Episode Report Card Daniel: B | 36 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Couldn't Quite Seem To Escape Myself
By Daniel | Season 4 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.22.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Nucky meets with Bill McCoy about the land deal in Florida, and meets McCoy's associate Arthur Tucker. Nucky's wary of big-fish-in-a-small-pond Tucker, and of the deal itself, as his own due diligence has indicated that the increasing development around the land would make it much too risky for his own entrepreneurial purposes. But Florida's not all bad, as Nucky meets Sally Wheet (played by Patricia Arquette), a bartender who's not afraid to give him a little shit over his non-relationship with his son. This gives Nucky an "I like strong women!" boner that will, of course, go away, like it did with Margaret (who still hasn't shown up yet).
Nucky is at first pissed that McCoy tried to swing a bad deal with him, but it turns out that McCoy is in major debt to Tucker, and this deal was supposed to help that. Nucky likes to help his friends, though, especially when there's a sassy dame around, and winds up agreeing to the deal. He doesn't know yet, though, that Tucker right at that moment has a machete wedged in his lifeless skull.
Back home, Narcisse is wasting no time wedging himself in, meeting with Arnold Rothstein and Dunn Purnsley as he moves his chess pieces around (the chess pieces are made of heroin). Hey, if there's greater supply, Gillian might appreciate it; she still needs to get right even though she's leading the illusion of a life of domestic bliss, pretending to be Roy Philips' wife. Her illusion is instantly dispatched when a friend of the Jimmy lookalike she killed spots her and appears to try to press her for info, at least until Gillian works the damsel-in-distress angle to get Philips to tell the kid to "take it on the arches."
Richard's erstwhile employer Billings has indeed caught up with him, and tries to take him out. But Emma's going to keep doing the killing for the Harrow family (well, Richard takes out Billings' thug) and shoots Billings in the head.
And Willie gets a nice long subplot in which he decides to score some hooch for a party at school, mainly to make friends and get in a girl's pants. There's a bit of an altercation with Mickey Doyle when Willie and a buddy try to just walk out with some, but then Doyle relents, giving us the gift of watching a party that could almost have come from a Prohibition-era Reefer Madness-style propaganda film about the evils of alcohol. Willie is the toast of Temple, gets the girl and then is humiliated when his romantic rival leads a gaggle of students into the darkened library to catch Willie and his hard-on making out with the girl. This Henry kid is probably going to end up dead.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's starting to wish all the gangsters on this show said, "…see?" at the end of every sentence. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Nucky, flanked by bodyguards, makes his way to a hotel room somewhere near the beach, judging from the sounds of the birds and the waves outside, and later his old buddy McCoy on a patio is cutting a coconut in half with a machete, and bragging to Nucky about Tampa: "Land of money, cunny, and where it's always sunny." Jesus, "cunny" is just the worst word. Did anyone ever actually say that, or is just made-up vaguely old-timey slang for movies and television? Nucky says "the first two sound good" because he wants money and he's a total hound, but he's not as fond of the sun. This is because he's as pale as a vampire mortician. McCoy just got out of "eight months in stir" and whines that there's either a "three-mile limit or there isn't," an argument that apparently failed to impress the judge. Maybe if McCoy had shown him how impressive his machete skills are? Nucky doesn't seem too interested in listening to McCoy lament the three ships' worth of Scotch seized — and he grimaces at the drink he gets served, with a pineapple garnish — and wants to move on.
Which means it's time for McCoy to turn up the sell job on the land that Nucky was looking at in the first episode. McCoy says it's right in the gulf, a couple days' sale from the Bahamas, and they could unload certain shipments on the beach and ship it anywhere. Nucky points out he can do that in Jersey. I hope McCoy's got a better sales pitch than "but with better cigars," as Nucky is losing interest fast, and is apparently in danger from wayward tennis balls bouncing around the garden patio of the hotel. McCoy's got a little more work to do, because Nucky didn't spent "twenty-six hours in a Pullman" just to shoot down a proposed deal in fifteen seconds and then turn right around and head back. But right now, Nucky's idea of unwinding is a shower (he ignores McCoy's offer to send round a little, well, cunny later) and they arrange to meet later at a speakeasy called Sally's. "Tucker's very excited to meet you," McCoy assures him. Nucky says most people are, until they do. I realize How to Win Friends and Influence People hasn't been written yet, but I'm sure even in 1924 people would like Nucky a little better if he wasn't grimacing at them all the time.
Over on the Harrow family farm, Richard caresses his .45 automatic one last time before placing it in a hole in the ground that he starts filling in with dirt. Richard, there appears to be some sort of mistake! You're not going to be able to do much killing with a gun in the ground! Richard!