Boardwalk Empire Characters: Season Three Fatalities

In the premiere episode of Boardwalk Empire “Resolution,” just to let you know what you were getting into, New York gangster Gyp Rosetti kicked off the killing by bashing in the skull of Mr. Johansen with a tire iron. He was a passing motorist who stopped to help Rosetti get his convoy moving with some 3-in-1. Gyp was pissed off that Johansen dared to think he should know what 3-in-1 was. William Forsythe’s character, Manny Horvitz, was killed by Richard Harrow. Manny didn’t know about Harrow’s soft spot for Angela Darmody, whom he killed in Season 2, but the viewers did. Harrow also killed Manny’s driver. Earlier in the episode, Manny killed Nate after he gave up the name of his partner, Rowland Smith. Nate and Rowland were stealing bootleg liquor from Nucky.

In Bone For Tuna, Meyer Lansky protects Bugsy Siegel when he is set upon by Masseria hoods and manages to knock one off. Gyp Rosetti kills Sheriff Victor Sickles by setting him on fire because Owen read Nucky’s message of good luck incorrectly. Owen said “bone for tuna” instead of “buon fortuna” and, all unwittingly, Sheriff Sickles made the fatal mistake of wishing Gyp good luck.

In Blue Bell Boy, there were several casualties when the Feds raided Rowland Smith’s stash house. They took out a few of Nucky’s guards and then Nucky took out Rowland Smith. Mickey Doyle disobeyed Nucky’s order, sending the shipment of bootleg liquor through the Tabor Heights route. Eli Thompson found out that they were riding into a setup but could not warn the men headed into Tabor Heights because, ironically, they obeyed Mickey’s orders not to stop for anyone. The Tabor Heights body count was 11. In Chicago, Al Capone kills Joe Miller because he beat up Jake Guzik. Al was already upset that his son was being bullied at his school for deaf boys, and he didn’t appreciate Miller picking on someone like Jake, who couldn’t defend himself.

In You’d Be Surprised, Arnold Rothstein sends Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky to Tabor Heights to kill mad dog Gyp Rosetti. Siegel masquerades as the paper boy and kills the man who is guarding the door. He busts into the room where Gyp Rosetti is engaged in kinky sex with Roberta the redheaded waitress from the local diner. Gyp uses Roberta’s body as a human shield and she is toast. Siegel runs out of the room shooting two more of Gyp’s men and the real paper boy. The body count is 4, as Owen later tells Nucky, because one of Gyp’s men lives and Rosetti was not hit at all. In Cicero, when Agent Coughlin goes to Van Alden’s home to complain about the inferiority of the iron Van Alden sold him, Sigrid thinks he is one of the “bad men” who want to lock her husband up so she attacks Coughlin. Van Alden and Sigrid are left with no choice but to finish Coughlin off.

In Sunday Best, drifter Roger McAllister is murdered by Gillian Darmody because he looks a lot like her dead son, Jimmy Darmody. Gillian needs a dead body so she can use the assets that Jimmy inherited from his father, the Commodore (after he killed his father). But Nucky told everyone that Jimmy ran off to reenlist in the service after he killed Jimmy and disposed of the body (in the Pine Barrens, we’d bet). Gyp Rosetti goes to church and beats the priest in order to get the Easter Sunday collection money so he can kick up to Joe Masseria. Given Rosetti’s history, we think it’s safe to assume the priest did not survive.

In The Pony,  Billie Kent was killed when an explosion at Babette’s Supper Club  rocked the Boardwalk. She and Nucky were headed to the club with Arnold Rothstein but George Baxter, a character from Season 1, interrupted their progress to chat with Nucky. Billie went on ahead and was standing in the club doorway when the explosion, set on the orders of Gyp Rosetti, went off. There were undoubtedly other casualties — maybe Babette herself died, but that has not  been revealed so far.

In A Man, A Plan…, Gaston Means sets out to murder Jess Smith and manipulates Nucky Thompson and Harry Daugherty into paying him $40,000 each for the favor. Jess Smith does Means an even bigger favor. He commits suicide so that Means doesn’t have to bring down the curtain. Poor Jess dies believing Harry Daugherty engineered the plot to do him in.  Tonino’s cousin, Franco, is beaten to death on the Tabor Heights  beach with a shovel by Gyp Rosetti after being buried up to his neck in the sand. Gyp thinks he did Tonino a favor by not letting Franco just stay there and wait for the tide to come in.  After learning that he has knocked up Margaret Thompson, Owen Sleater goes on a mission with Agent Sawicki to take out Joe Masseria, but Masseria knows about the plan so it is Owen who winds up dead. His body is shipped back to the Ritz in a crate and arrives at 4 a.m. Agent Sawicki has been MIA ever since.

In Two Imposters, Gareth Murray is guarding the door to Nucky Thompson’s office at the Ritz when 3 gunmen sent by Gyp Rosetti burst in and kill him. Nucky kills all 3 of them although one manages to wound Nucky’s manservant, Eddie Kessler. When Chalky White and Dun Purnsley try to spirit Nucky out of town, they are accosted by 3 men from Team Rosetti. Chalky, Dun and Nucky each kill one.

In Margate Sands, there were more dead bodies than you can shake a stick at. Masseria gave Gyp 41 men to help him out and none of them survived. Whoever wasn’t killed in the beginning got machine gunned on their way out of town by Al Capone and Chalky White and their respective crews. The majority of Gyp’s men were killed when Richard Harrow cleaned out Club Artemis. Only Gyp Rosetti and two of his men got out. Gyp’s lieutenant, Tonino, was hiding in a closet with a gun but Nucky and Eli found him and made him kill Gyp on the beach. They even gave him a lift. As soon as Gyp put himself in a vulnerable position by taking a leak while loudly singing “Barney Google (with the Goo Goo Googly Eyes), Tonino came up in back of him and stuck a knife in his back. He finished him off with an apology. “Sorry,” Tonino said, “I gotta do it.” Owen’s baby was also a casualty in Margate Sands when Margaret chose to terminate her pregnancy with an illegal abortion.

More Fatalities: Season 1 — Season 2