• By
Gretchen Mol in “Boardwalk Empire.”
Photo by Craig Blankenhorn

The penultimate episode of this season of “Boardwalk Empire” kicks of with Chalky White and Daughter Maitland still on the run from Dr. Valentin Narcisse. They, however, have found protection from Chalky’s mentor, Oscar Boneau, in Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Chalky is still kicking himself for not taking his mentor’s advice to never trust anyone, since he still believes that Nucky was involved in the attempt on his life. Oscar, meanwhile, has little help to offer other than for Chalky to stay there and regroup. Chalky instead decides to run off with Daughter the next morning, but when he wakes up in the middle of the night, she’s gone. Though she has left, Dr. Valentin Narcisse’s men have arrived, determined to get Chalky. The elderly Oscar fends them off with his shotgun, but is killed in the process, leaving Chalky with no other allies.

In Atlantic City, Nucky Thompson gets a worrisome call from Gaston Means of the Justice Department, who warns that there’s a “skunk in your cellar.” That skunk, of course, is his good old brother Eli, who is coming under increasing pressure from Agent Warren Knox/Jim Tolliver to provide more information on Nucky’s operations. Eli gives details about the heroin trade out of Tampa and the various gangsters involved, including Nucky. But Knox wants Eli to get all the main players–Nucky, Joe Masseria, among others—in the same room so he can prove collusion across state lines. Eli suggests the meeting to Nucky as an opportunity for everyone to “talk terms” and prevent a war while Nucky still has a hand to play.

But Nucky’s suspicions extend to his brother after Eli’s wife June brings up the unnerving visit Eli had from the “baby-faced” insurance salesman, who was actually Agent Knox, in the previous episode. Despite his suspicions, Nucky tells Eli to set up the meeting with Masseria, Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and the rest involved in the Tampa deal. It’s not clear what Nucky has up his sleeve by setting up the meeting, but at the end of the episode, he tells Sally Wheet in one of their late-night phone calls, “I want out.”

Meanwhile, Gillian Darmody’s fairytale romance with Roy Phillips comes to a sudden end, as it turns out he was not a businessman with the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain after all, but a private detective.

The revelation comes after Gillian finally makes a decision to stop pursuing custody of her grandson Tommy and to sell her home. At a celebratory dinner, Roy asks Gillian to leave Atlantic City with him and marry him, now that his business in town is over. But after they leave the restaurant, one of Roy’s disgruntled business colleagues shows up,  appears to reach for a gun, and Roy shoots him. Roy and Gillian flee the scene, but he later threatens to turn himself in. In Gillian’s desperation to keep Roy from calling the police, she tells him he actually can live with the guilt of committing murder. She tries to prove it to him by explaining that she actually killed someone and has managed to live with it. She tells how she killed a young man named Roger by drowning him in her bathtub. Suddenly, several men in suits turn up, and Roy tells Gillian that he’s actually a private detective—one who now has her confession. Gillian at first is in absolute disbelief, but quickly realizes that this means she’ll be facing jail and murder charges. She tries to run off, but the men have to apprehend her and pin her to the floor as she screams in agony.