21 (Boardwalk Empire)

Lore & Background

The episode's plot centers on Nucky Thompson's power being challenged by the alliance of Jimmy Darmody, Eli Thompson, and the Commodore, who manipulate the Ku Klux Klan into attacking Chalky White's bootlegging warehouse. Chalky kills one of the attackers, sparking outrage in the community, and Nucky orders Eli to arrest Chalky for his own protection. Jimmy reflects upon his upbringing and Nucky's part in it, while Nucky deduces that Jimmy is in league with the Commodore and subtly warns him to reconsider his position.

Meanwhile, Nelson Van Alden's wife Rose visits for the weekend and is dismayed by the city's depravity, but a police raid conducted in her presence inspires her admiration. Van Alden also has a financial arrangement with Lucy to carry a child for him. Margaret Schroeder takes her children to see The Kid, and Nucky is arrested for election fraud—the arrest is orchestrated by corrupt Deputy US Attorney George "Solomon" Bishop, but carried out by police officers.

The episode introduces several new characters: George "Solomon" Bishop, a corrupt Deputy US Attorney; Lenore White, Chalky's wife; Lester White, their son; Katy, a housemaid; FBI Agent Clarkson and Prohibition Agent Stan Sawicki, who secretly works for Nucky; Leander Cephas Whitlock, the Commodore's lawyer; and George Remus, an Ohio-based medicinal alcohol bootlegger.

Reader's Guide

"21" serves as the season premiere of Boardwalk Empire's second season, setting the stage for the conflicts that define the season. The episode was watched by 2.912 million viewers, down 39% from the pilot and down 12% from the first-season finale. Critical reception was positive, with IGN giving the episode a score of 9 out of 10, praising the "masterfully shot" speech Nucky gives to two different sides of the racial conflict. The episode's introduction of new characters, including corrupt officials and bootleggers, expands the series' historical and criminal landscape. Its depiction of the Klan's attack and Nucky's arrest for election fraud highlights the intertwining of organized crime, racial violence, and political corruption in the Prohibition era. The episode's legacy lies in its effective continuation of the series' narrative and its critical acclaim.

Did You Know?

• The episode was written by series creator and executive producer Terence Winter and directed by executive producer Tim Van Patten.
• The episode introduces George Remus, an Ohio-based medicinal alcohol bootlegger connected to the mafia and the 'Ohio Gang'.
• Chalky White kills Klan leader Herman Dacus during the attack on his warehouse.
• Nucky Thompson is arrested for election fraud at the end of the episode.

Origins & Narrative Framework

Boardwalk Empire debuted on HBO on September 19, 2010, and wrapped its twelve-episode first season on December 5. The series grew out of Terence Winter's adaptation of Nelson Johnson's book about the criminal and political history of Atlantic City. Winter, already known for his work on The Sopranos, felt the 1920s remained underexplored on television and chose to center his story squarely in the Prohibition era. The season's timeline spans January through November 1920, opening as the national prohibition ban takes hold and closing with the presidential election that year. At the heart of the narrative sits Steve Buscemi's Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson, a figure modeled on the real Enoch L. Johnson. Officially the treasurer of Atlantic County, Nucky secretly runs a bootlegging operation that simultaneously funds his political machine and makes him the controlling force behind the boardwalk city. His dual identity as public servant and private criminal defines every relationship and conflict in the season.

Production Ambitions & the Scorsese Pilot

Production of Boardwalk Empire began in earnest when Terence Winter was hired on June 4, 2008, to adapt Nelson Johnson's book into a television series. Winter had long wanted to tell a story set in the 1920s, believing the decade had never received the kind of serious dramatic treatment it deserved on screen. That conviction shaped every creative decision that followed. The project's ambitions became most visible in the pilot. On September 1, 2009, it was announced that Martin Scorsese would direct the first episode, marking a significant return to television directing for the Academy Award-winning filmmaker. The finished pilot carried a final production cost of eighteen million dollars, a figure that made it the most expensive pilot episode ever produced in television history at that point. Scorsese's involvement signaled that HBO intended Boardwalk Empire to compete with the highest tier of prestige filmmaking, and the visual language he established in that opening hour set the benchmark for the entire season's aesthetic.

An Ensemble of Competing Ambitions

The first season assembles an ensemble that functions less as a supporting cast and more as a web of rival ambitions. Steve Buscemi anchors the show as Nucky Thompson, but the narrative orbits a constellation of characters with their own trajectories. Michael Pitt plays Jimmy Darmody, Nucky's impatient protégé and a World War I veteran carrying visible scars from his service. Kelly Macdonald brings Margaret Schroeder, an abused housewife in the Women's Temperance League who becomes entangled with Nucky. On the law-enforcement side, Michael Shannon's Nelson Van Alden is a devout FBI agent tasked with dismantling the bootlegging network, while Shea Whigham's Eli Thompson, Nucky's younger brother and the Atlantic City sheriff, chafes under his sibling's shadow. The criminal landscape is populated by Michael Stuhlbarg as the legendary gambler Arnold Rothstein, Stephen Graham as a young Al Capone climbing the Chicago Outfit, and Vincent Piazza as Charlie Luciano, Rothstein's scheming protégé. Michael Kenneth Williams rounds out the core as Chalky White, the Black community leader who serves as Nucky's business partner and warehouse owner.

Critical Reception & Industry Recognition

Upon its 2010 release, the first season of Boardwalk Empire was greeted with near-universal critical approval. Reviewers singled out the production's visual craftsmanship and its commitment to historical detail, praising the way the show rendered the textures of 1920s Atlantic City without sacrificing dramatic momentum. On the aggregator site Metacritic, the season accumulated a score of 88 out of 100 drawn from thirty individual reviews, a rating the platform classifies as universal acclaim. The American Film Institute independently recognized the series, selecting Boardwalk Empire as one of the ten best television programs of the year. That dual recognition, from both a quantitative review-aggregation body and a major arts institution, cemented the season's reputation as a landmark entry in the prestige-television era. For a show whose pilot had cost a record eighteen million dollars and whose creator had spent two years developing the adaptation, the critical response validated HBO's gamble on a period crime drama set in a single New Jersey city.