It’s
Easter Sunday, 1923. It’s a day for family gatherings, which can be weirder
than hell. Since we’re talking Boardwalk Empire, they, quite naturally,
veer off in odd and unexpected directions. Sort of like Easters in my family.
Of course, it was all very Greeky Greek complete with the e gg crushing Christos anesti thing
and roast leg of lamb. But I digress; anyone surprised by that? I thought not.

Okey
dokey. On to this week’s rantings, ravings, and other R words to be named
later.

Thompson Family Values: The episode
opens with Eli skulking about his yard in his bathrobe. He’s hiding something:
booze; cash; a gat? What the hell is it? Easter eggs, that’s what. It’s time
for the annual Thompson egg hunt and if you find the red one you get a whole quarter.
Golly, Wally. I would have thought that Eli’s family would have its own
softball team since he has 444 kids.

Nucky,
Margaret, Emily, and Pyro-boy come for the day in-what else?-their Sunday Best, which is-you guessed it-the episode title. It’s the first time that the
Eli Thompsons have met Margaret and her brood. Not a big surprise since Eli
just got sprung from the pokey after betraying the Nuckster. Despite that
unpromising start, things go pretty darn well. Eli’s wife, June, flatters Nucky
and Margaret into submission. The latter, in fact, blurts out to June that
Nucky has nookie on the side. It’s the first time we’ve seen Margaret open up
to anyone but IRA Man Owen and, well, never mind…

The
Thompson brothers finally bury the hatchet. Eli grovels, Nucky rants, and they
kinda sorta kiss and make up since Nucky needs someone/anyone with half a brain
in his criminal enterprise. And Eli qualifies…

Nucky
and Margaret, however, do NOT bury the hatchet. She’s amused to learn that he
can juggle and tell a few jokes; and he’s amused to learn that she can sing the
old Irish ditty I’ll Tell Me Ma. He
again tentatively reaches out to her and she goes all Carole King on him and
sings “It’s Too Late.” Not really but it *is* what she says…

DLOAF and Julia Entertain: We met the
lovely Julia and her asshole father in the last episode after which I acronymed
him DLOAF: drunken lout of a father. Not sure if acronymed is a real word but
it should be; especially at the Pentagon where they acronym the hell out of
everything.

Our
favorite sniper, Richard Harrow, arrives accompanied by Tommy Darmody. Madam
Mommie Dearest Jillian threw them out of the bordello so she could, uh, we’ll
get to that later.

Anyway,
DLOAF gets sloshed, yells at Tommy D and generally acts boorishly to Richard
and the rest of their guests. Julia continues to be a rock: she takes our boy
Richard into the kitchen and feeds him there so he won’t have to deal with the
general embarrassment of eating Easter Supper with only half a face. He
appreciates it. They go to the Boardwalk together, pose for the portrait at the
top of the post, and part on a first name basis. Tres racy, non?

On The Skids with Gyp Rosetti: Gyp not
only lost 4 men in the Tabor Heights massacre but 20 blocks of territory in
Brooklyn to Charlie Lucky’s minions. We meet the Gypster at his mother’s crib
on Easter Sunday. His mother, grandmother and sister are all major battle axes
and enjoy cutting Gyp down to size. No wonder he likes that choking collar
thing, he’s used to being on a tight leash at home. Spare the whip, spoil the
Gyp.

Since
it’s resurrection day, Gyp rolls back the stone, and visits a church but to
prey, not pray. He yells at the big guy, punches out a Priest and steals the contents
of the poor box, which he promptly donates to Joe Masseria.

Masseria
is not amused that Gyp pays him in purloined collection plate coins. Hey, it
beats the hell out of wooden nickels. It sets the boss off and clinches his
plan to whack Gyp by drowning him in the blood of the lamb or something equally
Eastery. It’s better than being force fed peeps until you choke and croak…

The
good news for BE fans is that Gyp
talks Boss Joe out of killing him by launching into the sort of anti-Semitic tirade
that the Boss loves. He also promised to destroy, decapitate and not be very
nice to Nucky, Rothstein, Luciano and company. The game is afoot and the game
is gang warfare. It should be quite a blood bath…

Easter Sunday Bloody Sunday:Speaking
of blood baths, Madam Mommie Dearest Jillian plays out her little game with the
wandering Hoosier, Roger James. She closes the brothel for the day for the sensible
reason that it’s a shitty day for business since the johns all feel guilty for
cheating on both their spouses and Jesus. Who knew that she was so thoughtful?

Roger
James visits the Commodore’s crib for the first time. He’s impressed and
suggests that she sell the joint and take off, and up, with him. She tells him
that she can’t because the title is unclear; actually she said something else
but I don’t remember, I don’t recall, I’ve got no memory of anything at
all. End of gratuitous Peter Gabriel quote.

Jillian
gets extra creepy when she describes her husband as a “younger man.”
Jimmy Darmody, come on down. After enjoying Roger James in various rooms,
Jillian takes him into the bathroom whereupon she injects him with heroin, and
drowns the poor dumb bastard. Deftly, albeit daftly, done since she leaves the corpse to be
discovered by the “hoors.” That, in turn, means that Richard will see
the body, and surely he’ll know it’s not Jimmy. But what, if anything, will he
do in response? Hey, at least she’s finally admitting that Jimmy’s dead, that’s
what I said.

I
only wish that I’d thought of this post title, House Of The Bathing Son, before
Alan Sepinwall did but I couldn’t resist quoting it, or giving Van Morrison
and the Chieftains the last word this week: