Episode Report Card Joe R: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Gimcrack & Bunkum
By Joe R | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.23.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's Memorial Day in Atlantic City, and Nucky and Jimmy engage in a little political gamesmanship, before Jimmy retires to a meeting with Eli and the town elders. While Jimmy is dancing as fast as he can to keep them from finding out about the Commodore's state, one particularly ornery old coot whacks Jimmy in the head with a cane, drawing blood. Networking is awful, you guys.
Meanwhile, Nucky has Attorney General Harry in town, along with the federal prosecutor who's supposedly going to be prosecuting Nucky's case. They make a handshake deal that Nucky's case, after going through some motions, will ultimately get dismissed. No guarantees, which Nucky doesn't love, but by the end of the night, the two men are getting hummers in Nucky's parlor, so...
Eli sees which way the wind is blowing with the Commodore out of commission, so he goes to Nucky and ends up begging -- crying, even -- him to take him back. He even admits that the Commodore has stroked out. Nucky toys with his brother before telling him to kiss his ass (his feet, really, but whatever). One fistfight later, and Margaret has to send Eli packing at the end of a shotgun. Later, Eli is drowning his sorrows when George, one of the ward bosses, comes to him with the rumor (possibly spread by Nucky) that the Commodore is a vegetable. Eli denies unconvincingly, then panics and ends up -- oops! -- killing George with a wrench.
With the holiday getting Harrow down, he takes a day to go out hunting... and to arrange a quiet suicide for himself. He nearly pulls the trigger before he's interrupted by a dog, who steals his mask. Harrow follows the dog to a pair of grizzled huntin' folk who I guess talk him into living? When he comes home, Jimmy assures him that he's got his back, and later, the two pay a visit to the old coot who brained Jimmy and fucking SCALP him.
And just to even up the numbers in the storylines that ended in sex and the storylines that ended in grisly violence and murder, we learn that Katy and Sleater are knockin' BOOTS.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's Memorial Day in Atlantic City, the kickoff of the lucrative tourist season. Nucky Thompson, one of the men that hope to remain in power so he can reap those tourist dollars, stands on a stage erected on the beach speaking to the gathered citizenry. It's the usual Memorial Day platitudes, though the sentiment that "Atlantic City was built to help people forget," seems a wee bit heavy-handed for this show. It's interesting to see Civil War uniforms among the veterans. There are still another few decades before the WWII generation would come to define "veterans" in the American imagination. Nucky thanks the members of the Memorial Committee, a lineup of graybeards, ear horn-users, the wheelchair-bound, and of course Uncle Junior Muttonchops. Nucky mentions that "our own beloved Commodore" has pressing business elsewhere, or else he'd be here. "He truly is this city's doting father," says Nucky, the words likely feeling like ashes in his mouth. He also acknowledges Attorney General Harry Daugherty in the crowd. Eli tosses a look to George O'Neil, one of the ward bosses, obviously concerned that Nucky's pal the AG might muck up their plans to toss Nucky in prison. Nucky then unexpectedly calls Jimmy up to the podium, referring to him as "a person who can speak more directly to the ideals of sacrifice, service, and loyalty." This is a surprise to Angela... and to Jimmy. He lopes up to the stage and mumble-mouths to Nucky, "Think I can't play this game?" Nucky: "I don't think you even know the rules." At the podium, Jimmy's hand shakes and he hesitates for a while. "I'm no one's idea of a hero," he begins, "least of all mine." He says that in the war they fought for democracy, for their mothers, sons, wives, for America. "I believe it was worth it." Nucky grouses as the line draws applause. Jimmy then holds up the list of names -- the fallen being memorialized -- and begins to read them.
While Jimmy reads the names, Richard Harrow sits in his apartment and looks at the pages of his scrapbook of happy families. Angela's sketch of him is in there, across from a photograph of him before his face was maimed. He packs up a lunch, sheaths his knife, packs his rifle, and heads out.
In the locker room at the country club, Nucky, Daugherty, and Daugherty's second in command are bantering around. Nucky is going on and on about how Jimmy's not all that, how he only went into service because he couldn't hack it at Princeton, and how he thinks the world owes him something. Daugherty isn't at all interested. He tells Nucky that he's come all this way to discuss a deal to get Nucky off the hook, but they'll talk about that tonight. For now, he just wants to play some golf. Nucky's like, "You actually enjoy golfing, huh?" The things Nucky does for politics. After Daugherty leaves, his second approaches Nucky about George Remus and asks him to put in a word for him to let Remus know he's open for business, essentially. Okay, file that one away, then.