Boardwalk Empire: Meet Young Nucky Thompson

In the final season of Boardwalk Empire, we have jumped all the way to the year 1931. You would think if we are going to get a bunch of flashbacks, it would be about what happened in the last 7 years, but no — the premiere episode of the final season is replete with flashbacks that begin when Nucky Thompson was a young boy, maybe 8? Perhaps there is a good reason for this and maybe we’ll find out what it is at some point. Here are the flashback scenes from Season 5, Episode 1: Golden Days for Boys and Girls (9/7/2014)

While a woman reads part of a poem called “Be Honest and True”, a group of young boys scavenge for coins in the Atlantic Ocean. Young Nucky Thompson is one of them. He hollers to Commodore Louis Kaestner to toss him a coin. It is 1884. “Now commences our sun-kissed summer,” the Commodore tells the crowd, “We sprinkle the sea with gold and the sea gives it back to us a hundredfold. That is the glory of this blessed strand that we call Atlantic City.” Nucky fails to retrieve the last gold coin the Commodore throws off the pier.

At home, Nucky comes across his little brother Eli and helps him tighten his slingshot. When Nucky asks how “she” is, Eli says “she’s real hot”. They are referring to their sister Susan who has tuberculosis.

Deputy Sheriff Nucky in 1897

Nucky watches his mother tend to his sick sister through a curtain over the bedroom door. When his mother goes to the kitchen, Nucky describes the attire of the rich ladies he saw. She asks if he ate and he says a man bought him oysters for carrying his bags. She takes out a copy of “Golden Days for Boys and Girls (e-book online),” a children’s digest of stories that someone else was throwing away, “full of interesting things”. Just then his father Ethan return home and the digest is quickly hidden.

At dinner, Ethan knows where Nucky was that day and says the Commodore was up to his tricks again, “with his pockets full of gold.” Nucky says the Commodore opened the sea. Ethan marvels at the gold in the sea, “all the little fishes biting” and asks Nucky what he caught. The child admits he wasn’t quick enough to catch anything. Ethan sends little Eli out to check on his boots and begins to lecture Nucky: “It took your mother three days to birth you. I was out in the water. I didn’t know if I was a father or a widower. I come home. She was in bed with her hair down. Beautiful hair. Boy in her arms. My boy.” With that he punches the boy so hard, he falls off the chair. He stands over him and says “You’re the son of a fisherman, and what are you trying to catch?”

The next day,Nucky and a bunch of boys hide in the marshes. A kid named Jim (Neary — who will one day work for Nucky as a ward boss) jostles Nucky, who tells him to play fair. “I ain’t playing,” Jim says. A horse-drawn cart takes people to the Commodore’s Corner Store Hotel. The hats of the rich travelers are swept into the reeds by the ocean breeze and the boys scramble to find them. Once again, Nucky isn’t quick enough. A man named Pat spies the boy and offers him 20 cents to find his hat. He gives Nucky some candy and goes “onward to rustic pleasures.” Nucky find his hat after he departs. It has a $50 bill in it.

Later that night, Nucky goes to his sister’s room to sponge her forehead with water. She wants to know if he really had oysters. He tells her rich people are not so special, they just have money and he reckons there are ways to get it.  He saved her a candy. She says it tastes sour but she likes it. He smiles and goes back to bed, checking the hat hidden under his bed to see if the $50 is still there.

The next day, Nucky sees Pat and the Commodore chatting on the veranda at The Corner Hotel. The sheriff has been chasing boys away and grabs up Nucky. Pat is impressed when Nucky returns his hat and the $50 is still in it. He tells Nucky to take it. “It’s too much,” the boy replies. Well, if he thought that would impress the Commodore, he was wrong. The Commodore demands to know why he didn’t keep the $50. “To get myself ahead,” Nucky answers. The Commodore doesn’t give him diddly-squat and sends him away.

The next day, Nucky is once again among the ragamuffins trying to make money by helping rich ladies down from their transportation to the Corner Hotel. Again, Jim Neary gets the jump on Nucky. Only this time, Nucky runs after him and begins to whomp him, hollering: “It ain’t fair!” The sheriff grabs Nucky up again and takes him to the Commodore who wants to know who is father is. He is surprised when the Commodore knows “Ethan the bay man.”

The Commodore brings up Nucky’s $50 blunder. “You thought you were being clever before. You thought you were going to get something for being honest. What have you got?” He tells the kid how things are run: “Everything goes through me, understand? Big and little. Absecon Inlet to Great Egg Harbor. Anything else is bad for business.” He shows Nucky some sand, a broom and a dollar. “Yes, sir,” Nucky says. He sweeps up and takes the dollar coin home to his mother who hides it while his father sits at little Susan’s bedside. Noticing Nucky looking, Ethan shuts the bedroom door.

Later in bed, young Nucky reads “Be Honest and True”, then blows out the candle.

Be honest and true, boys!
Whatever you do, boys,
Let this be your motto through life.
Both now and forever,
Be this your endeavor,
When wrong with the right is at strife.

The best and the truest,
Alas! are the fewest;
But be one of these if you can.
In duty ne’er fail; you
Will find ’twill avail you,
And bring its reward when a man.

Don’t think life plain sailing;
There’s danger of failing,
Though bright seem the future to be;
But honor and labor,
And truth to your neighbor,
Will bear you safe over life’s sea.

Then up and be doing,
Right only pursuing,
And take your fair part in the strife.
Be honest and true, boys,
Whatever you do, boys,
Let this be your motto through life!

So we see the early influences in Nucky Thompson’s life: A nurturing mother, an abusive father and a tricky Commodore.

Nucky, Margaret, Chalky White, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano in 1931

The Flashback Cast:
John Ellison Conlee – Commodore Louis Kaestner
Ian Hart – Ethan Thompson
Erin Dilly – Leonore Thompson
Oakes Fegley – Eli Thompson
Onata Aprile – Susan Thompson
Nolan Lyons – Young Nucky Thompson
Marcus Antturi – Young Jim Neary
Boris McGiver – Sheriff Jacob
Danny McCarthy – Pat Halligan
Valentino Musumeci – Hat-chasing boy