Margaret's still trying to wrangle Nucky to show up and accept that dumb St. Gregory award from the bishop. Nucky hasn't been sleeping well, having nightmares, obviously feeling the guilt of killing Jimmy and feeling anxious about the fact that he hasn't been able to reach Billie by phone. At the St. Gregory mass, under the watchful eye of God, Nucky starts to hallucinate dead children and the like, but he manages to pull himself together enough to get out of the way while Margaret does her thing. Because Margaret is GANGSTER AS SHIT this week, approaching the bishop and Dr. Landau together and then pitching a women's health clinic to the bishop like it was Landau's idea. She gets the bishop's permission -- nay, encouragement -- all right there while Landau's trying to pick his jaw up off the floor.
Meanwhile, Van Alden is getting hazed at work and peer-pressured to go out for drinks with his awful co-workers. A terrible night gets worse when the prohies bust up the bar. "George Meuller" has a lot to lose if he's processed, but lucky for him he gets a crooked cop who recognizes him from around Cicero and then shakes him down to keep the arrest off the books.
Nucky hits Tabor Heights to meet with Rosetti. He's in no mood for a war, so he offers Rosetti a month's supply of rum, plus invites him to AC for a dinner at Babbette's. Afterwards, he drops Rosetti off at Gillian's brothel, though he doesn't go in, because guilt is not conducive to boners. Too bad, because Rosetti pulls Gillian aside and sows the seeds of dissent against Nucky. Later, after being handed his month's supply of rum from Nucky and a message -- "Bone for Tuna," i.e. "Bon Fortuna," i.e. "good luck" -- Rosetti manages to take offense (I KNOW!) and steams about it enough that he decides to continue to squat on Tabor Heights, and when the local sheriff makes the mistake of wishing him luck, Rosetti sets him on fire. Sigh.
Lansky and Luciano are still having trouble running anything downtown because of the Masseria organization. They send their little buddy (and probably Bugsy Siegel) Benny out to make a delivery, he gets jumped by Masseria's guys and Lansky has to save him.
Finally, Mickey Doyle is being an ass and taking credit for Manny's murder just to push around underlings and feel like a big man. This boast gets back to Richard Harrow through some awfully contrived means but whatever. Richard ambushes an amorous Mickey at home with a lady, then takes him to Nucky's at gunpoint. After getting Mickey to admit he's a liar, Richard takes credit for Manny's death himself, explains to Nucky why and the two actually have a nice conversation about killing and guilt and who has it coming.
Is it me or do the opening credits get longer every episode? They do, right?
As we begin, Nucky's in his office, trying to phone Billie, to no avail. He tells the operator that he's been trying for hours, and the operator responds, "The only thing to worry about is when you run out of company." Okay, so dream sequence, then? Really? I honestly can't believe any HBO show persists with dream sequences anymore, since The Sopranos pretty much wrote the book on the whole "window into the closed-off protagonist's psyche" trope (and kind of ran the concept into the ground, to be honest). Anyway, so Teddy's there, Nucky calling him "slugger," and suddenly he's got a pan full of frying bacon in his hand. The phone rings, distracting Nucky for a second, and a gunshot sounds. Nucky looks up to see Teddy dead on the floor and a smoking gun in his hand. Nucky starts to freak out when Eddie wakes him and tells him Mrs. Thompson is on the phone. When he picks up, they are both annoyed with each other, Nucky for her bothering him, Margaret for Nucky skipping their meeting with the bishop's advance man about his receiving the St. Gregory medal. As expected, Nucky doesn't even want it, but Margaret insists it's an honor he can't turn down. "You said appearances mattered," she tells him. "Do you write down everything I say?" he snarks back. Marriage! After he hangs up, he asks Eddie if Miss Kent called, but she hasn't. And Nucky has a meeting to get to. Probably not with the bishop, though. He stops for a second and looks puzzled -- he asks Eddie, "Is somebody frying something?" And did that big-mouth Billy Bass say something to him?
Margaret returns to her meeting with the bishop's advance man, Father Schuck, and makes apologies for Nucky. She gives him the credit for donating the land to the church, and they start to go over the particulars. She looks at the schedule and notices that there's no time for a private audience with the bishop, as she'd requested. The bishop's schedule is rather tight, Fr. Schuck says. Margaret obviously wants this to happen; she suggests the bishop is purposefully avoid the Thompsons, a statement that gets vigorously refuted. "So you'll see to it?" she asks, pointedly. She even threatens to go over his head if he doesn't. After two episodes of Margaret looking unsure of herself, it's nice to remember what a bulldog she can be when she wants to.
In Chicago, "George Meuller" shows up for work and doesn't notice everybody is snickering at him. The reason becomes clear when he goes to write something and ink squirts back at him from a rigged pen. Laughter erupts in the bullpen -- cruel, ill-natured laughter, not the good kind. Of course, Van Alden's reaction to it is almost vaudevillian in its demonstrativeness. I'm surprised he didn't also slip on a banana peel someone left out for him. He turns to clean himself off so Mr. Gulliver can't see his ink-stained face when he comes in. Gulliver makes a hilariously rousing speech about the importance of what they do -- their irons smooth out the fabric of America, or some such -- and then hands out the Glengarry leads on a first-come basis. Meuller is last, of course, because he's trying to clean himself off; to Gulliver, it just looks like a lack of gumption. Last place means you're fucking fired, George.
Nucky arrives to meet Rosetti at that dingy diner in Tabor Heights. Feels like one of those Real Housewives summits, though I can't imagine it will live up to Ramona and Aviva's sullying of Norma's. Things are tense at first, with Nucky saying he obviously offended Gyp in some way. "Although you're someone who could find an insult in a bouquet of roses." Hey, calling it out doesn't make it any less irritating. Rosetti says Nucky's restrictive distribution is threatening his livelihood. Nucky says he needs to simplify. They really do seem to be at an impasse. Nucky says he's willing to use the back roads through the Pine Barrens to circumvent Tabor Heights. Ah, the Pine Barrens, eh? Shout out from Buscemi and Terrence Winter to their finest hour?
Rosetti thinks that route is probably a slog, and "If I was you? Every inch of that road would stick in my craw." Nucky says Rosetti's not him; he learned a long time ago not to take things personally. He... did? "Everyone's a person, though, right?" Gyp says, "so how else could they take it?" That articulates the Survivor-contestant mindset better than anybody else I've ever heard. In the interests of honoring what was once a fruitful business relationship, Nucky invites Rosetti to be his guest in Atlantic City tonight, and he'll send him home with a full month's supply of hooch, to keep his head above water, and to allow him to leave the nice people of Tabor Heights alone. The dumpy sheriff from last week chimes in that it'd be a lot healthier for everyone. Good God, nothing worse than when a low-level accomplice speaks up like he's got a say in the matter. Rosetti asks what happens after a month, but Nucky says he doesn't consider that his problem. Rosetti deems this a "square enough deal," and Nucky stands up to shake hands, which Rosetti does reluctantly. So... great?
At the Maison Derriere, Gillian's on the phone with Lucky Luciano, ostensibly talking about repairs that need to be done to the house but actually serving as a grand expositional repository. We learn that: Gillian and Lucky are partners in the brothel business and that Gillian is promising that Jimmy will sign the deed to the house over to Lucky "as soon as he comes home," which means either Gillian knows her son's dead and isn't telling anybody or else she doesn't know and actually thinks he left for the army. Either way, Lucky doesn't seem overly sympathetic and bluntly tells Gillian to call him when she starts to turn a profit.
In New York, Luciano and Lansky are preparing young Benny "Probably Bugsy Seigel" to make his delivery to Harlem with 96 packets of heroin in Benny's hat. They instruct the kid that if the money comes up short, if anyone looks at him funny, he's to walk. Benny would rather rely on the gun he's packing, and he brandishes it with all the youthful exuberance of a fucking idiot. When even Charlie Luciano thinks you're a hotheaded idiot, that's saying something. He asks for cab fare, then leaves.
The subject changes from their wariness over their live wire of a teenage associate to their continuing problems with Masseria and the downtown mob. Lansky wants to come to a settlement -- he says if they approach Masseria with a plan to cut him in on heroin from the get-go, they look like gentlemen and get to set the terms besides. It rubs Lucky the wrong way to have to cut him in like this, but he's got to know Lansky is right. Lansky promises it's just for now.
At St. Theresa's, Margaret runs into Drs. Landau and Mason. She kind of pointedly glares at Mason, and he gets the hint and buzzes off to his rounds. Landau offers congratulations on the St. Gregory medal, and Margaret says she hopes he can be there at the ceremony itself. He thanks her for the invitation and says he hopes there are no hard feelings from New Year's Eve. She pretends to forget it even happened.
On to more important matters, he says -- how's the landscaping coming? They ordered the hydrangeas she recommended! Margaret says that's wonderful. "Flowers make everyone cheery!" Man, Landau doesn't even know how much trouble he's in right now, does he? He walks away as she smirks at his back.
Mickey's at the warehouse, haggling with some "hayseed" (his word) over what he's owed. Seems Hayseed's deal with Manny was to pay $10 less per bottle than Mickey is charging. Mickey suggests that he take it up with Manny, and when Hayseed duhs that Manny is no longer alive, Mickey leans in and says, "And how do you think he got that way?" Oh, Mickey, you idiot. He pulls his coat back to show his gun and then outright threatens to make Hayseed's wife a widow, so Hayseed backs down, and Mickey has a win he can really hang his dumb hat on. "Go milk a cow," Mickey scoffs and laughs his weasel laugh. He turns to see a kid staring at him. He yells at the "peckerhead" and then instructs him to make the delivery to Gillian Darmody's place. And not to accept a handjob as tip. Fascist.
That night, Nucky waits for Rosetti to arrive at Babbette's, but while he sits all alone, he remembers the night the Volstead Act was made legal, when he welcomed Jimmy back from the war and into the service of Nucky's Boardwalk Empire. Back before things when bad. Back when he thought of Jimmy as a son. (Of course, that was the night it all started to go bad, when Nucky made Jmmy subordinate to Patty Ryan and spurred him to act out on his own.) Nucky's reverie is broken by Rosetti, who makes a point of acknowledging the swanky settings. Nucky toasts to the land of opportunity, and Rosetti tells him how in Sicily, he grew up in a cave, which sounds like self-mythologizing to me. Nucky says he too knows what it's like to end up a long way from where you started, even if he's lived in Atlantic City all his life. Rosetti raises a glass to "nostra bon fortuna," which he translates for Nucky: "To our good luck." He says they both deserve it.
They're then graced by Babbette herself, and Rosetti brazenly hits on her. She pats him on the shoulder and says, "I'm much too tough -- you'd crack a tooth." Why have we not gotten more Babbette in two-plus seasons? Nucky makes not of Rosetti's rampant horniness and essentially offers to hook him up with a whore or three. Rosetti mentions Gillian Darmody's place, and Nucky balks, which makes Rosetti think he and Gillian have a past. Which they do, but not how Rosetti's thinking. He offers to bring Nucky as his guest -- they'll make a night of it. Nucky demurs and says maybe time he's in Rosetti's neck of the woods. Perhaps remembering Rosetti's tendency to take offense at everything, Nucky adds, "Not to imply you live among trees." Indeed, Rosetti's all, "What, like a monkey?"
Here we go. (Nucky actually says, "Are we starting with this now?") But instead of a fight, Rosetti just starts making monkey noises. Which is frightening for a whole different reason. Nucky smiles, because what the hell else are you gonna do?
In NYC, Lansky is sending Benny out on yet another delivery, once again telling him it's not the Wild West out there. Or is it, because Benny's not halfway down the block before he's approached by a guy who obviously is trying to jump him. Benny pulls his gun, but he's overtaken from behind and the first guy starts working him over. Luckily, Lansky was close enough to see it, and he runs up, shoots the first guy dead between the eyes and fires after the second, who makes it to the getaway car and starts firing back. Benny's off the ground and chasing the car, firing indiscriminately. Lansky has to shove Benny out of the way of return fire as the second guy gets away. Benny keeps yelling, "I'll fucking kill you!" after him.
Speaking of things that may or may not be dream sequences (we were -- back on page one! Oh, cut me a break), Van Alden is lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, which is reflecting odd patterns from the window, while Sigrid is trying to hush their teething baby to sleep. She tells him she's soaking his shirt in lemon juice to get the ink out. She gives him a pep talk about presenting "confidence and opportunity" to his customers. She can tell work's been getting him down, and he won't talk about it, so her pep talk continues about his charming smile (um...), and she tells him to close his eyes, and before you know it, her hand is down his pajamas, and then she's on top of him and naked, and I will recap a lot of things on this show -- disfigurement and death and Paz De La Huerta's vulva, but Michael Shannon getting rode like the world's most crazy-eyed pony is not one of them. Later, Cicero.
Nucky drops Rosetti off at Gillian's place, and he's clearly distracted and uncomfortable by the sight of her. So's Rosetti, but for different reasons. He takes a break from the ache she causes him in his soul (Jesus, with the dramatics on this guy) to say he's happy he and Nucky patched things up. He admits his mind can narrow and get all crazy when slighted, but he has to remind himself that "life is better with friends." Rosetti gets out and greets Gillian warmly. Her head turns to Nucky in the car and they have a slightly inscrutable stare-down. More nightmare-fuel for Nucky, I suppose.
Inside, that kid from Mickey's warehouse is making his liquor delivery to Richard Harrow, who is tending bar. The kid tries to make small talk about what a great gig this must be, and does Richard get to bang the staff, and he'd walk around with a stiffy all day. Charming lad. Richard does his best to pay the kid as little mind as possible. But he's bound and determined to seem like a big man, so he confides a secret to Richard: it was Mickey Doyle who killed Manny Horvitz. Richard's all "O RLY?" The kid says he heard it from Mickey himself. "You know," he muses, "he might seem dopey, but I wouldn't mess with the guy." Which was certainly the intended effect of Mickey's boasting. Too bad (perhaps to convenient, to, from a narrative perspective) that it got back to the one guy who knows for sure it's false.
Nucky's at home -- actual home, not the Ritz this time -- trying once again to call Billie, with no success. Margaret isn't used to him being home, but he says he thought they'd all head to the church together tomorrow. Margaret knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she just nods and heads back to bed. Nucky tells her that he's been having a hard time sleeping. She sees the opening he's giving her, she just declines to take it, telling him to try some warm milk. She leaves, and Nucky sits sadly and contemplates.
Back at the Maison Derriere, Gillian watches her girls perform the sexiest dramatic poetry reading ever, while Rosetti watches and makes a face. Afterwards, he declares, "I didn't understand a word of that ... but it was very beautiful." Gillian asks Rosetti and his guys what they'd like : music? Dance? Games of chance or skill? Rosetti says he wants to speak to Gillian for a moment. She tries to dissuade him, but she finally leads him out of the room.
He starts off making small talk about the interior décor, but it's only a pretext to bring up Lucky, who he knows is Gillian's partner and whose belly, he says, "will never be full." That also, per Rosetti, applies to Nucky Thompson. Gillian is decidedly tight-lipped on the subject of Nucky, but Rosetti openly resents the fact that everybody has to pay Nucky in order to do business, and in particular the way Nucky gave Gillian the cold shoulder earlier. Gillian smartly says that every business has its costs, but Rosetti presses the issue. She finally divulges some dirt, on the pretense that she "heard" that Nucky's own brother tried to have him killed. That is an intriguingly selective way of looking at it, but okay. Rosetti is more than intrigued. "You lose your own flesh and blood, what do you have?" he asks, Gillian looks super pained at this and finally says, "You don't have anything." OH BECAUSE ~SHE~ LOST HER OWN FLESH AND BLOOD I GET IT.
Margaret and Nucky are at church, with Nucky complaining about his suit, which must've shrunk. He reminisces about the last time he was in church -- their wedding day. Margaret has no patience for him right now -- "as they say on Broadway, the show must go on." They walk down the aisle behind the bishop and take their seats at the front of the congregation. As they sit, Nucky looks up at the children's choir singing and sees a child, much like in his dream, with a tidy little bullet wound trickling blood just under his left eye. Maybe he's just about to flow into "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg"? At first I thought he was hallucinating Teddy, but looking at the real Teddy sitting right to him in church, they look nothing alike. You'll have to forgive me for not remembering what one-off child actors look like, but I guess this is supposed to be young Jimmy Darmody? Young Nucky? Leave me alone and quit giving me homework, Boardwalk Empire. Nucky has to shake it off and look up again -- it's another kid entirely. He grabs for Margaret's hand.
Meanwhile, the bishop is going on about Nucky's "generosity of spirit." Totally. Nucky is called up to receive his St. Gregory medal -- a big garish thing that hangs around his neck like at the end of the first Star Wars. Nucky keeps staring at Young Jimmy/Nucky in the choir, and I know this was a different time -- and the Catholic Church besides -- but no one seems to be taking much note of Nucky staring a hole through grade-school children.
Back in Cicero, George Meuller's awful, fat colleagues are feeling bad for the prank they pulled on him, so they invite him to go out to Herkmeyer's for some after-work drinks. Van Alden's instinct is to decline, but they assure him the pen gag was just hazing, as they've done to so many others. He's now in their club! How fortunate. Because Michael Shannon is the least subtle actor any of us knows, we see Van Alden visibly swallow his pride and rage as he consents to going out for a drink or two. What could it hurt, right?
Back at the reception following mass, Nucky is still staring at children while Cornelia marvels to Margaret about her knighted husband. Nucky totally ignores them and is aloof in the extreme when Margaret prods him to socialize. He excuses himself to use the facilities -- which translates to him ducking out to a telephone to try calling Billie again, still getting no answer at her flat. Of course, this would be the exact moment that the bishop has deigned to have an audience with the Thompsons. You'd think Nucky's absence would be disastrous for this moment that Margaret has obviously put much effort into setting up, but it turns out Nucky was totally incidental to what's about to go down.
She calls over Dr. Landau and his wife to meet this bishop, and this is obviously a big deal for Landau. So this is the plan, then? To leverage the bishop to gain some goodwill with Landau for future use? Ohhhh, that is not nearly a savvy enough move for our Peg of Old. "Dr. Landau is trying to convince my husband and I to sponsor a women's health clinic at our hospital," Margaret says with a giant smile on his face. Landau turns to her like he's just been shanked. Which he has.
He stammers in his rush to seem like he knows what he's talking about, but Margaret is all too eager to help him clarify his intention to offer programs on "nutrition, hygiene, and ... what was it? Pre-natal care." She says that last term like it's the first she's ever heard it. Gosh, I do enjoy a willful Margaret Thompson. The bishop says that, on the subject of pre-natal care, there are some "delicate" matters that will have to be avoided. He's talking about contraception, of course, and Margaret knows better than to push her luck with the bishop on this (though I'd expect it to present itself as an issue down the line) and says she and her husband had the same concerns, "but still: a worthy endeavor, don't you think?" The bishop smiles and deems it a touch of the modern. "Only a touch," Margaret responds, absolutely nailing the breezy tone she needed to take with this. Horror stories about miscarriage and bleeding from lady parts was not going to convince the bishop. Making it sound like a harmless way to make the Church look good? Much better.
The bishop then is called away to his appointment, but he says so long as they share his concerns about unspeakable things, they have his blessing, and he wants to be kept apprised of their progress. Game, set, and MATCH. With the bishop gone, Landau turns to Margaret, still bewildered but clearly about to find his anger. Margaret's prepared: "I see you've finally trapped me," she says, with enough cheer to knock over an elephant. "We shall sponsor the clinic, as you wish." That's fancy 1920s speak for, "YA BURNT."
At Mickey's warehouse, Nucky's men are packing up Rosetti's month's supply of booze for transport. Rosetti shows up, grumpy as HELL, and starts giving Sleater attitude for Nucky not being there. (As you might expect, when Sleater says Nucky is "indisposed," Rosetti doesn't know what the hell that means.) Eli emerges, as if from the shadows, with kind of a preposterous "Well, you've got one Thompson" attitude that is pure Old Eli. Rosetti is very interested to see the man he's heard such stories about, but he doesn't go anywhere beyond that. Yet.
As Rosetti's about to go on his non-merry way, Sleater remembers that Nucky also left a message for Rosetti. Sleater pulls out his notepad and reads from it "Bone for Tuna." Bone for tuna. You know, "bon fortuna" but for idiots. Rosetti doesn't even see how it's written, so for all he knows this is just some lazy Irish pronunciation, but for whatever reason, he looks around the room like he's just been pantsed: a mixture of embarrassment and simmering anger. This guy's a piece of work. He storms out.
At the speakeasy in Cicero, George Meuller is having the good time you'd expect him to be having, which is to say he's sitting at a table with his hands folded, looking pained. One of his fat, bald, awful co-workers returns from the bar with a glass of whiskey, saying they were all out of sarsaparilla, on account of a Boy Scout troop having been there earlier. Okay, that's a pretty good burn, Patrice. He says he'll get a near-beer, which makes one of his lady co-workers drunkenly stagger up to him and offer him a "real drink," only to spill hers on him. Everybody is so boisterous and shitfaced and obnoxious in this scene, it's like a parody of what a drunken night out would be like. On Van Alden's way to the washroom, the familiar sound of police whistles rings out, and to his horror, the federal agents storm in. It's a raid, and they're all under arrest. This is the kind of thing that used to make him hard, once upon a time. Now it's what could land him in jail for murder (the reason he's on the run under an assumed name, you'll recall). Van Alden turns his face from the prohies and looks like he might be sick.
Back in Atlantic City, Mickey Doyle is returning from a drunk night of his own, only he's brought a ladyfriend back to his place with him. He regales her with tales of the "Kama Sutree" from "Egypt" where you screw upside-down as they stumble to the couch and she begins to take his pants off. He turns on the light, though, and she screams. It's pretty obvious why, even before we see him: Richard Harrow, standing in the corner, pointing a gun at Mickey. The woman runs off while Mickey, pants around his ankles, shakes like a leaf, yelling, "Don't shoot!" Am I crazy or did the acting on this show used to be a looooot subtler? Richard instructs Mickey to grab his hat, them marches him out the front door.
Back in Cicero, the treasury agent makes his way to Van Alden, who says his name is George Meuller and delivers the "this is my first time" line that, despite being true in this case, no cop will ever believe. Van Alden's heart nearly drops through the floor when the prohie looks at him a second and says he recognizes him. Van Alden tries in vain to say he's just got one of those faces that looks like other faces (umm....), but that's not it. Finally, to Van Alden's relief, it turns out that the agent recognizes him from the neighborhood in Cicero. And like a good neighbor, he offers Van Alden a deal: pay the fine directly to him and he won't report it officially. To complete the shakedown, the agent grabs Van Alden's wallet, takes all the cash in it, and then mocks his sales acumen if that's all he's carrying. Service with a smile, eh?
On the road back from Atlantic City, Gyp Rosetti sits in the back of his car and steams about "bone for tuna." His righthand good tries to explain that it's just a weird pronunciation thing, but it turns out that Rosetti isn't taking some fish-based offense at this. He actually has found a way to be insulted by another man wishing him good luck. After all, who is Nucky Thompson to wish HIM good luck, after this lame payoff that won't even last him a month. "And in Italian no less, like he's mocking me?" Oh, brother. Remember how after Goodfellas, every mafia stereotype was a hair-trigger personality who did some variation on the "am I funny to you?" line? Remember how that was over 20 years ago and we all moved on? Rosetti feels like a warmed over mob trope trying to pass as a genuinely interesting personality trait, and either way it doesn't add up to an actual character. So whatever, Rosetti works himself up into a lather over the gall of Nucky to fuck him over and then wish him luck, while his sidekick tries in vain to calm him. "Nothing's personal?!" Rosetti rages to no one. "What the fuck is LIFE if it's not PERSONAL?!?!" Okay, so that. Still.
Speaking of "still," guess who's trying to call his mistress in New York but not getting an answer, again, some more? Eddie Kessler is reading from a list of political cronies who have called to extend their congratulations on Nucky's honor. Nucky seems awfully dismissive of the kudos, especially for a man who is still wearing the medal around his neck. He tells Eddie they're heading out, though he won't say where. Eddie skitters out to get the car, and while he's out, Nucky is subject to two uninvited guests: a petrified and whimpering Mickey Doyle, marched into Nucky's office at the end of Richard Harrow's gun.
Richard makes Mickey get on his knees, and Mickey starts blubbering about "It was only a joke!" Nucky doesn't know what this is all about, but he's certain he doesn't want it happening in his office. Richard says a man's death is no laughing matter and orders Mickey to tell his boss the truth as he cocks the gun. "Didn't do it! Didn't do it!" Mickey sputters. "I didn't kill Manny Horvitz!" Nucky's all, "Who the fuck said you did?" Richard informs him that Mickey himself said it, and Mickey admits he was just blowing smoke. "Just to keep things lively." Well, that worked, I'd say. Richard looks at Nucky and says Mickey is telling the truth. Nucky asks him how he would know, and Richard says, "How do you think?" Nucky is honestly shocked -- of all the people, Harrow was never on his radar. Mickey begs Nucky to tell Richard to put the gun away, and Nucky is actually very polite in asking, "Would you?" Two people respect each other in this room, and Mickey Doyle sits well outside that circle. Mickey gets up and whimpers his way into the night, leaving Nucky and Richard alone for a talk. As much as Richard will hold any kind of conversation.
Nucky asks why he did it, and Richard answers simply: "Angela Darmody." Nucky is incredulous and asks, "Not her husband?" Interestingly, Richard says of his friend, "Jimmy was a soldier. He fought. He lost." Wow. Talk about not taking it personally. Nucky could take notes. He wants Richard to confirm that he and his family are safe. "You and Mrs. Thompson were good to me," Richard says. "You have nothing to fear." Does anybody else on this whole dumb show actually value kindness like Richard does? Maybe that's why I like him so much. Nucky can see he's being honest; this is one guy he won't have to threaten or buy or have eliminated. Must be a relief. So he embarks on a different line of questioning, asking Richard how many people he's killed. "Sixty-three," Richard answers quickly. Nucky asks if he thinks about any of them. Richard: "You know the answer to that yourself." Poor Nucky. Not the killing kind. Richard leaves him with that thought.
At St. Theresa's, Margaret is giving Dr. Mason the play-by-glorious-play of her maneuver with Landau and the bishop. She seems awfully proud of herself (with good reason) and positively giddy at the look on Landau's face when she did it. He says he's amazed she pulled it off. "I'm sure you intended that as a compliment," she says. These two! He even tells her he changed the tobacco in his pipe, like she told him to. What a team! They make it down the hall to the room that is to be the St. Theresa's Women's Clinic. Right now, it's full of discarded furniture and junk, but if you think that's stopping Margaret Thompson, you're insane.
Rosetti and his caravan are filling up gas in Tabor Heights, seemingly to continue their journey back to New York. But Rosetti is still fuming from Nucky Thompson's unforgivable wishing of good luck. The fat, dumb Tabor Heights sheriff pulls up to the station and tells Rosetti he's heard that he's headed back to New York. When Rosetti asks where he heard that, he says from Nucky's man Owen. At this reminder that Nucky once again owns this man's loyalty, you can see Rosetti start to get pissed, which means it's the exact wrong time for the sheriff to tell him that he shouldn't be smoking near open gas pumps. Because, really, only an idiot would do that. The sheriff doesn't say that, but that's likely what Rosetti hears. And then the sheriff says the secret words: "Good luck to you now." HOW DARE HE? So of course Rosetti grabs the nearest gas pump and starts dousing this poor bastard with gasoline. "I think we're gonna stick around a while," he says, then takes his lighter and ignites this good-luck-wishing monster. HBO: Where People Get Set on Fire To Keep You Interested.
In New York, Nucky arrives at Billie's apartment, knocks on the door to no answer, finds the spare key under a potted plant, and lets himself in. Inside, though it's dark and he doesn't turn the lights on, it doesn't look like Billie has cleared out. Nor does it look like anything untoward happened. So Nucky sits down on the couch, sighs, and waits. All night. The morning, he wakes up -- full suit still on -- on that same couch, to the sounds (and smells, one would assume) of bacon frying. Is he dreaming again? Nucky cautiously inches towards the kitchen, afraid he's doing to see that bleeding boy again. But no, the bacon is real this time, and so is Billie. "I thought I was having a nightmare," he tells her. About what? "I was alone." Ah. The sad fears of the crime boss. Lonely at the top. Et cetera. She tells him he's not alone anymore. He puts his arms around her sweetly and rests his head on her shoulder. This is pretty sad, you guys.
Joe R does NOT wish any of you good luck. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com, and you can listen to him yammer on to his heart's content on the Extra Hot Great podcast.