It's Always Personal

At the close of last season, Nucky put a bullet in Jimmy to show he wasn't some half way gangster without any blood on his hands. On "Bone For Tuna" Nucky had himself an "out damn spot" moment as his dreams were haunted by the memory of the boy who once loved him like a father.

The usually unflappable Nucky wore his inner anguish on his face throughout the episode as his inability to put Jimmy's death behind him may prove to be his undoing. With pillow talk a thing of the past as far as Margaret is concerned, Nucky tried to raise Billie on the phone on several occasions. His uneasiness grew with each unanswered ring, as he struggled to reach out and touch someone... anyone.

Nucky confessed to wanting to be removed from his business, that it would just run itself. All the man really wants is to not be alone. Margaret is becoming more and more cunning the less she is able to care about Nucky as we saw her dupe the hospital head in front of the bishop. Billie most certainly has other men occupying her time but Nucky either doesn't care of doesn'y care to see the obvious so long as she keeps cookin up dat bacon like she does.

One of the biggest stresses about Nucky's job has got to be constantly dealing with head cases like Gyp Rosetti. There just is no pleasing men like him who, as Nucky put it, "can find an insult in a bouquet of roses." This guy though is a whole new breed of crazy the likes of which we haven't seen before. Proof being when he made that cop look like the cover of Rage Against the Machine's debut album.

Nucky, for the most part, feels pretty safe on his home turf of Atlantic City, but what will happen if a man like Gyp can recruit the likes of Gillian to join his efforts to take down the coastal king? Gyp, of course, had no idea why Nucky snubbed Gillian like he did, but he quickly added it to his list of things he took personally.

If he can get her and Eli on his side Nucky could be in for a rough ride and I'm not talking about the kind Sara Jay dishes out. I'm not too worried. Nucky is the kind of man to always and ace in the hole and based on what we saw this week, that ace may very well turn out to be Richard.

Few characters can deliver such hard hitting scenes with such limited dialogue like our resident masked man can. 63!?...In a row?

Life certainly is better with friends and Van Alden seemed to be reaping the benefits of such at home. Yes, his job is less than ideal, but at least he has traded in the self mutilation for a loving woman.

While I was disappointed not to get a second helping of Chalky this week, I did like seeing the Lucky/Lansky storyline advance. How about Meyer showing he is as good a shot as he is smart? He certainly was smart to decide to cut Masseria in on the heroin business but unfortunately never got a chance to do so. We did get a glimpse of that famous Bugsy Siegel temper though. I wonder if he brought back any change for Lucky.

So two wars seemed to be brewing by the end of this week, the inner city squabble over street corners and the intracity beef Gyp now has with Nucky. Can Nucky entice the young entrepreneurs from Manhattan to join him in taking down some higher-ups? He certainly isn't getting much help with his current staff of fools. Where will Rothstein stand when lines are drawn? What did you think?