Trouble in Paradise – Boardwalk Empire

“Hold Me in Paradise” (Season 1 Ep, 8) opens up with Eli Thompson sitting at Nucky’s desk.  He’s in charge when Nucky’s out of town, only no one is beating down the doors to ask for his assistance.  A bagman shows up who needs a day off because his daughter is being fitted for leg braces but there’s no one to cover for him.  Eli gives him the day off.  Eli says he can do what Nucky does — the glad-handing and backslapping: “I’ll buy a nickel joke book down the five and dime — I’ll be the toast of the town myself.”

So much going on in Boardwalk Empire, we think we’ll break down events (with hyperlinks to historical info) in terms of:

Love Affairs and Conflicts

Anabelle and Margaret are enjoying a little tete-a-tete in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, speculating on who Nucky got to buy Margaret’s peridot ring which leads to joking about Nucky’s manservant Kessler.  “What do you suppose he has under his woolens,“ Anabelle asks laughingly.  “The Kaiser’s mustache,” rejoins Margaret. Margaret’s former employer, Madame Jeunet interrupts:  “Marguerite, you must assist me,” Lucy, it seems, is trying to charge clothes on Nucky’s dime and refuses to accept that she has been cut off.  As Madame Jeunet tries to explain this, Lucy barges in and demands to know what they’re whispering about.  “Americans don’t whisper,” she bellows. She calls Margaret “Mrs. Macdougal” and Margaret corrects her: “It’s Schroeder,” she says.  “Is that Irish for bitch?” says Lucy as other ladies within earshot gasp. Thinking Lucy is three sheets to the wind, Margaret stands up (she’s pretty short compared to Lucy and Madame Jeunet) and makes an effort to avoid a scene: “You’re not at your best and you should leave,” she tells Lucy, An infuriated Lucy demands to know if Margaret is in charge of the lobby now and tells Margaret if she thinks she understands Nucky, she’s the “dumbest Dora” she ever met.  Margaret gives her a resounding slap in the face and warns her that it’ll be worse the next time, and there’s sure to be one. Lucy’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the pack. She hasn’t taken a hint so far and besides, Margaret’s last name is German.

Family Entanglements

Jimmy did send Angela some money but she never got it.  Jimmy’s mother, Gillian shows up to inform Angela that she needs to get a job. She’s seen the postman and there’s nothing for her.  Gillian advises Angela to get a job selling cosmetics for “Little Dot.” (Little Dot Perfume was the original line of the California Perfume Company, known to us today as Avon Products). Angela, working on a nude painting, informs her mother-in-law that she may have a chance to sell her paintings with a Greenwich Village art dealer.  Unimpressed, Gillian also suggests a stenography course.  Just when you’re wondering if Gillian intercepted the mail, cut to Agent Van Alden opening Angela’s mail and throwing it in a drawer with all the rest of her money.

Van Alden’s wife, Rose, can’t have children and desperately wants them.  She needs $270 dollars to see a specialist in Manhattan.  Guess where Jimmy’s money ends up?  Not with his wife.  Van Alden mails the money to Angela and sends his wife a letter referencing the biblical Sarah, Rebekah and Hannah, urging his unhappy wife to trust in God.

Power and Politics

In Chicago, at the 1920 Republican Convention, Nucky gets the Presidential Suite away from General Wood.  The hotel manager wants to give Nucky the Ambassador Suite, but Nucky explains the difference between General Wood and himself.  “He is a war hero, former Army Chief-of-Staff and practically a shoo-in for the Republican Presidential nomination.  I, on the other hand, am a magnificent tipper,”  and as Nucky peels off a bunch of bills, he adds: “I’d like a bucket of ice and 3 bottles of Canadian Club waiting in the parlor.”   Senator Edge asks Nucky to fill for him at a shindig being thrown by  Warren G. Harding’s campaign manager Harry Daugherty.

At the event, Nucky meets Daugherty and Warren G. Harding who says “what America wants is stability” while a lady with the baby is trying unsuccessfully to get in the door.  Nucky compliments Warren G. Harding on his speech “Back to Normal” and Harding says, “That’s nothing, I can spend hours “bloviating.”  Harding’s wife, (Flossie — we looked it up), tells Nucky that her husband running for President is a terrible thing because a fortune teller said he will die in office.

While watching a stag film involving graphic sex between the clergy, Eli settles who will take what routes on collections and he decides to take the casino, which is due to be robbed as a result of Lucky Luciano’s deal with the D’Alessio brothers.  Eli is shot in the heist.

Nucky calls Margaret when he finds out.  He needs her to go to her office and safeguard a few things, particularly a ledger book.  He instructs her where to find it, not to open it and to place it in a secret compartment and stay in his suite with her children until he returns.  Margaret finds the ledger and just when the conniving colleen is going to open it anyway, the phone rings, making her jump.  Inexplicably, she answers it and says who she is.

Later, Nucky speaks to the lady with the baby in the lobby of the hotel.  Nucky says he had a son  who died.  This woman turns out to be Nan Britton, Harding’s mistress and as a political favor, Nucky later takes her back to Atlantic City with the child.  The favor, to Daugherty’s surprise, is that Senator Edge will never be Vice President because Nucky has found out that Edge and the Jersey City mayor have stabbed him in the back on the road deal.  Daugherty says Al Jolson agreed to write Harding’s campaign song.  “Eddie Cantor’s better,” Nucky says.

Nucky tells Jimmy Darmody he needs his help at home.  “We’re at war, kid.”  That help will come at a price and Jimmy wants to know what about “that Fed” (Van Alden). Nucky says he will take care of Van Alden. Jimmy wants to think it over and Nucky says, “You do that, but whatever you do, don’t ever keep me waiting again.”

Nucky’s point that Johnny Torrio and Al Capone are Italian and Jimmy, being Irish, will always be an outsider, is driven home later as Jimmy watches Capone, Torrio and their paisans having the Italian time of their lives at a card game.  He is excluded since they are all speaking Italian.

On the way back to Atlantic City, Nan Britton reads a most explicit love poem written by Warren G. Harding (he really did write it — but not to Nan — to Carrie Fulton Phllips) from whence came the title of this episode:  “I love your poise of perfect thighs / the way they hold me in paradise.”

As the episode closes, Margaret is sitting in Nucky’s office.  She opens the ledger and there before her eyes is the evidence of Nucky’s involvement in both gambling and bootlegging.

Trivia:  The peppy little tune playing in various segments is a part of the National Emblem March,” the part that is also well known as “The Monkey Wrapped his Tail around the Flagpole.”

Coming Attractions:  OMG! Lucy with Van Alden … Van Alden tells Margaret how she became a widow … Margaret confronts Nucky who warns her to be careful and she slaps him!