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It's less than a day since Owen Sleater turned up dead in a box. Margaret and the kids were put on the first train out of town, and before Nucky can even try to get a phone call to Eli in Chicago, Rosetti's men storm the Ritz. Nucky and Eddie are able to escape the ambush, though Eddie is shot in the process. Nucky hightails it for Chalky's part of town, where young doctor Samuel is able to pull the bullet out of Eddie, though he's still in very rough shape. While there, Rosetti and his men pull up and he offers a $25,000 reward to anyone who gives Nucky up. Chalky and his men stay loyal, though, and they sneak Nucky off to a hiding place where they're soon joined by Eli and the faction from Chicago ... led by one Al Capone.
Meanwhile, Rosetti has decided that the Maison Derriere will be his base of operations in Atlantic City, and Gillian is left to very quickly make her peace with that. Seeing the way things are headed, Richard packs Tommy up and prepares to take him to Julia's. But when Gillian finds out, she decides that keeping Tommy close is more important than keeping Tommy safe, so she has Rosetti's men escort Richard off the premises. Not the best idea to piss off a guy who owns that many guns, Gillian.
Back in New York, Luciano and Lansky have this ass-ton of heroin they have to unload, and Lucky's approached by a buyer from New York. Lansky is spooked by all the organizational unrest and tells Lucky to pass on this one, despite how scared they both are that they'll be left holding the bag for Masseria. Lucky ends up ignoring Lansky and going to the buy anyway, which sucks double when it turns out to be a police sting.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, Daniel did a brilliant job shepherding you through a difficult hour where Nucky tried to amass his forces against Rosetti and Masseria, got ratted out by Luciano and Lansky, and ended up with his right-hand man Sleater dead in a box. The sight of which sent his wife into grief hysterics because -- what only we know (and have known for weeks because duh) -- Margaret is pregnant with Owen's child. Ready?
It's mere hours after Sleater's body was delivered, and Eddie Kessler is supervising Nucky's men, some of whom have been set up on 24-hour guard outside Nucky's office, others who are put to the task of taking the crate full of Owen out to the warehouse. Eddie gives Nucky the update, but all Nucky wants to know is if Margaret and the children have been safely spirited away. They have, to the train station, destination unspoken. Nucky then asks Eddie if he knew about that which he only recently discovered: that Margaret and Owen were carrying on an affair. Eddie simply says, "I tend only to you. That is all I do. That is my life." That is a brilliant non-denial denial wrapped up in a humblebrag. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't; I was too busy washing your socks and fixing you poached eggs, so..." Tip of the cap, Eddie.
Nucky orders Eddie to leave, for his own safety. That crate was a signal that Masseria and Rosetti are coming for him. Eddie protests, saying that no one else is loyal to Nucky. The others are just men he pays. Aw. Nucky says he needs to get ahold of Eli in Chicago, and also to alert Mickey Doyle (yeah, THAT rat is exactly who you want to call on in a time of crisis) and Chalky White. But when Eddie goes to place a call, the line is dead. Oh SHIT, that is like the ultimate red flag. If you ever pick up your phone and there is no dial tone, DIVE ON THE FLOOR immediately.
And just like clockwork, the elevator dings and armed men step off. They shoot their way through Nucky's guards and enter his office, only to find it empty. They continue towards the residence, which has clearly seen a retreating Nucky, as the hobbyhorse is still rocking. The first gunman enters the children's room and gets a bullet to the head from Nucky, who'd been hiding behind the door. The one approaches Nucky from behind, but Eddie calls out in time for Nucky to kick the door shut and fire two shotgun blasts (from the first guy's gun) through the door. He peers through the hole to see that the second guy isn't quite dead, so he finishes him off. The last guy gets a jump on Nucky and grabs the muzzle of the shotgun through the door and struggles with Nucky. I don't know how many shots are loaded into that thing, but if he can spare one, just fire it, burn the shit out of this dude's hands, and then finish him off. Nobody ever listens to me. Guy No. 3 eventually drops his handgun, giving Nucky enough room to get the shotgun back and kill him dead.
Eddie's getting up from the ground but tells Nucky he's fine (he's not, but Nucky doesn't notice yet). They manage to sneak out the back of the Ritz (past two more dead guards) and head for the cars. Eddie, who has lost his glasses in the fracas, tells Nucky that they can't use the regular car, as everybody will know it's him. Nucky tries to pay off this pipsqueak for his car, but pipsqueak goes off running when he sees the dead bodies. Either way, right?
Nucky tells Eddie to head to Lolly's place -- the casino, if memory serves -- where they will regroup. He resolves to appeal to Chalky for manpower, which will cost him down the road, but, you know, there has to be a down-the-road first. Eddie doesn't respond to this because he's too busy passing out. The car veers off the road before Nucky stops it and sees that Eddie's been shot in his right abdomen. They're stopped, which is a very dangerous position for Nucky right now. He has to pull Eddie over to the passenger side so he can keep driving.
Back at the Ritz, it's solidly morning, and already Gyp Rosetti is canvassing the place, demanding to know where Nucky got to. He's carrying around that re-appointed dog of his, which makes him look like even more of a dick. He orders his men to set up roadblocks, check the casino, the hospital, the warehouse. All the usual spots. He also instructs them to offer a $25,000 reward to the black community, which he expects will be an irresistible sum. He wants Nucky in front of him, "on his knees or on a slab." Inside Nucky's office, Tonino goes over all the boring business aspects that a takeover of Atlantic City will involve -- the ward bosses, the sheriff, et cetera. Rosetti's too busy inspecting Nucky's desk, however. Inside a drawer, he finds a copy of Ragged Dick -- the self-made-man story to end all self-made-men stories -- with an inscription to Nucky from his sainted mother on the occasion of his 12th birthday. That one's gonna cost Rosetti, I bet. He ends up scoffing that he can't work out of this dump. Compared to the nagging den of washer-women he comes from? I bet he could.
Back in the getaway car, Eddie's gotten worse; he's basically just muttering in German now. Nucky takes him to the hospital, with the intent to leave him there while he continues on to safety. But when he pulls up to Dr. Landau, that old fuck can't begin to deal with the situation. Nucky finally has to grab him by his lapels and remind him that he owns a wing of this hospital, but before he can say anything more, he spots two more of Gyp's men approaching him with guns drawn. Way to be stealthy, you mooks. Nucky is able to speed away and somehow avoid the gunfire, and it's back to the open road. I really hope Dr. Landau got shot back there.
In New York, Lucky Luciano waits in an alleyway, covered from the rain, to meet with two men we haven't seen before. Magaddino talks, Sam Moceri (down from Buffalo, atta boy!) does not, due to the giant scar on his neck. These guys look to be prospective buyers for Lucky's heroin. Luciano wants $200 per ounce. Moceri counts out five fingers and then flashes his palm three times. Lucky's like, "The fuck does that mean?" (Elaine Benes: "That means whatever the hell you want it to mean.") Magaddino's like, "It means five pounds at $15,000. And he doesn't appreciate you being rude." A fine lesson for Lucky Luciano. I wonder what other lessons he'll learn this week.
Richard Harrow returns to the Maison Derriere after his night on the beach woth Julia, sand still in his pockets. He can hear music being played inside his room and opens the door to find Gillian at his desk, going through his scrapbooks. She says she was starting to get worried about him, and he says he lost track of the time. She correctly intuits that he's in love. "I envy you ... a little," she says, continuing the escalation of her casual cruelty to Richard. Everything she says in this scene is like some bitchy twist on an Emily Dickinson poem. "Be careful not to dream about things that cannot possibly come to pass," she warns him. "That were never yours to begin with." She then gives him his leave, but says as she passes him: "You smell of the sea." Seriously, she's in a floweringly despairing mood today, isn't she? After she goes, Richard opens his scrapbook to the page she was looking at: the "family" photograph of Richard, Julia, and Tommy.
Nucky pulls up to an unfamiliar part of town. It's on the beach, but the houses all look pretty run-down. Eddie is still muttering in German and barely conscious. Nucky leaves him in the car to go look around, which he does with this gun drawn. He almost gets shot by Dunn Purnsley for his trouble, which I think is what you get for approaching a woman and her children with your gun out. When Purnsley sees it's Nucky, he just laughs. He brings Nucky inside to see Chalky, who is obviously still sore about being brushed off so casually last week about that jazz club he wants to open. He tells Nucky that the word around town is that he's dead. Not yet, as it turns out. He's decidedly standoffish when it comes to Nucky asking for his help, saying he never hears anything from him except, "Jump, boy!" Nucky starts to get indignant that he has never called him "boy," but I think he realizes halfway through that Chalky's larger point stands. Nucky finally just makes his plea: Sleater is dead, Eli is unreachable, and Eddie is in the car, bleeding out. Chalky ultimately sends someone out to fetch Eddie and stow Nucky's car away. But he's not going to look happy about it!
At the Maison Derriere, Gillian approaches the main room and sees gross cigar ashes on the floor. Surprise! Gyp Rosetti and his men are making themselves at home! He greets Gillian as "Red" and she puts on her best happy face at this "unexpected surprise." Rosetti tells her that all surprises are unexpected, a pedantic correction that, if someone had said it to him, would have occasioned quite the beating. Gillian sees that Rosetti's men are carrying in Nucky's desk from the Ritz, as Rosetti appears to be setting up the base of his camp here. She asks what happened to Nucky. "Same thing happens to everyone," Rosetti says, suddenly poetic, "only sooner." He insists she call him Gyp and tells her that everything around here will stay the same, "only now you'll have a pal in charge." Obviously, this is the fruit borne of Gillian's treachery a few weeks ago, so she can't really blame anyone but herself.
You can see the look on her face as she resolves to endure this occupation, but I wonder how much thought she gave to how much easier it was to endure Nucky. She forces a smile and says it's what she's always hoped for. He then asks her to fix him breakfast. Grit them teeth, honey. On her way out of the room, she spots Richard, and she tells him quietly to make sure Tommy is locked in his room and doesn't come out. I'd say the same for Richard, to be honest. Rosetti's men would be so mean to him, and I can't take people being mean to Richard.
Nucky's on the phone with some doofus in Chicago who doesn't seem all that interested in connecting Nucky with Torrio, or Capone, or in finding Eli and putting him on the phone. Nucky's looking really edgy right now. He has to ask Chalky what the phone number here is, which is one more reason for Chalky to be annoyed. And then the Chicago punk hangs up on Nucky before he can give out the full number. It's bad news.
Purnsley then announces that "he's" here, and before "he" is let in, Chalky makes sure Nucky knows that this here is a HUGE favor. It's Samuel, the young doctor who's been courting Chalky's daughter. Chalky reminds Samuel that everything that's happening here is not to be shared with Maybelle, his parents, nobody. Samuel looks scared but he understands. They take him in to see Eddie, laid out on a table and not doing great. Samuel says he doesn't know what he can do for this man, as he's a med student, not an actual doctor. He can clean the wound and try to control the bleeding. He looks at Chalky and says, "This could ruin me," but Chalky simply tells him that this is how things are done. "We take care of each other." Chalky is fully looking at Nucky when he says that. Samuel instructs the men to fill up pots and boil as much water as they can, and also find him as many clean sheets/towels/tablecloths as they can. There's no ether, he says, so he suggests they get Eddie as drunk as possible. He then tells Nucky to wash his hands, as he'll be assisting. Time to learn yourself a trade, Nuck.
Back in New York, Luciano has taken the Magaddino deal to Lansky, but Lansky is dubious. Looks like Rothstein's caution has rubbed off on him a little bit. He says he doesn't know this Magaddino well enough to do business with him yet. Luciano says HE knows him well enough. More importantly, he openly admits how freaked out he is that they borrowed so much from Masseria to acquire the 15 pounds of heroin that they now have to unload. Lansky's not un-freaked himself, but after what happened last night (Lansky informs Lucky of Owen Sleater's sad fate), they need to be very careful about whom they do business with. Lucky's like, "He's from Buffalo, okay?" That's generally how I make myself seem innocuous, yes. Lansky tells him to let this one go. Lucky's like, "Yeah, yeah," but Meyer says he's serious.
Nucky has hopefully gotten Eddie as drunk as he can in preparation for whatever Samuel has to do. In a telling moment, Samuel asks Nucky what this man's name is. "Eddie," says Nucky. Samuel grits his teeth a bit and says, "I can't call him that." Of course. Even the most well-educated, bourgeois black man can't call a white man by his first name. So it's "Mr. Kessler" who is delirious and muttering in German. Samuel gets started and instructs Nucky and Chalky to hold Eddie down. He starts digging for the bullet, and Eddie, numbed by whiskey as he is, starts screaming. Nucky looks like he might cry. Then, while Samuel's instruments are still inside Eddie's abdomen, the sound of cars pulling up invades the cottage. Everybody kind of freezes, and from outside, Gyp Rosetti calls out for Chalky White. Nucky looks helplessly at Chalky, terrified that this is the moment that Chalky could easily flip on him. Chalky just instructs everybody to keep Eddie quiet. Samuel asks if he should keep going, and Nucky, pressing a cloth over Eddie's mouth to muffle the screams, gives the go-ahead.
Outside, Chalky's men and Gyp's men are in an armed standoff, as Chalky carefully steps out to the front. Rosetti introduces himself as the new man in charge of Atlantic City, and Chalky does his best to play the part of the King of Black-town, barely concerned with what goes on among the whites. Rosetti agrees to have his men put their guns down first, a sign of trust. While inside, Samuel successfully removes the bullet, Rosetti tries to strike up a kinship with Chalky, joking that they were both "left out in the sun too long." Maybe Chalky a bit longer. "You just ain't done cooking yet, friend," says Chalky, though his stone-faced delivery could use some work if he ever wants to make it in comedy. Rosetti pledges that he will treat Chalky good, better than he's been treated up until now. They shake on it, but Rosetti of course "one more thing"s him: "How about I slip 25 Gs in your pocket right now and you let me walk in there and drag Nucky Thompson out by his dick?"
Inside, Nucky can barely breathe. He goes to draw his gun, but Samuel says he needs his help to stitch up Eddie, or he'll die within five minutes. This is all on Chalky, then. He tells Gyp that he hasn't seen Nucky in weeks. Gyp doesn't believe him, nor his stories about how he pays the white guys their cut and they leave him to his business. Well, since we're both being disingenuous now, Gyp moves forward to just, you know, look around the place. He'll still give Chalky the $25,000 as a gesture of good faith. Chalky remains steely, telling Rosetti that he's got a private affair going on inside, and his wife would kill him if he let anybody in. These are lies that everybody knows are lies, but Rosetti backs down from an all-out confrontation. Instead, he opts to advertise. "$25,000! Nucky Thompson! Tell your friends!" He's banking on someone in the black community being self-interested enough to sell Nucky out. It's not a bad idea. You wouldn't have to resemble the low opinion that Rosetti has of black people to value a chunk of change like that over a guy who's never done shit for you like Nucky. Chalky's the only one with any real loyalty to call upon in this situation. Nucky just has to hope that Chalky has his men on lockdown. "I really want us to get along," Rosetti tells Chalky, before leaving. Sincere business model, threat, or both. As the Italians leave, Rosetti mutters that they're going to need more guns. So threat, then.
Back inside, Samuel is finished sewing Eddie up. Chalky returns and pulls Nucky aside. He remarks that $25,000 is a whole lot of money around these parts. Nucky offers to pay Chalky more, which is really blockheaded of him and an insult to Chalky, who isn't talking about himself. Nucky asks him if he trusts his men; Chalky says he doesn't trust anybody. "Get me out of here," Nucky says. "You can name your price." Chalky has already said what he wants -- the jazz club. Nucky asks how he can promise a part of something he doesn't own anymore. Oh, would this really be the first time, Nucky? Chalky changes the subject and asks about Eddie. Nucky asks him to take Eddie somewhere safe. "He got any family?" Chalky asks. Nucky looks abashed as he realizes that he doesn't even know.
At the Maison Derriere, things are grim. Rosetti's men are uncultured slobs, throwing their shit all over the floor, breaking bottles, drunkenly fumbling with the giant harp (!), and clumsily rutting on the whores in the middle of the common room. The whores themselves all look supremely annoyed at having to put up with all of this, and when Gillian enters, she's not having any of it. She whacks at one pantsless gangster in mid-thrust with a broom. He threatens her in response, and she says she'll tell Mr. Rosetti. This only gets her laughed at by the yahoos in the room.
Gillian retreats upstairs, only to find Richard getting Tommy dressed for an excursion. Richard says they're just going for a walk around the grounds. Gillian ignores him and asks Tommy directly, instructing him to tell the truth. "We're going to Julia's," he admits. Her worst fears confirmed, Gillian goes on the offensive. "She doesn't look blind," she says to Richard, of Julia, thereby winning this season's Reading is Fundamental challenge on RuPaul's Drag Race. Richard snaps at Gillian that she had no right to go through his private photographs. She turns to Tommy and apologizes for keeping him stuck indoors, "but sometimes we have to put up with things that we don't like in order to get what we want." That's Gillian in a nutshell, huh? She has Tommy hang up his jacket and hat.
With Tommy brushed aside, she calls in two of Rosetti's men and instructs them to remove Mr. Harrow from the grounds. He fake-apologizes to Richard that she tried to explain to him earlier, but he didn't understand. "I have to remind myself you're not a complete person." Ooh! The library is CLOSED! Richard says that Tommy doesn't belong to her, but she's like, "Of course he does." She scoffs at Richard's made-up fantasies of having a family for himself. "Mr. Rosetti wants this man gone," she instructs the men. They say they haven't heard that, but Gillian lies that he couldn't have been clearer. Just when I was starting to feel bad for Gillian getting occupied. "You lied to me," she says to Richard, insincere as she's ever been. "That's what hurts the most." With no other options, Richard walks out the door. Don't expect that to be the last of it.
That night, Nucky looks out the window of his hideaway, wary of Chalky's men, as he can hear the words "twenty-five thousand" lingering in the air. (By the way, the windows on the cottage are blacked out with grease, but you can see a key in Nucky's hand, indicating he scratched out a spy-hole. Nice touch.) Nucky's drawn away from the window by Eddie, who is making little whimpering sounds. Nucky sits down to him -- smoking right near that leaking wound, which is great -- and tries to calm him as Eddie goes on about getting the car and driving Nucky to the theater and fixing his supper. Nucky, his voice thick with emotion, says, "You can have the evening off."
He then addresses that dangling issue about Eddie's family -- Eddie tells him that he has a wife and two boys, and he speaks what sounds like their street address, in German. He then translates a phrase from a Kipling poem. Before he lapses back into German, he quotes, "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men are doubting you, but make allowance for their doubting too." If you can get past the part where Nucky is being compared to notorious colonialist Kipling, especially during such a racially sensitive junction in his life, it's really quite sweet.
Chalky and Purnsley show up and say they're ready to take Nucky away. Where to -- i.e. to exile outside Atlantic City, or to someplace where he can plan his counteroffensive -- is up to him. They're going to get Eddie set up in an apartment hideaway where he can convalesce. Nucky thinks for a moment and then instructs them to drive him out on White Horse Pike and not to stop until he tells them to.
On a laundry-clogged New York rooftop, Luciano is late to his meeting with Magaddino and Moceri. So he's fully going behind Lansky's back for this one. They pull out the stack of cash and he takes it, gingerly, cautiously. He then goes to retrieve the heroin, which he's kept stashed in the chimney. Not bad for a hiding spot. Magaddino is like, "This where you stash all your stuff?" Which is maybe a shade too curious, but Lucky doesn't twig to anything. He produces five one-pound bricks, and Moceri produces the bag for Lucky to place them in. Once he does, two heretofore unseen men pull guns and shove a struggling Lucky up against a wall. "Hey asshole," says the previously mute Moceri, brandishing handcuffs. "You're under arrest." Have to admit, did NOT see that one coming.
Nucky's loaded into the back of a truck, with a burlap curtain covering the back end. It's all very Dogville. I hope they don't end up driving him right back to where they started. Now he's got nothing to do but think on his circumstances, which cannot be fun. Because Nucky's circumstances SUCK at the moment. Children and unfaithful wife gone. Only friend in the world barely conscious. Town overrun by oversensitive jerk. Not great.
After driving for a while, the truck stops suddenly. Nucky can't see anything, but he hears Chalky and Purnsley being interrogated about where they're headed. They're asked to step out of the car and are informed of the hunt for Nucky and the $25,000 reward. Nucky's clutching his gun, not sure if he's going to have to come out firing on two men or four. Rosetti's guys walk around to the back of the truck to go check it out. Nucky braces himself. Right before they pull back the burlap, Purnsley voices that he's wondering how he's going to spend his reward. Way to be ambiguous, dude. But where their words might be vague, their actions are concrete, and Chalky and Purnsley each shoot one of the guys in the head, before Nucky can even point his gun at anyone. Clearly, Nucky was ready to fire on all four of them. It looks like it takes him a moment to realize that they stayed loyal to him. Emboldened, Nucky declares that he's not leaving town -- his town. He's going to fight. Chalky looks around and says this isn't exactly the best spot for Custer to make his last stand. Purnsley heads back to town to round the boys up.
Richard Harrow was apparently able to take a box of his things with him from the Maison Derriere. Or maybe he kept his old apartment all along. Either way, he's laying out all the guns he owns on his bed. There are quite a lot of guns. "He's Got Guns (And He Knows How to Use Them)." We'll have to wait until week to find out how.
Chalky drives Nucky to the empty lumber yard, where they're met by his nephew Willie. Good, responsible, kind Willie. He fixes some coffee and provides day-old donuts for the adults to eat. Chalky waxes nostalgic about day-old donuts while Nucky scarfs them down like they're a steak dinner. Chalky wryly remarks that sometimes it takes going without to find out what one really needs. Nucky asks Willie to excuse him, so he and Chalky can talk in private. He at least remembers to compliment Willie on how well he handles himself. Boy, is this kid ever gonna get killed. Alone, Nucky makes the deal with Chalky: he gets Atlantic City back, Chalky gets his club. The two men remark on how they're "stuck" with each other. Chalky even smiles as he says, "I'll go down the road with you a mite further."
Suddenly, cars pull into the lumber yard, and Nucky charges out into the clearing. Whatever danger there might be, he's trying to shield his nephew, whom he orders to get back and as far as he can away. Willie kind of backs up but doesn't leave. Out of the cars emerge the African American contingent. Not just them, though. Eli's there too. He's momentarily cross with Nucky for involving his son, but there are other issues on the table. Purnsley says he ran into Eli, who had been looking for Nucky. Eli says he cut a deal in Chicago. Not with Torrio, but with the man who emerges from behind him: Al Capone. Short little Al Capone, who asks for a bath and some food. "And then you and me sit down," he tells Nucky, "and talk about who dies." Sounds like a season finale to me!
Joe R still isn't all that fond of Capone, but admits things are coming together nicely. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.