Because Owen Slater (a fictional character) was murdered and delivered in a crate to Nucky Thompson at 4 a.m., leaving Nucky without an enforcer and his wife with a bun in the oven, the suicide of Jess Smith (a real life character) in the same episode was grossly relegated to lesser coverage but we aim to make up for that. Ed Jewett and Stephen Root turned in remarkable performances in one terrific scene where Root as Gaston Means comes to murder Jewett as Jess Smith, after arranging to be paid $40,000 a piece from Nucky Thompson and Harry Daugherty and pushing Smith’s last button. Before Means’ astonished eyes, just when he thinks Smith is going to shoot him, Smith kills himself. Serendipity of epic proportions. Terence Winter did point out “Inside the Episode” that Gaston Means was the person who “discovered” Jess Smith’s body in real life and there was always a cloud of suspicion over the suicide ruling.