Anyone watch Boardwalk Empire to the bitter end?

[EachandEveryone]

I enjoyed the first season, not so much the second. Just catching up with the rest. It really got good! Just watching the last episode.

Oh yes, Richard! The scene when he died under the pier

Poor Richard, I sobbed hard over him and Jimmy.

And that scene with Al Capone and his son was beautiful. So well written.

I thought it was interesting that, after all the politics and gang complexities, Nucky succumbed to one of his own really. I loved the younger versions they really did well with the mannerisms etc.

What happened to the first Mrs Thompson?

My favourite character throughout was Richard, brutal and gentle, he played it beautifully. Loved Van Helden too. His story arc was amazing and played him so well.

The first Mrs Thompson, Mabel, killed herself shortly after their baby son died in about 1910 or 1913, something like that. I think he was only a few weeks old. Nucky had gone away on business and came home and found her. Her death was one of the many things he felt guilty about. He didn't mean not to support her and I think she hid her depression from him. He clearly loved her.

In the final episode she miscarried their first baby. That's in 1897, I think. So presumably she struggled to conceive or suffered other miscarriages in the later years because they had no living children.

They showed her gravestone in one episode were Nucky was estranged from Margaret and met her at the church.

Apparently the dates on it are wrong and the show creators admitted they'd mucked up because it would have made her about 10 when she married Nucky.

Mrs Thompson #1 died early in their marriage. It did say, in series 1 or 2, childbirth maybe?
I thought it was going to show it in the final series when she was pregnant.

Just looked it up.

Baby was premature, underweight, sickly. Baby died but Mabel had been caring for the corpse for days without telling anyone.
She commit suicide a few weeks later

I agree with you. My favourite was Richard and I loved Van Helden. He began so scarily, and he retained that ruthlessness - when he drowned Sebso and that bloke he dragged into the dentists and the other agent, I can't remember his name, but it was an execution at the beach, and of course, he came very close to killing Al at the riot.

But I really liked the comedy that he showed, having to deal with people like Lucy, Sigrid and Al. It was like he was cursed. I especially loved his double-act, shackled to the hapless Eli at the end.

It could have been ridiculous but it wasn't.

Also agree with the younger versions. It wasn't just the looks, it was the mannerisms. I wondered whether the young Gillian was Gretchen Mol's daughter - she's not - because she sounded so much like her.

The young Nucky is from my town in Yorkshire!