Continued from Boardwalk Empire Season Overview Part 1

Back in Atlantic City, Nucky has given his brother Eli (Shea Whigham, Silver Linings Playbook), the former Sheriff, a final ultimatum after Eli betrays Nucky for the last time when he is forced to set Nucky up to be brought down by undercover Federal Agent Jim Tolliver under the alias Warren Knox (Brian Geraghty, Jarhead).

Eli is at the point where Nucky is honestly prepared to kill his own flesh and blood until Eli’s son William (Ben Rosenfield) intervenes.  Therefore Nucky is forced to spare Eli yet again and instead resorts to shipping him off to Chicago to work for Capone; in an unofficial exchange Eli kills Tolliver.

The death of agent Tolliver results in J. Edgar Hoover (Eric Ladin) neglecting Tolliver’s proposed plan and ultimately panning the investigation of organized crime in the North and Midwest, coming to a conclusion that Hoover presumably deemed impossible to contain (for various speculative reasons).

After Eli’s departure, Nucky is determined to see William pursue a better future.  At this rate Eli also contemplates that there is no going back or any further forgiveness to be made to his brother.  Eli is at a fault ever since he was in favor for Commodore Louis Kaestner (Dabney Coleman) and Nucky’s original protégé, James Darmody’s (Michael Pitt) attempt in bringing down Nucky as both the alter ego mob boss and Treasurer of Atlantic City back in Season 2.

At the beginning of Season 4 we also saw Chalky White (Michael K. Williams, The Wire), one of Nucky’s closest associates in the bootlegging business and the unofficial leader of Atlantic City’s African-American community in his prime, with gaining more respect from the city’s residents while operating his own nightclub, until he was challenged by a ruthless Harlem, New York racketeer and motivational speaker by the name of Dr. Valentine Narcisse (given a fastidious performance by Jeffrey Wright, Casino Royale).

The conflict between Chalky and Narcisse originally brewed from Chalky’s partner Dunn Purnsley (Erik LaRay Harvey) brutally murdering one of Narcisse’s closest associates.  White and Narcisse’s game of cat and mouse has been one of the most tense and sturdy confrontations in the whole show yet, escalating to the point where Narcisse gets detained and turned by Hoover for information on Marcus Garvey, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, African Communities League, and most notably the Black Star Line.

Reeling from the ordeal, Chalky White was left with his reputation, pride, nightclub, and family completely drained from him, leaving Chalky at a ground zero status in the series.

For some major, but rather morally eased characters, World War I sharpshooter and confidant Richard Harrow (Jack Huston, Night Train to Lisbon) was last seen engaged to Julia Sagorsky (Wrenn Schmidt).  While also managing to come to terms with his worrisome sister Emma Harrow (Katherine Waterston, Robot and Frank), Richard is stuck finding ways of improving the childhood of his old friend James Darmody’s son, Tommy.

Harrow’s final act of justice in a world of moral hazard was to send Tommy off to a better life, and secluded far away from his wickedly depraved yet nurturing grandmother, Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol, 3:10 to Yuma).  Nucky then offers Richard a final request in taking out Narcisse in order to settle the feud between the Doctor and Chalky White.

Richard is severely injured when he inadvertently kills Chalky’s captive daughter in an attempt to execute Narcisse at Chalky’s nightclub.  He is later seen under the boardwalk in his final moments imagining himself in a refined place with his new family.

Another has-been major player of the series is Irish immigrant Margaret Thompson (Kelly Macdonald, No Country for Old Men), Nucky’s wife who had estranged herself and her kids due to the lack of hospitable safety when Nucky had an ongoing deadly feud with New York gangster Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale, Blue Jasmine) back in Season 3.

Having relocated closer to relatives in Brooklyn, Margaret currently works for Nucky’s famous racketeer rival Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man) as an informant on her broker boss’s business strategies, in order to secure her financial future via Rothstein.

To be continued…