Boardwalk Empire: a Workers Strike, a Horvitz Strike

Last half of “The Battle of the Century” (Season 2, Episode 21) of “Boardwalk Empire.” Read the first part here

At Fitzgerald’s family distillery, Nucky gets a taste of some fine Irish whiskey and some insight into how the rebellion and American Prohibition put the screws to the Irish whiskey export business. Nucky tries to make a deal on consignment but Fitzgerald refuses to go against McGarrigle’s wishes.

At the post office, Esther Randolph and Lathrop get their jollies by double-teaming Deputy Halloran. As they finish each other’s sentences, Deputy Halloran wonders if they’re married. They question him about Nucky and Hans Schroeder. You wonder what they could possibly be after with Halloran, or if they’re just killing time. They tell Halloran they’re really not after him — just his bosses — and are prepared to do “a lot” for their friends. Randolph made a similar statement to Nucky. Halloran claims he knows the law and doesn’t have to stay there, yet he waits for them to give him the signal to leave, proving himself to be just a flunky.

In Philadelphia, Horvitz is counting his dough in the butcher shop with the closed sign up. A Yiddish man pounds on the door with a chicken emergency. “Go to the Polack,” Manny mutters, “he’s open,” but the pleas for two chickens persist and he relents. “Alright already — the one day I get to myself.” He unlocks the door and the man takes off. Alfred appears and shoots Horvitz in the shoulder. Horvitz slams the door shut on Alfred’s arm. Then Horvitz busts the glass and pulls Alfred through it. As they struggle. Horvitz grabs a meat cleaver and buries it in Alfred’s head. Horvitz finds a box of toothpicks from Heilig’s Chop House in Atlantic City on the corpse. Do you think Jimmy will get the message that he’s not really cut out for this business soon? Look out, boychik.

Now that Dunn has the green light, he wastes no time adding fuel to the soon-to-explode fire at the Ritz Carlton kitchen. At lunch, he waxes eloquently on how they are not only getting taken advantage of financially, they are also getting the dietary shaft. When the buzzer goes off, one man says: “Back to work, fellas. Manager be along any minute now.” Dunn asks how long they’ve been “swallowing shit.” They reveal they haven’t gotten a raise in the entire time they’ve been there. One man points out that nothing can be done because they will just be replaced if they cry and complain. Dunn enlightens them: “What if we all cry and complain? They gonna replace us all? … every workin’ negro from the Northside?” When the manager comes in, Dunn refuses to go back to work until he gets a decent lunch. He gets fired, but refuses to leave even when the manager threatens to call the police. Dunn demands a raise for everyone and “a lunch you eat yourself.” The manager attempts to get the other workers to obey him, but only one tries to comply and Dunn stops him. When all else fails, the manager resorts to racial insults. One man smashes a plate and soon everyone is throwing plates and food at the manager who now knows how it feels to be on the wrong side of a show of power.

As Nucky and Owen prepare to depart Belfast, they have an extra passenger on the ride. McGarrigle tells Bill Neilan to make sure Nucky gets to the port safely. As they drive away, McGarrigle gets a permanent dispatch — from the earth. Neilan tells Nucky: “You’ll deal with me now. The thousand machine guns, the ten thousand cases of whiskey.” Nucky nods.

In Atlantic City, Jimmy and Richard join the crowd assembled to listen to the Dempsey fight over the wireless. Jimmy is getting a lot of strange looks from people, then a man walks up and hands him a note. It comes from two women and says “watching you closely.” The women surround Jimmy and make their intentions clear. They want to get to know him a lot better. He wants one of them to get to know Harrow. After her initial recoil, she decides it will be something to talk about in her old age.

At the Children’s Seaside House, the entire staff is huddled together to listen to the fight, presenting Margaret with the opportunity to ignore the doctor’s orders and enter the quarantined children’s ward. She crawls into her sick daughter’s bed.

As Nucky ponders what has transpired at the port, Owen arrives with two telegrams. Nucky wants to know if Owen knew in advance that McGarrigle was going to be killed. Owen says there was nothing he could do about it. “You made your deal — that’s what we came for. Besides, I don’t live here anymore,” he says. That’s not enough for Nucky, who tells him he does not like secrets. Well, he might not know it yet, but we do — Owen’s got an even bigger secret and so does Margaret.

Owen then reads the first telegram: “From your lawyer. ‘Forget Dempsey. Judge set trial date. August 23rd. Let the real battle begin.'” The second from Margaret says “Come home,” and Owen stops. Nucky’s alarm bells go off and he turns. Owen says: “Emily has polio.”