If I were to give a theme to this episode, it would have to be humiliation. Characters are humiliated by friends, family, and enemies in this entire episode in revealing ways and fascinating ways as we will see.
In Chicago, Jimmy convinces Johnny Torrio to stay in Greek Town so they set up a meet with Sheridan, leader of the Irish. Jimmy and Al Capone then murder all of the rival gangsters in the meeting place. Torrio and the rest celebrate the successful operation which was Jimmy’s idea. We also find out earlier that Capone’s son is deaf.
Rothstein shows Lucky Luciano that he knows exactly what he is doing and whom (Gillian), and reminds him that he has a mission to find Jimmy. Meanwhile, some young Italians attack one of Nucky’s men and Nucky things Luciano is involved, which puts them at odds (something that will probably be expanded on down the line).
Agent Van Alden gets a surprise visit from his boss who decides that Agent Alden has not done enough work. Van Alden then punishes himself for his impure thoughts towards Margaret Schroeder. Margaret quits her job after a confrontation with Lucy, and she moves into a new place provided by Nucky, playing the part of his mistress after some advice from the Temperance movement leader. Nucky, on the other hand, is still sleeping with Lucy and any number of other random women on the side it seems. He also gets a visit from the politician from Jersey to try to secure a highway being built to run through Atlantic City and not Jersey with ambiguous results.
Although Luciano gets humiliated by Nucky and Van Alden gets humiliated by his boss, those characters react in fairly expected ways. Luciano gets angry but decides it is not worth it, while Agent Alden is the good soldier and swallows his pride. Capone and Margaret on the other hand really make this episode feel momentous (even though it seems that very little actually happened).
There is a beautiful scene between Margaret and Lucy in the French clothes shop that mirrors a scene from earlier this season. Last time, Lucy tried to humiliate Margaret by having the latter dress the naked body of the former as a form of aggressive dominance. This time, Lucy asks that Margaret get naked and wear the clothes and it backfires. Lucy criticizes Margaret’s body, making it clear that she thinks she can win Nucky’s affection purely on a physical basis. Margaret counters by attacking Lucy’s intelligence. “You don’t know much” Lucy says before Margaret begins her story, but though the moral of mountain man with the chicken should be obvious, Lucy still has to have it explained to her: she just is not interesting enough to hold Nucky’s attention forever.
Another aspect of this scene comes up in terms of class differences. When Lucy says the above quote, she is also attacking Margaret through her upbringing. Whether Lucy comes from money or she has just gotten used to a better lifestyle, she clearly knows her away around a French shop for instance while Margaret does not. Margaret is an example of the classic American ideal: hard work and intelligence should win out over money. To go this far would not be particularly original but it was handled gracefully by the actors and the script.
The episode, however, then does a brilliant subversion by showing that Margaret has become in a way exactly what she was criticizing Lucy for. Her old neighbor attacks her when speaking with Agent Alden and describes her as a rich type, a social mover in the most negative sense possible. Margaret does not hear this, but has to come face to face with this when she meets her new neighbor and realizes that Nucky might only be keeping her as a type of trophy, a “concubine”. This is a type of internal humiliation that she has difficulty brushing off the way that she brushed off the external humiliation of Lucy.
We get something similar in Chicago with Al Capone. In previous episodes we got the prankster and a little of the psycho in Capone, while also making it clear that he is not particularly bright. This episode established that he has a lot of heart and charisma. Capone did not have to talk to Jimmy about his son and he did not have to bring him steaks (especially after Jimmy humiliated him with the World War I joke), but he did anyway. You could argue that he just does not want to mess with a guy Torrio likes, but it seemed deeper than that; it seemed like Capone looks up to Jimmy, both for being in the war (I looked this up online so don’t hold me to this but Al Capone was not in the war) and for being educated. Capone makes fun of Jimmy by calling him Princeton but I think on some level he is envious. What is charming about the gangster is that he is not envious in a negative way, but in a positive way, as if he is thinking “I get to hang out with this great guy!” Although I certainly was interested in Al Capone in previous episodes this season, it was only in this episode that I really started to like him and feel for him. When he was making fun of Jimmy at the party, Jimmy reacts coldly and attacks Capone in a deeper way, but rather than react in kind Capone just wants to cement their friendship. It was just a surprisingly touching scene from a character that I expected to be more bloodthirsty.
I know I have not been criticizing this show that much and have been focusing on the positive aspects more often than not. Certainly the show is not perfect (an earlier scene from a previous episode with the awesome Michael K. Williams felt flat to me and seemed poorly written which is just one of many). I just wanted to say that the characters here have just won me over. In previous episodes they just seemed more forgettable and the writing was slightly poorer but the 1920s held my interest. At this point many of the characters have become fascinating in their own right, beyond their unique setting, and I feel that as that is the part that draws my attention the most, that is the part that I choose to comment on. I was worried with the pilot that the conflicts the show produced would not be able to draw me in as well, but the conflicts have been slow in coming while building character to audience correspondence which I think is working admirably, even with the sometimes weak writing. Overall, I am really happy with this direction (The Event take notice).
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