- Confidantes of Nucky plot against him, Gillian vies with Angela for control of the house, race relations hit a boiling point, and Van Alden celebrates his 13th anniversary.
- The Commodore, Jimmy, and Eli, all supposed confidantes, plot against Nucky as he senses a conspiracy. He also tries to mollify both sides as racial tensions between local KKK and the city's black minority are reaching a boiling point when Chalky is arrested and held for his own safety. Gillian insinuates herself as a disruptive force in the home of newly married Jimmy and Angela. Van Alden tries to keep his secret life with mistress Lucy hidden as his wife makes her monthly visit to Atlantic City to celebrate their not-so-lucky 13th anniversary.—duke1029@aol.com
- Nucky is rocked by an insurrection among his inner circle; Chalky's life and livelihood are threatened by a vicious KKK attack; Margaret copes with her son's disciplinary problems; Angela vies with Gillian for Jimmy's affections at home; Van Alden shows his wife Rose around town as an anniversary present.—HBO Publicity
- Life is good in Atlantic City for Nucky, as he partakes in an apparently wild and festive night at Babette's with his cronies. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Richard Harrow oversee the delivery of liquor to Chalky, while Eli is nurses his gunshot wound from the D'Alessio brothers a year ago, the Commodore works himself back into shape, and Van Alden greets his wife at the train station.
Chalky and his men are moving product around their warehouse when they are attacked by a group of Klansmen. Arriving in a pickup truck, the Klansmen pepper the building with a seemingly endless stream of rounds from a belt-fed machine gun, killing several of Chalky's men. After the gun runs out, a couple of the hooded men enter the warehouse with shotguns in hand, intent on finishing off the survivors. As one of them prepares to shoot Chalky, he is shot by one of the women working at the warehouse. She is shot by the other Klansman in the stomach, before they both flee back to their truck. Not intent on letting them get away unscathed, Chalky grabs a Springfield rifle and shoots at the men as they drive away, fatally hitting one of them.
Nucky gets home, finally, and finds Margaret trying to coax her young son out from under the dining room table. Teddy has gotten in trouble at school and has bruises from where a nun took a ruler to him. The kids head off to get cleaned up for school and Margaret's upset about Nucky's unusual hours. With the kids screaming, Nucky leaves to go to the office -- to get some sleep.
Jimmy gets home to a big, nice house near the beach, where he lives with Angela. Jimmy wants to take Tommy out to shoot gulls. Angela thinks it's too dangerous, but Gillian chimes in that she shouldn't worry so much. When Jimmy and Tommy leave, Angela asks Gillian not to undercut her. Gillian then proceeds to tell Angela a somewhat disturbing story about how she used to kiss Jimmy's "winky" when she changed his diaper as a baby.
Van Alden walks into his office to find his agents wrestling on the floor. His wife is with him, and he introduces her to the new two agents. She's visiting for the weekend and one of the agents suggests the many "wholesome" activities the city has to offer, handing her a brochure entitled "If Jesus Ever Came to Atlantic City." An annoyed Van Alden leaves.
In Chicago, Al Capone and Johnny Torrio sit down with Torrio's old lawyer, George Remus. Remus is a crooked attorney who's moved to Cincinnati and become a fulltime bootlegger, citing Cincinnati's relative proximity to so many other larger markets with prospective customers. During the meeting, Remus, who refers to himself in the third-person, offers to sell Torrio 8,000 cases a month, and warns Torrio about the unpredictability of importing from Canada. While Remus goes to meet one of the ladies in the brothel, Torrio tells Capone to visit Nucky in Atlantic City and inform him of the change in their deal.
In Atlantic City, Nucky, Ed Bader and the ward bosses are plotting a scam to buy up a bunch of worthless land for road construction projects, then, once the government builds out roads in that direction, sell the land back to the state at a markup price. Bader's construction company will also do the construction on the roads, and a representative of John McGarrigle gives Nucky and Bader a down payment to provide the gravel for 40 miles of road. Nucky counts the money and puts it in an envelope he has hidden in a cabinet. He makes a note of it. Eddie comes to Nucky with news of the shooting at Chalky's warehouse.
Van Alden is showing his wife around. She reads through the pamphlet and finds that it lists taverns and other places where Jesus absolutely wouldn't go. Van Alden realizes it's "the author's attempt at cynicism" and apologizes to Rose. She's disgusted by "this world," so much so that she suggests it might be better that they can't have children. As they travel down the boardwalk, Van Alden notices Nucky and Eddie leaving the Ritz, though Nucky doesn't notice him.
Eli and Nucky go meet with Chalky, upset that Chalky shot two white men, including a school teacher. Chalky, meanwhile, is upset about losing so many men. He's not pacified by Nucky's insistence that Chalky lay low, given the potential threat he faces of a lynching.
Margaret goes to visit the nun who hit Teddy. The nun clarifies that Teddy got in trouble because he was playing with matches in a closet. When Margaret tells the nun that Teddy said he did nothing wrong, she warns Margaret she's "raising a liar." She also coldly mentions that Teddy won't be expelled for this incident because of Father Brennan's intervention, and his ties to Nucky.
Eli meets with the Commodore and Jimmy to discuss the shooting. Eli says his understanding is that they were setting out to put Chalky out of business, but it's turned into a mess because of the shooting, particularly of the woman. Eli wonders what he's supposed to tell Nucky, and the Commodore tells him to worry about himself, and that he'll handle Nucky.
When Eli leaves, the Commodore tells Jimmy that "soon they'll see what real power is." He tells Jimmy to go meet with the Governor, cultivate relationships. With Chalky out of the game, his whole warehouse is there for the taking. The Commodore tells Jimmy not to worry about Nucky. The Commodore goes on to tell Jimmy about the ways he killed the animals stuffed and mounted on the wall.
Nucky gives a speech about the KKK shootings at a black church, saying that he won't rest until the criminals who carried out the shooting are brought to justice, to applause. This is juxtaposed with Nucky giving the exact opposite speech in a bigger, white church. When a man comes in and announces that one of the KKK members Chalky shot just died from his neck wounds, Nucky quietly tells Eli to go arrest Chalky for his own safety.
Van Alden and his wife go out for a nice dinner and she's shaken when the server indirectly offers to serve them alcohol. She asks Van Alden if he's going to arrest the man. He excuses himself to wash his hands, as cover to make a phone call.
Nucky is at the KKK man's funeral when he sees Jimmy show up. Jimmy says he's paying respects to the deceased, who was one of this high school teachers. Nucky asks Jimmy if he saw anything that aroused suspicion, and Jimmy walks away to chat with others. Nucky and Jimmy catch up. Nucky asks Jimmy if there's anything he wants to say to him. When Jimmy asks what he means, Nucky tells him, "Your father is a very duplicitous man." Jimmy leaves.
Back at the restaurant, Van Alden gives his wife a gift. He then asks the waiter about the "special occasion" offer he made earlier (the booze). He punches the waiter and stands up to announce a raid. His other agents rush in to seize the money and alcohol. Rose is breathless and later tells him it was "thrilling." They make love in the dark, of course.
As they get ready for bed, Nucky talks to Margaret about Jimmy and says he thinks Jimmy's holding something back. He says he's angry. Margaret tells Nucky about Teddy and his matches, then says she's worried he's developing an obsession with fire. Nucky wonders aloud what that's about.
Van Alden shares an awkward goodbye with his wife at the train station.
Jimmy is home and sees a package from Nucky, which Angela mentions is a wedding gift. Richard picks at his breakfast, and Jimmy tells him not to be embarrassed to eat in front of the family. Angela brings them coffee and Richard asks Jimmy how it feels "to have everything."
Nucky goes to talk to Teddy in his room. When Nucky tells Teddy he wants to talk to him, Teddy takes off his suspenders and explains he's "getting ready for the belt." Nucky isn't going to hit him, he just tells Teddy to mind his mother and the nuns at school. He tells him not to play with matches, then gives the kid some money for candy, urging him to "be a good boy."
Jimmy breaks into Chalky's bullet-riddled warehouse and steals some of the liquor bottles.
Van Alden returns to a quiet home, but when he stands near a mirror in his bedroom, we see he's not alone. Lucy is laying in his bed, and when she gets up we see she's pregnant. He tells her he has her money, and she confirms it's for the last two weeks. He tells her she needs to sleep in her own room, and she leaves.
Jimmy and Richard sell off a bit of Chalky's liquor, and the buyer wonders if he should be concerned that there's blood on some of the crates, concerns that Jimmy coldly dismisses.
Nucky is at home when he gets a call from Eddie, saying that a man from the state's attorney's office wants to see him immediately. Nucky tells Margaret to take the kids to the movies and he'll meet them there after he stops at the office.
Richard sits alone, cutting out images of happy families and putting them into a scrapbook, reminiscing about what he doesn't have in his life.
At his office, Nucky is arrested for election fraud.
Margaret sits and watches a Charlie Chaplin film with an empty seat between her and Teddy. Both of them watch the door to the theater, awaiting Nucky's arrival that doesn't come.
In the dark, Jimmy opens the gift from Nucky. It's a small sculpture of a man teaching a boy to hunt. Jimmy stashes it high upon a shelf in a closet.
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