BWW Recap: BOARDWALK EMPIRE Reminds Us 'We Were Innocent Once'

The penultimate episode of BOARDWALK EMPIRE, entitled "Friendless Child", is probably one of the best episodes of BOARDWALK's five season history. While last week left us feeling sad with the loss of two of the show's best characters, this week we shifted our focus back to Nucky, but in a way that reminded us who we really have been following for the past five seasons.

(Leading up to BOARDWALK EMPIRE's final two episodes, TV Critic Matt Tamanini spoke with John Ellison Conlee, who currently plays The Commodore. Conlee talks all things BOARDWALK, check it out here.)

While it was quite a fast wrap up of one of the primary conflicts this season, the gang war between Nucky and Luciano, Lansky and Siegel was a truly brilliant hour of television. With Nucky and Maranzano teamed up against the New York gang, casualties at hand and a great load of tension, you were on the edge of your seat all night during this episode.

Frustrated at the fatalities and losses of the war, Nucky decides to take action and has his good friend and bodyguard Archie kidnap Benny Siegel, which led to some of the best scenes in the show's history and certainly in the season, thanks to a brilliant performance by Michael Zegen. From singing to incessant talking, so much so that even Mickey Doyle got annoyed, Benny turned out to be a bigger nuisance than advantage.

Charlie and Meyer, obviously incredibly angry that one of their own was taken, go for blood for blood and snatch up Willie Thompson just as he steps away from a reunion with his worse for ware father. Eli of course goes running to Nucky, a brother who has tried to kill twice, and lets him know what has happened. We're reminded once again on Boardwalk that blood really is thicker than water, as Nucky rallies all his forces to get Willie back and strike a deal with Luciano and Lansky.

In one epic stand off, Luciano and Lansky get Siegel back, all that Nucky has to his name, and we sadly lose our favorite silent bodyguard, Archie and our loud and lovably annoying Mickey Doyle in the ruckus. I'm quite sad to see Mickey go, especially as we had some character development and relationship development for him this episode, but if he had to go, it was destined to be the result of his loud mouth. In return for Willie's safety and release, Nucky promises, on his knees (repayment for doing the same to Lansky several times), to give over all he's got and to have Maranzano taken out, which he fulfills by hands of Eli.

So here we are, one episode to go, with Charlie and Lansky on top, and Nucky left without anything (Except for whatever he's doing with the stocks via Margaret). In another reminder about the inherent theme of the show, Lansky and Luciano pass on any help from Torrio in establishing their new empire, and the young truly replace the old, as a new age of gangsters come to power.

The other half of this episode was flashbacks once again, this time all focusing around Nucky and a young Gillian Darmody. Nucky brings Gillian to his home after discovering her identity last episode, and we see a truly hurt and lost young girl, already hurt by society, even before Nucky broke her. Nucky's wife Mabel pleads for Nucky to let Gillian stay and work off her petty crimes, but Nucky insists she return to the abusive orphanage she ran away from. In what is truly an incredible performance by the actress playing a young Gillian, we see the kind of girl she was at what could have been the turning point of her life. Had she been extended a kind, good hand, Gillian could have had the life she dreamt of. Instead she ran from one hell into another. Mabel, who tries her hardest to help nurture the girl who so desperately needs it, the girl who dreams of being like Nellie Bly, can't save her from the horrors Nucky subjects her to. "She sailed around the whole world," Gillian says in longing awe of Miss Bly.

In a late night call from the Sheriff, Nucky is brought in on that late night business of the Commodore that he expressed interest in helping with. We're lead to what we know to be the Commodore's mansion, where horrors and hell took place years later, and are shown an even more horrible hell within it's confines. In what is probably one of the most horrifying scenes on television, and one of the most disturbing, nauseating moments so far, we see Nucky accept the position he asked for. When the Sheriff hands over his badge, unable to comply with being the Commodore's pimp anymore, Nucky now takes his position and is brought into a room where a disheveled Commodore vacates. Nucky is shown a scared, hurt little girl and told to bring her back to her mother, with an envelope containing a pay out. Notably disturbed, Nucky still accepts, claiming that he does what he does, for his family. Nucky crosses over to sin right before our eyes and though a young Gillian appears to escape his grasp, we know his reach extends far and she can't run for long, her fate having been sealed already.

We close the episode with one of the most heartbreaking pieces of television as we see Gillian writing a letter to Nucky, detailing the horrors she faces at the asylum, begging him to save her. Read aloud and overlapping lines in Gretchen Mol's disturbed, unhinged, panic-stricken voice, she pleads with Nucky to help her and come to her aid. With lines like "only did what i had to do to survive", "we were innocent once", and "everything in this world has been taken from me" we (and Nucky) are hit with the realization of what this man has done to her and the real weight of these flashbacks. As Nucky steps over the threshold of sin, we hear Gillian reminding him that they were innocent before it all happened. While we see him agree to do this horrible job for the Commodore, we're reminded that Gillian came from abuse and hurt, with arms reaching out for someone to grab hold of her and pull her out of her own nightmare, and Nucky brought her into an even worse one. Gillian has lost everything thanks to Nucky, her son, her soul, her life and now we see her, at what could be the end of her, begging for this man who brought the anguish and malevolence down upon her life, to spare her one ounce of kindness, to be that boy he could have been before he walked into that mansion, and save the girl he broke. To save the young Gillian Darmody that he owes a life to.

In what is sure to be a drama and action packed finale, we hope to see all these ends come together and send us off next week, raising our glasses with love to the lost!

Photo Credit: HBO

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