By Joe R
Hey! It's New Year's Eve, 1922, and 1923 is shaping up to be full of the same old shit for the various bootleggers of America. Bobby Cannavale is on the show now as a Sicilian bootlegger named Gyp Rosetti, and right away he beats an old man to death for insulting his intelligence and steals his little Uggie dog. Good start!
Nucky running things in Atlantic City with an inner circle of dunce-y Mickey Doyle, lurking Manny Horvitz, and brooding sex machine Owen Sleater. He finds out some yutz from Philly has been stealing from him and commissions Manny to go take care of him, which Manny does in exchange for his own slice of the business. Before Manny can get to the murdering, though, he's met by an out-for-a-stroll Richard Harrow, who shotguns him through the skull as payback for Angela Darmody and I guess maybe Jimmy too. (Richard, meanwhile, is living in the Commodore's old mansion, which is now Gillian's brothel, where she's convincing Tommy that she's his mother and glowering at Richard to do the same.)
There's trouble in Chicago between the Irish and the Italians, and after Torrio keeps Capone from avenging an insult on his son made by one Dean O'Banion, Capone heads to Irish-town for some vengeance. But when he gets to O'Banion's flower shop (don't ask), who randomly bumbles in the door but Agent Van Alden, a.k.a. George Meuller, door-to-door salesman. O'Banion gets Van Alden to pretend to be his muscle and scare Capone off, and it looks like this is the beginning of maybe Van Alden getting in with the Irish mob? He could use the cash, as the salesman thing isn't exactly keeping him and Sigrid and baby Abigal flush.
Margaret's donation of land to the Church has led to a pediatric care wing named after Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, and while touring the place, Margaret witnesses a miscarriage at the hospital and informed by a cute if opinionated doctor about the hospital's shameful state of prenatal care. At her and Nucky's insanely extravagant New Year's Eve party, Margaret brings this up with Dr. Landau, who gets defensive and tells Nucky that Margaret is accusing him of malpractice. Nucky manages to smooth things over, but later, after all the guests leave, we see that Nucky and Margaret's marriage is basically only keeping up appearances. He yells at her about the dustup with Dr. Landau, and then he goes back to his bachelor pad and his grand new mistress.
Before that, though, at the party, Nucky holds a meeting with Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, George Remus, and Gyp Rosetti, where he announces that, due to political pressure, he'll only be selling his liquor to one buyer from now on: Mr. Rothstein. This pisses Rosetti right off, and he basically blazes a trail of threats and recriminations on his way out the door. So I guess we have an antagonist.