This episode should have just been called ‘Sticking Lysol in Your Cooter,’ because Family Limitation is such a terrible euphemism. But much happened this week besides Margaret’s attempt to keep Nucky’s little swimmers from anchoring to her uterus.
Let’s begin at what might have been the best scene in the show so far, and I think you all know what I’m talking about. Jimmy, still distressed over Sheridan’s attack on Pearl and her subsequent suicide, sat down with Johnny Torrio to discuss the situation. Torrio wanted to pull out of Greek Town, but Jimmy convinced him otherwise. What resulted was a straight gangster scene – the kind of senseless and unopposed violence that we’ve been waiting for. Torio, along with Jimmy and Al, go to talk things over with Sheridan. Jimmy’s little game of “Five Finger Filet” foreshadows that things are going to get violent. Sheridan’s men find Jimmy’s knife, but that was just the distraction. The three gangsters get some pistols and a shotgun from the hooker behind the coatcheck counter when they go to leave, and Sheridan gets his brains blown all over the wall. Most excellent.
But that means bad news for Jimmy and Al’s “friendship.” Torrio now knows that he can trust Jimmy to take care of business, and can only trust Capone to cause problems. You can actually feel the tension building when the two young killers start calling each other out about their service in the war. Capone half-heartedly appologizes to his “buddy” with a package of steaks. Jimmy corrects him, saying that he thought they were “accomplices.”
A similar tension builds between Lucy and Margaret. Lucy, Nucky’s bimbo, goes to Margaret’s place of work and demands that she model lingerie for her. Upon seeing a nude Margaret (who, by the way, is clearly a body double), Lucy attempts to break her down by insulting her looks. Marge is just now getting up the courage to condescend people, so she uses this new power to tell Lucy a story: Some guy had a rooster that did a trick, and it was great to see a few times, but after a while it was stale and boring because the animal never learned a new trick. This eludes to the idea that Lucy is just a simple creature that knows a simple trick, one that Nucky will eventually become bored of. Lucy, being the dumbass that she is, doesn’t understand. So margaret lays it out on the table: “Maybe your cunny isn’t quite the draw you think it is.”
So Margaret quits her job and signs up to be taken care of by Nucky. Then she finds out that he moved her into a housing complex full of gangster and politician mistresses. Uh-oh, that’s not going to fly in this independent woman’s book. Lock that dick down, Margie.
Nucky’s story is pretty lame this week. He brings in Lucky Luciano for questioning, wants to build a highway to Atlantic City, and then stands up Margaret for some chubby chick with a ukelele. Snoozeville.
Lastly, Van Alden is back with his frighteningly strange sexual antics. He’s not only a thieving pervert, but a sado-masochist as well. He gets called out by his superiors for looking into Margaret’s immigration files, and then goes to her house to ask her more questions. He’s greeted by her fugly neighbor Edith, who informs him that she’s a whore and that she moved out in a blue Rolls Royce limousine. So he goes back to his dark, scary room and proceeds to whip himself with his belt while looking at a picture of Margaret.
What’s the significance of this? Well, it would seem to make sense that the perverse FED is punishing himself for Marge’s decision to live in sin with Nucky. Judging by all the nasty scars on his back, this wasn’t the first time he did this. I guess he takes responsibility upon himself for all the things that other people do wrong. Crazy, crazy man. Who knows what will happen next week?
