Boardwalk Empire 1x09

Nucky’s brother Eli confirms that the dago D’Alessio brothers were behind the casino stick-up in which he got shot in the stomach. Making matters worse, Democratic candidate for the upcoming mayoral election, Fletcher, is promising to clean Atlantic City from the current corruption. For her part, Margaret gets a taste of the influence she has gained as Nucky’s mistress. Her former employer, Madame Jeunet at La Belle Femme, begs her for help as the payoff money for running her shop has doubled. When she brings it up at home, Nucky snaps it’s not a suitable topic of conversation. Not much later, Nucky asks her to help him convincing the women of the Temperance League to vote Republican when and if they get the suffrage. She spots an opportunity to turn that around and get him to cut Madame Jeunet’s costs. It is a pleasure seeing Margaret grow into her position of power, but let’s not forget she is having an affair with the man who had her husband killed.

Jimmy returns to Atlantic City, but no one has received his telegrams announcing his arrival. Nucky asks him to take care of the D’Alessio brothers. Jimmy deliberately asks him if he wants him to kill them, confronting him with the fact that he’s a murderer and should not be entertaining foolish notions otherwise. When Jimmy returns home, Angela is having a little party with the Dittrichs, who run the photo shop on the boardwalk. By the awkward glances and startled silence, Jimmy realizes things had gotten a little intimate. Angela never received his telegram either. His jealous anger is a tad hypocritical, though, seeing that he had an affair with Pearl at the brothel in Chicago (even considered running away with her to California), but worse still, he turns abusive. She eventually seems to cave in, but it still feels like rape to these eyes.

Nelson Van Alden is livid when he finds out his mumbling junior partner, Agent Sebso, ignored the Jimmy’s telegrams and shoved them in the drawer. Sebso tells him Supervisor Elliot has made it clear enough he believes their being obsessive about Jimmy Darmody, Nucky Thompson and the Hans Schroeder case. Meanwhile, Jimmy has his mother help him trap Lucky Luciano, catching him in her bed. Walking down the stairs with a gun in his side, Lucky blurts out Rothstein cut the D’Alessio brothers in. And that’s when Agents Van Alden and Sebso arrest Jimmy. Suddenly Supervisor Elliot is all congratulatory. Jimmy obviously denies knowing anything about the heist in the woods with Capone. But then he spots Billy Winslow, who identified him on the scene. When Nucky visits him in jail, Jimmy tells him about the deal of the D’Alessio brothers with Rothstein, and about Winslow. Nucky promises to take care of things but cannot bail him out. “Five counts of murder. There is no bail.” Nucky then visits the Commodore, who is nearing his death, but refuses to see a doctor. Even his dog is sick. He suggests to Nucky they better replace Mayor Bacharach and Eli, too.

In New York City, Arnold Rothstein meets up with the two eldest D’Alessio brothers and Mickey Doyle. He offers them a partnership importing the best Scotch from Britain. Atlantic City is a perfect site, both for smuggling the liquor in and for distributing it to the eastern seaboard. First thing that needs to happen, though, is getting rid of the person running the city. Supposedly to protect their only witness in the Schroeder case, Sebso suggests transferring Winslow to Manhattan, but kills him along the way as a favor to Nucky. To make it look like self-defense, he smashes his own head with a rock. (At least, I suspect Sesbo is in cahoots with Nucky, for why else is he sabotaging the case?) Walking on the boardwalk with Margaret after an evening out with his preferred mayoral replacement, Nucky nearly gets shot by the youngest D’Alessio brother. Now things have heated up!