. She thanks him and hands him a book.
Rothstein prepares for his trip from New York to Chicago. He's prepared for an indictment. Luciano suggests Torrio could help get him out of trouble, as he could arrange a meeting between Rothstein and Nucky, who has valuable connections Rothstein doesn't have. This would also have the double benefit of possibly ending Rothstein's beef with Nucky, and take care of the D'Alessio brothers. Rothstein isn't wild about the idea, but doesn't shoot it down.
Jimmy gets home and Tommy is dressed as a pirate for Halloween. Jimmy gives Angela the silent treatment, and when she comments on this, he tells her, "If I was a different sort of man, it would be more than just looks." Jimmy tells Angela that Tommy is "disrespectful" to him but Angela says Tommy is terrified of Jimmy and that he "did it again" the night before. He screamed and moved in his sleep, she says. Jimmy tells her about the toll the war took on him and how he missed to touch and stroke her hair. He says they both "did things" when they were apart. He asks Angela if she was in love with Mary. She says it wasn't her. Jimmy says he wants to start fresh, and that he thinks he can. He asks Angela if she can, and she says she'll try. They kiss.
A priest leads a Halloween parade through a cemetery and prayer for the dead. Margaret comes upon a headstone that stops her in her tracks. It's "Enoch Thompson Jr," who died just six days old, and Mabel Thompson, who died at 27, and less than a month after her son. This affects her.
While Nucky prepares for a Halloween party, he gets a phone call from Torrio, trying to arrange for the meeting with Rothstein, but Nucky wants to know what it's about before committing. Nucky is getting ready for a Halloween party and says he'll be in touch with Torrio the next day. He puts on a mask and Margaret walks in. He goes to take it off, but Margaret tells him to leave it on because it suits him: "A dapper villain in a Sunday serial." He asks her what her "get-up" is. She tells him she was pregnant when he met her and then she lost the baby. She reminds him about his son and wife. He says it's "a bit late for this game," where he tells her his sorrows and she pretends to be sympathetic and they wind up in bed. "I can assure you that won't happen," Margaret says. She says she's there "to find out who Enoch Thompson is."
As Nucky explains, eight years ago, when he first became Treasurer, his wife Mabel gave birth to their only child, who they named Enoch Jr. after him ("she wanted it"). The baby was tiny. A week later, Nucky was busy and came home to find Mabel in the nursery rocking him in her arms. She looked so calm and contented, it gave him the courage to finally want to hold him. He pulled back the blanket and looked at his face. After a long pause, he could tell the baby had been dead for a week. She'd been caring for him as usual. Nucky held the dead child, the only time he ever did. Mabel couldn't handle it. She'd become separated from reality. He was "very, very busy" and about a month later, Mabel committed suicide by taking Nucky's razor to slit her own wrists. He tells Margaret he'd never been happier or more terrified than the time with her and her kids in the house. "And now you know more about me than any other person on Earth," he says. She realizes he thought she needed saving.
"Didn't you?" he asks.
"Not the way you chose," she says.
He asks if she's leaving Atlantic City. She says "it might be for the best." He offers her money, but she turns it down. She tells him, "There's kindness in you, I know it. How can you do what you do?"
"We all have to decide for ourselves how much sin we can live with," he says.
She says she's pleased to have finally made his acquaintance, and leaves.
Van Alden is at home with his wife. He says he was offered a permanent position in Atlantic City, a raise and two more agents. He says he turned it down. He tells her his uncle offered him a partnership in his feed business in Schenectady, N.Y. She says she enjoys being the wife of a federal agent. He says he's unhappy, unfulfilled, "increasingly so, these last few months." He mentions Sebso's death and stops. She tells him he's "doing God's work" there. He says that if God wants him to stay in Atlantic City, he needs to see a sign.
Angela gets a postcard from Mary from Paris. "Forgive me, but don't forget me," it reads.
Nucky shows up to a roadside meeting with Torrio and Al Capone while Rothstein and Luciano stand by. While Nucky's not happy with the sandbagging, he's willing to let Torrio talk. Torrio explains that he wants to put an end to this war. Rothstein also wants to bury the hatchet, as no one benefits and everyone loses if a war drags on. Nucky realizes Rothstein is asking for a favor. Rothstein wants a simple favor: he needs someone with Nucky's political reach to quash his impending indictment for the World Series fix because while Rothstein is well known in Chicago, he doesn't have any friends there who might be willing to help him, and for a ceasefire to all of the hostilities. After thinking about it for a moment, Nucky agrees to Rothstein's terms for a simple price: $1 million in cash and the whereabouts of the last four D'Alessio brothers. Rothstein agrees, and promises to have the money wired to him by tomorrow.
As the gangsters part ways, Nucky tells Eddie to get Eli on the phone and to call an emergency press conference where he wants reporters from every paper in attendance.
At the press conference, Nucky claims that the D'Alessios conspired with Hans Schroeder to commit the Woods massacre, and gives credit to Eli who initiated the investigation prior to his "resignation". While Nucky speaks, the D'Alessio brothers are swiftly disposed of:- Richard Harrow visits the D'Alessios' warehouse. He shoots Ignatius dead with a shotgun as he answers the door, then shoots Pius in the head as he tries to load a revolver.
- Al Capone shoots Sixtus in the head with a pistol as he returns to his waterfront house with groceries
- Jimmy slits Leo's throat as he's getting a haircut at a barbershop.
The next day's newspaper proclaims that the "Woods killers" have been found dead. Nucky shakes hands with voters waiting in line on the boardwalk. He comes upon Margaret and walks by without saying anything.
Jimmy gets home and Angela comes out of the bedroom with hastily cut hair. She says his father called and asked to see him. Visibly upset he touches her hair and says nothing.
Jimmy drinks alone in a corner in the midst of positive results coming in to the campaign victory party. Eddie tells Nucky that news has broken that Rothstein's indictment has been quashed, as Nucky promised. Eli is still unhappy, even though Nucky gave him a cut of the Rothstein money. Nucky assures him that he'll "make it right." Eli isn't fazed, warning Nucky there are consequences to the things he does and says. Nucky says he's sorry Eli's feelings were hurt, but that blood is thicker than water. Eli asks, "Why did it have to be my blood?"
Mayor Frank "I am The Law" Hague, a Democrat, shows up and shakes hands with the Republican victors. Nucky comes in and announces that Ed Bader is the city's new Mayor. Bader steps up and makes his first move as mayor, relieving Halloran of his duties and reinstating Eli as sheriff. Halloran wonders if he's a joke, but no one is laughing as glasses are clinked together in celebration of Eli's reappointment. A drunken Jimmy catches up with Pat Ryan, the man who took over the fourth ward back when Jimmy first returned from the war. When Pat says Nucky is taking good care of him, Jimmy quips, "he must have pimped out your mother, as well." Nucky hears this and pulls Jimmy aside. Jimmy makes it clear he knows about his mother's history and how Nucky hooked her up at age 13 with the Commodore. Jimmy wonders if everything Nucky did for him was because of guilt. Jimmy says he thought Nucky loved him.
"I'm not your father, James," Nucky says.
Jimmy says Nucky's right and that he's going to take it up with his father. Nucky tells him to go home and sober up. Jimmy tells Nucky to stop acting like he cares.
Cutting through Margaret's cake, Nan finds the ring, meaning she'll get married. Nan looks at it and exclaims, "The First Lady of the United States." Margaret asks Nan what she'll do if Warren Harding doesn't send for her. "Of course he will, he said," Nan says.
Margaret pulls the rag and her daughter asks what it means. She says it's "just a silly superstition."
Van Alden gets a visitor at the post office while he's packing up. He pretends to be busy as Lucy walks in. Turns out he's managed to knock her up. He says nothing.
At the Commodore's house, Gillian is taking care of the Commodore while Jimmy stands by and wonders if they're "a happy family" all of a sudden. The Commodore is upset because Nucky let it go when someone tried to kill him. "He's got an odd sense of justice," Jimmy says. The Commodore goes on a small rant about Woodrow Wilson, who was trying to make a name for himself on the way to the White House, being the reason he was convicted, but that Nucky was the reason he went to jail. Jimmy asks what he means. The Commodore explains that back in the day, he and Nucky were about to be caught for election fraud. It was decided that the Commodore would take the fall for both of them since Nucky had a cleaner image. The Commodore went to jail on the promise that Nucky would take over and "square things up" when the Commodore got out. From the Commodore's perspective, he doesn't seem to feel things ever got squared up and Nucky double crossed him. Jimmy pours him some more brandy (which he isn't supposed to have because his stomach is still healing from the arsenic poisoning).
The Commodore tells Jimmy that Nucky is using him to do the things he doesn't have the stomach to do. Jimmy says he made a good deal, but the Commodore doesn't think so. He says Nucky made him think he made a good deal because "that's the way he operates." He tells Jimmy that he's going to take back Atlantic City for the both of them. Suddenly, Eli pops in for a visit. He asks the Commodore if he told Jimmy what they discussed. He says he was just about to.
Margaret walks into the Republican victory party at Babette's. Nucky sees her from across the room and goes toward her, leaving a woman he'd been talking to at the bar. She congratulates him on Bader's win. She asks him for a drink and he gets her a glass of champagne. She says, "Good news just isn't the same without it." He asks about the children and she says, "They miss their Uncle Nucky."
The crowd is quieted for election news announcing that Warren Harding is winning the Presidential election. The crowd celebrates anew as confetti falls. Harding's victory speech is read and the crowd applauds after he calls for "a return to normalcy." Margaret and Nucky share a kiss.
In a closing montage while Eddie Cantor sings for the celebratory crowd, we see Van Alden sitting alone and tearing up. We see Eli, the Commodore and Jimmy plotting while Gillian quietly sips a drink. Lansky and Luciano pull another whiskey heist, with Lucky shooting a kid who'd just taken payment from Lansky for a truckload of liquor. Nan sits alone and puts on the ring she found in the cake, smiling dreamily. Rothstein sighs as he talks on the phone, and Eddie counts stacks of cash. Angela sits at home in an empty dining room.
As daylight begins to break, Jimmy walks on the shore alone while partygoers filter out of Babbette's. Nucky and Margaret walk to the edge of the boardwalk to look out over the water.
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