What I’m Watching: Boardwalk Empire

Boardwalk Empire: Season 2, Episode 3 “A Dangerous Maid” (B+)

This episode is all about relationships, as we get to see behind the curtains of a few dynamics on this show. We haven’t seen all that much of Lucy lately, and she’s featured prominently in this hour, being essentially held captive by Nelson and unable to do anything else, since he believes that carrying a child is a sacred charge from the lord. Fortunately, he did seem to ease up a bit by getting her a record player. Margaret trying to be smart about money is definitely not in line with Nucky’s tendencies, and his desire to continue dressing her up and planning to take her to Paris so that she’ll have something to look forward to is sweet. Margaret seemed to bounce back from her devastation about her deceased family members fairly quickly, drinking with the help and then going right out to dinner with Nucky. Running into the Commodore and seeing that he ordered the last lobster got Nucky pretty furious, and that restaurant encounter was one for the books. Jimmy’s response to the question of how dinner with his father was proved to be telling, as he replied, “Which one?” It was good to see Al again, coming back with a message for Nucky and to pay a visit to his old pal Jimmy. Hopefully the card game won’t produce any more bloodshed now that Rothstein has intervened, but it does look like things are going to get messy now that Owen is taking matters into his own hands and acting as Nucky’s number one enforcer.