Recap
Guess who's back. Back again. Nelson's back. Tell a friend. Oh boy have I missed Nelson Van Alden/ George Mueller. Our favorite prohibition agent turned door to door salesman turned bootlegger made his grand return to TV in the second episode of Boardwalk. Van Alden is working for O' Banion delivering flowers and collecting money from his bootlegging business. It looks like Van Alden is embracing his inner thug because he straight up clocks this motherfucker who doesn't have Dean O' Banion's cash. Nelson goes home to his second/better wife to find that she has bought a couch. Nelson isn't too pleased with living a good life but wifey tells him she wants to make the home. He's gonna have to live comfortably whether he likes it or not. (He doesn't.) Dean also has him keeping tabs on Al Capone to make sure he leaves Chicago. This includes going with the Capone's to Cicero to start a riot at a political rally. Let's skip over to Richard Harrow who is getting adjusted to being back home. He tells his pregnant sister, Emma,
that he has to go into Milwaukee for the day to go to the Veterans Bureau. Before he leaves his sister gives him a book and it the book there's a paper that says his sister owes a lot of money in back taxes. Harrow goes to pay a gentleman a visit saying he's getting paid to kill him by Carl Billings and uncharacteristically has a change of heart and let's him live. (Did not see that coming.) Later Harrow is asked my his sister to make the hardest kill of the season yet: his dog. The dog is dying and she wants to put it out of its misery. She knows about Richard's pistol and asks him to do the honors. Turns out he can kill a man, but he can't kill man's best friend. (He's not a monster.) He's sister does it instead. Finally he gets a call from Carl Billings who is posing as the county assessor's office, as Richard left the paper with his sister's taxes at his would-be victim's office, and it's revealed that the man Harrow was supposed to kill was shot in the head.
Over in AC Eddie is still struggling to be Nucky's server because of the whole "getting-shot-in-season-3" thing. Nucky is trying to take it easy on Eddie which Eddie isn't taking to kindly. Nucky is leaving for Florida soon but before he does that he pays the honorable Mayor Bader a visit asking for a cut of his new construction company in Nucky Thompson fashion. But it isn't Nucky's menacing demeanor that has Bader fold, it's Eddie's brilliant speech about how Nucky is the sky, sea and children's dreams. (I used to dream of Nucky.) Later on Nucky meets with the seemingly naive prohibition agent Warren Knox to talk about how the whole dirty bootlegger-dirty cop relationship is gonna go. Suspecting something might be off about fresh-out-the-womb Warren, he calls up his old buddy Gaston Means and doesn't discover anything. But as it turns out, Warren is actually undercover working with the acting head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. (Really did not see that coming.) Meanwhile Eddie wants to resign because he isn't getting enough respect giving the second best butler resignation speech since Alfred's in The Dark Knight Rises. (Alfred cried in his.) What Eddie really wants is a promotion and to be more included in the business and he gets what he wants.
Meanwhile at Club Onyx, Chalky White is showing his future son-in-law's family the location of the wedding when Dunn shows up with news that Dickie's wife still has not been found. Chalky isn't happy but other than that his club is going great. That is until he meets Dr. Narcisse, Dickie's boss, who wants compensation for his employee's death. On top of that Dickie's wife is claiming Dunn raped her. Chalky basically tells Dr. Narcisse to go fuck himself and Narcisse responds by not allowing Chalky's acts to perform at his club. Chalky then calls onto Nucky to help him out with this issue. Nucky meets with both men to broker a deal between them and Narcisse get's 10% of Chalky's club. On the way back to New York Dickie's widow tells Narcisse that she wants to have Dunn Purnsely killed for what he did to her husband. Dr. Narcisse proceeds to have the white devil strangled by one of his men and left at the road. (Yes!) The final scene of the episode is her body being discovered at Mayor Bader's construction site.
Power Rankings
1. Nucky Thompson (Last Week: 1)
Congrats Nucky, shit is going great for you. Again. Nucky is getting his cash straight. It looks like his relationship with Dr. Narcisse might bear fruit. Only young Warren can stand in his way.
2. Warren Knox (Last Week: 5)
Speak of the devil, Warren is on undercover shit. That came out of left field. He has the potential to really shake things up the season. Nobody is safe from baby faced Warren.
3. Dr. Valentin Narcisse (Last Week: NA)
I hate it when people with doctorates make you call them "Doctor" when they ain't operating on you. He's got an awesome accent though and he's so sophisticated. Plus, now he has 10% of the Onyx Club.
4. Eddie Kessler (Last Week: NA)
Eddie had the balls to threaten Nucky with a resignation. In return he got that promotion he always wanted and things are looking up for him. He's got more responsibility now so let's see what he does.
5. Dean O' Banion (Last Week: NA)
Dean looks like he has the upper hand in this O' Banion/Capone beef. He has Van Alden on his side playing double agent for him. Dean's success is going to depend on the creepiest looking guy in the show.
Final Thoughts
Not a lot of deaths in this episode but a lot of progression in the story. I'm really anxious to see how this O' Banion/Capone beef turns out. (Or at least I would if I never picked up a history book.) But more than anything I want to see what Nelson Van Alden does in the middle of this beef. Eddie is easily the funniest character in the show as usual but now he's taking on a bigger role. We'll have to keep our eyes on that. And is it just me or do we all want to see some more Mickey Doyle. (Let's start the chant: Mickey! Mickey! Mickey!) That's two episodes and still no sign of Margaret. It's too early to celebrate because I know she's around somewhere. Is Richard really turning over a new leaf? It's hard to imagine him not killing. Who saw Knox working with J. Edgar coming? This is going to be exciting! But not as exciting as Dr. Narcisse and his Trinidadian accent.
That's my time! I had a great time recapping this episode for you guys. I'll be back again next week for the third installment. Please leave your comments if you have any in the section below. Check out my main blog Infinite Wisdom From El Guapo's Brain. The link is on the right as always. If you missed last weeks recap you can peep that here. Follow me on Twitter @ELGUAPO3, Instagram at CAPTAINCRUNCHTIME and Tumblr at sirelguapo.tumblr.com. Stay tuned for next week and stay Guapo out there!
Another thing that might interest you is backing up scenes, appearances, power moves, etc that occur in the show with their historical significance where it may apply, but this may require a bit of research.
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