By Joe R
Someone has set fire to the Thompsons' greenhouse, and little Teddy was the only eyewitness. He tells Margaret and Owen (Nucky's out of town) that it was a "gypsy," but later he's found by Cornelia with a gas can and rags. He's also sleeping with a knife under his pillow so he can defend his family with Nucky gone, so things are all kinds of creepy as far as Teddy is concerned. Owen's over at the house a lot more after the fire, and after taking care of a vagrant snooping around the premises, Margaret seduces him into one more roll in the hay, or in the burned out greenhouse.
Meantime, Nucky is in Washington in order to shore things up with Harry Daugherty, for whom things are deteriorating quickly. Jess Smith is falling apart before our very eyes, and Means' advice for the Justice Department to scapegoat one bootlegger has the hammer about to drop on either Nucky or George Remus, and since Remus got there first, it looks like Nucky's on the hot seat again. He gets arrested by prohies on his way out of town for possession of a pint of booze, and though he ends up only having to pay a $5 fine, he is reacquainted in the courtroom with one Esther Randolph, who finds herself working the 1920s equivalent of Night Court. She's the Markie Post. Nucky meets up with Esther at a diner later and after they banter semi-contentiously, he offers her a big fish: Harry Daugherty himself. Wouldn't it be nice to take down a major bootlegger like Remus and expose the shameful corruption in the DoJ in the same swing? Esther is intrigued.
Back in Atlantic City, Richard Harrow is attending veterans' group meetings, where the attendees are getting mighty disgruntled at a government that seems more interested in getting fat off of corporate kickbacks than taking care of its veterans. Richard takes note of an especially grizzled old-timer named Sagorsky, and he really takes note of Sagorsky's kind, beguiling daughter, Julia.
In less wholesome news, Gillian Darmody meets a solid wall of soldier muscle out in the streets and returns with him to his boarding house for some energetic sex during which she calls him "baby" and then, in case anybody was not certain of what was going on, she tells him she intends to call him "James." Making it weird, Gillian.