What Jesus Said Recap: Boardwalk Empire

“What Jesus Said” (Boardwalk Empire S5 E3) aired on 9/21/2014, and we’re back on the East Coast, where Chalky White and Milton are trying to commit armed robbery; Nucky Thompson is dealing with the club operations and a supercilious Joe Kennedy in Atlantic City; Margaret Rohan (Thompson) finds herself in a bit of a pickle with Arnold Rothstein’s widow; and Dr. Valentin Narcisse is about to find out what the Italian mob means by protection. And, of course, we have flashbacks to Young Nucky, the Commodore’s boy.

Lies before the Lord. Chalky and Milton break into a home not too far from a town called Chambersburg. Loading up on the grub in the kitchen, Chalky downs a raw egg while Milton looks around, guzzling milk straight from the bottle. A girl named Fern encounters the intruders in the hallway and her mother Marie soon joins them. Milton delivered a 100 lb. block of ice to a party at this home when Fern was a little girl with a ribbon in her hair, and he remembers there was a safe that they now can’t find. The two captives insist there is no safe and all they have to their name is $9.00.

Fern says her father will be returning soon and Chalky worries about a truant officer showing up with Fern out of school. Milton grows more frustrated, especially when the remarkably nervy ladies seem to find Chalky more intelligent than him. The ladies turn out to be lying about having a man in the house and not having a safe, although Marie won’t admit it until Milton takes an interest in her daughter’s body. The safe turns out to contain nothing but Liberty bonds from the last war. When it looks like Milton is going to snap and kill Fern, Chalky plants a hammer in Milton’s neck. Fern grabs the gun and orders Chalky to get out, letting him take the $9.00 with him.

Will happy days really be here again? Nucky now has Mickey Doyle running the club (formerly the Onyx, formerly Babette’s) and the talent has become considerably more risque. After they audition a stripper, Doyle is sent to the rail yard to pick up more “roscoes” for extra muscle to load trucks. Mickey takes offense at Nucky taking out his bad mood on him when a call from Cuba comes in from Cuba and Nucky gets the mail. Mickey goes off to the rail yard where he picks up some men, including a teenager who says he grew up on a farm and is as strong as an ox.

Sally Wheet is on the line with the Bacardi rum report: Maxime Ronis is complaining about his expenses. Nucky tells her Senator Wendell Lloyd has flown the coop but he has another “big fish” on the line. That turns out to be Joe Kennedy. He plays “Happy Days are Here Again” for Sally while she counts her money and he goes through the mail, noticing a letter with a return address “Nellie Bly, The Pirate Sea, En route to Cathay.” (Nellie Bly died in 1922, so think about the one who got her hands on some stationery in the last episode).

At Chef Vola’s. Nucky orders the Chef’s specialty, veal parmagiana, for himself and Joe Kennedy. They talk about their children. Kennedy’s ninth child, Teddy, is a bun in the oven, and Nucky still is the stepfather of Margaret’s kids, Theodore (Teddy) and Emily, but he lets Kennedy think he’s the father, saying they are now teenagers. Kennedy declines “Dago Red” wine, explaining “It’s hard enough doing business as an Irish Catholic. I try my best to thwart the notion that we’re all drunkards.” Nucky replaces his wine with a seltzer.

Nucky continues to woo Kennedy as a partner at the club where they continue to not drink, but Kennedy thoroughly enjoys the bawdy performance of Kitty, the stripper. Upstairs in his office, Kennedy continues his interrogation into Nucky’s family until Nucky gets sick of it and asks him what he’s trying to prove. “That you have a better excuse than me for being a crook?” Kennedy denies ever breaking a law and makes this offer: “You tell me what you really want and I’ll tell you if we have deal.” Nucky says he’s not interested. Kennedy replies: “Then I thank you for your hospitality and leave you free to have your drink,” having noticed Nucky’s tongue hanging out for a drink all along. Nucky concedes that he wants to leave something behind. Kennedy pours him a drink and goes off to bring Kitty a saucer of milk, highlighting Kennedy’s womanizing nature despite all his family man blather.

Supporting Cast of What Jesus Said

Nucky keeps on drinking, falls asleep to dreams of his first wife Mabel. He later awakens to see a woman sitting in the dark. Even though it’s not Mabel, Nucky’s face slowly lights up.

Margaret meets her match. Margaret Rohan thinks her innocent Irish molly act can get her through anything but she is thrown for a loop when the Abe Redstone account is investigated by the attorneys for the Widow Rothstein. Margaret thinks her boss Mr. Bennett is going to get the blame and that’s great because he’s dead, but this is not a criminal investigation. They want the money that has disappeared from the account, about $111,000 worth and Margaret is the one who signed the withdrawals. Margaret tries snowing Caroline Rothstein, but strikes out badly. The woman knows Margaret is Nucky Thompson’s estranged wife. Margaret may be broke, but Nucky isn’t although Nucky’s pockets don’t seem to be as deep these days as they once were so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. Margaret is the one sitting there when Nucky wakes up and he mistakes her for Mabel.

You’re in Harlem, gentlemen. Lucky Luciano and Bennie Siegel pay a visit to Dr. Valentin Narcisse in Harlem to advise him that Salvatore Maranzano would like to continue the deal he had with the recently deceased Masseria. Narcisse isn’t interested and is somewhat amused when the cheeky wiseguys offer him protection. “Against what?” Narcisse asks Lucky, who replies against whatever may turn up, explaining how there might be threats to the rackets Narcisse runs. Narcisse doesn’t think he needs them at all and dismisses them with an apology that they came all the way uptown for nothing. Later, Bennie Siegel and another fellow visit one of the doctor’s brothels under the pretext of being customers. There they kill the man who led them to a room with ladies of the night and the ladies too.

The Flashback Sequences
Young Nucky meeting his future wife, Mabel, in the course of his duties as the Commodore’s boy at the Corner Store Hotel. He puts up beach chairs, holds umbrellas for rich ladies when it pours and delivers fresh flowers daily to Mr. Beckert, a man who says he is in love with a naked woman in his room who later turns up dead. All the while, young Nucky can’t keep his eyes off a young girl there for the summer with her family. She does not fail to notice his interest and somehow found out his name. One day she walks up to him and says “Enoch walked with God and he was no more,” a verse from Genesis 5:24, asking if he knows what that means. Then she wants to know if he has to do what anyone says. He reckons that’s his job and she playfully says she might pay him 10 cents to kiss the pony. When her mother calls, she goes off but turns to see young Nucky get down and kiss the pony.

Later the boy sees Mr. Beckert in the marshes and says when he brought the flowers, no one was there. Beckert tells him to keep bringing them. The next day, young Nucky peers through the keyhole of Mr. Beckert’s room when the Sheriff opens the door. He and Commodore are inside with the dead body of the object of Beckert’s affections. The Commodore orders him downstairs.

Outside a hotel employee, Mr. Whiting, hands young Nucky an envelope which he sticks under his jacket. He tells the Sheriff that he saw Beckert and wants to know if they caught him. The Sheriff says they did what had to be done. “You can’t stop every bad thing… It’s just how it is,” he explains to the child and tells him their talk is just between them because anything else is bad for business. The envelope contains a postcard from little Mabel who lets him know that her family spends every summer in Atlantic City and she would have let him kiss her.