"This is the only way it could've ended, isn't it?"
Is it? It's certainly what producer/writer Terence Winter thought, and perhaps it's true. As the ever-simmering second season of "Boardwalk Empire" comes to a scorching close, predictions are dashed,
alliances rearranged, a thousand questions posed, and a million hearts broken.
I'd might as well begin with the elephant lying dead in the middle of the room: Nucky's shocking murder of former protégé (and beloved second principal character!) Jimmy Darmody. This act was particularly chilling considering Nucky raised Jimmy essentially as a son, but at the same time this may be the most impassioned thing we've
ever seen Nucky do. Even onlooking pro killers Owen Sleater and fucking Manny Horvitz looked freaked out when Nucky fired two startlingly point-blank shots into Jimmy's face, an obvious personal sacrifice for him. This is a major turning point for Nucky's character, who has always kept his cool and his hands clean. But after uncomfortable brushes with death and the debilitating prospect of prison, Nucky clearly holds no intention of relinquishing his power and is "not seeking forgiveness" for it. He is now an irrevocably and unmistakably whole gangster (a throwback to the series premiere when Jimmy told Nucky "you can't be half a gangster anymore").
Shattered by war and a lifetime of mob violence, Jimmy has been a walking corpse since we've known him. Of course last week we got a crash course in the reasons behind his passionless marriage to Angela and the perversely passionate relationship with his mother, which explains his sudden and unpopular decision to drop out of Princeton and enlist in the Army during WWI. We knew from the beginning that Nucky resented Jimmy for this, forsaking his education and any hopes he had of creating something more for himself, but it's hard to say now if Nucky's wish for Jimmy to get out of their violent world was because he truly cared for him or because he saw an ambitious flame in the kid that could one day threaten him. More than ever over the last few episodes we've come face-to-face with Nucky's unflinching self-centeredness.
After an excruciatingly long chain of failed power struggles, we finally see Jimmy pretty well put together throughout this episode. Little do we know he's either consciously or unconsciously putting his affairs in order, collected and self-assured as he moves unarmed toward his own death. Jimmy lays the cards on the table for Nucky when he invites him to talk at his home. I don't think Jimmy is a mess here at all--bleeding from a stab wound inflicted by the father he finally succeeded in killing and pouring a sad toast "to the lost," sure--but he's quite lucid in his utter honesty. This is the prodigal son's unmistakable attempt to return home, and even if he somehow knows his request will ultimately be rejected, it's quite beautiful. After all, he's not fucking with Nucky by telling him it was Eli's idea to kill him, because it was. Eli's fucked anyway--Jimmy did try to stop him from betraying Nucky--so it feels only natural for Jimmy to give him up. Even though the reigns were placed in Jimmy's hands, he never really held them, though he doesn't deny all the mistakes he made. Even if he knows he will have to die for them, it's a testament to Jimmy's character that he's still got to "clear the air" (as Nucky so aptly puts it later on).
When Nucky calls his home that night, Jimmy doesn't even let right-hand man Richard Harrow join him to supposedly get his revenge on Manny Horvitz, asserting that it's something he's got to do alone. In the BFF's last heart-to-heart before Jimmy leaves, he beseeches Richard to "find a way to come home" (from the war). I'm eager to see what will become of Richard's heartbreakingly beautiful character, now that he's lost the only person holding him together, and the closest thing he knew to home. What will keep him from just topping himself like he planned to do earlier this season? Will he step in as father to Tommy? Perhaps steer him away from a tortured life like those that he and Jimmy have lived? Oh God, will he get busy with Gillian? Nooooo, Richard! That clearly doesn't work out for anyone.
And ohhh, Margaret. Silly, stupid Margaret. Otherwise a very smart woman, her spiritual conflict has come to a ridiculous head as she agrees to marry Nucky and then immediately betrays him afterward. Yes, Nucky's marriage proposal was unromantic, but refreshingly honest, and that's something she can be grateful for after allowing herself to be kept in the dark with him all this time. By confiding in her his fears of death and jail (perhaps not in that order), Nucky once again shows her his vulnerabilities, something he doesn't do in the company of anyone else. But while we believe he does love her and their family, he only "needed" to marry her so she wouldn't have to testify against him, and it's clear that saving his own ass is again his first priority. Which worked, by the way.
The morning after he murders Jimmy he makes a very flimsy case for Jimmy's "re-enlistment" to Margaret, which she doesn't believe for a nanosecond. It is curious then that as Nucky goes to celebrate with his associates on the as-yet undeveloped "road to riches," Margaret immediately signs the land deed (placed in her name for legal safekeeping) over to the church, instead of Nucky, as per his request. A woman scorned, I suppose, but does she seriously have a death wish? I was hoping she might get a little more inventive with it though. For a moment I entertained the idea that she would even hand it over to some federal agency, to ensure they had somewhere besides the post office from which to work! That would have been a riot. But the fucking church? Christ, Margaret, you are boring! She had better watch her pretty little pampered ass in season three. Chances are that at worst, she'll end up like Jimmy, and at best, like Lucy.
But of all these betrayals, has Nucky actually betrayed us, the audience, most of all? He's always held that "gangster with a heart of gold" thing quite well, but I'm starting to feel alienated in my sympathy for him. Twice now those nearest and dearest have come to him hat in hand, and he's spit in their face (err, shot it). Perhaps his sudden unpredictability is what makes for a riveting character. I'm just so fucking pissed at Nucky right now, but I suppose, like everyone, our relationship with him is complicated. As the constant sun around which all the tumult has always revolved, we see even an old dog like him can learn new tricks ("just try to make yourself calm...breathe, Nuck"). After a whirlwind season which left an alarming body count, "Boardwalk Empire" writers continue to show us that nothing is for certain, nothing is untouchable, no one is safe. See you in season three!
Questions: What WILL "Boardwalk Empire" be without one of its most beloved characters? What effect will Jimmy's death have on the giant machine that is Atlantic City?
No longer toeing the line between virtue and corruption, what is to become of Van Alden, a murder suspect who is now officially on the lam (with nanny and baby)? Also, are he and Ingrid officially an item? Do you think she still gets paid?
What effect will Arnold Rothstein's new interest in the heroin trade have on all of this bizness?
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