Boardwalk Empire Recap: “The Milkmaid’s Lot”

The following recap contains spoilers

by Veronique Medrano:

Boardwalk Empire Recap: “The Milkmaid’s Lot”
Original Air Date (HBO): Sunday November 11, 2012
Season 2 Episode 9

This recap will be short, due to the fact that a lot of what goes on is a blurry mess, and the clear points in this episode are quite clear to see, and move the story along.

Just a friendly reminder: This recap covers the characters you should pay attention to, and while other recaps give you the rundown of the episode from start to finish, I want to cut the fluff and take you to the milky caramel center. So before we enter let me remind everyone, just so ya won’t forget, that the following recap contains spoilers (i.e: info about the episode that you may not want to know before watching).

Our main players in this week’s episode are: Gyp Rosetti, Gaston Means, and Margaret Thompson.

While Nucky is left dazed and confused, Gyp Rosetti ,on the other hand, came back to Tabor Heights with an air of calm, that has been rather surprising. He left Tabor Heights in a flurry of blood and rage, which has followed his presence all season, but in this episode he murders no one. Gyp does beat up the Sheriff, but follows it up by paying off the townsfolk of Tabor Heights. Of course I think the end of the episode really sums up the fact, that while we may be seeing a different Gyp, the same one is till under the surface. As Gyp stands on the beach at the end, with “Mad” Anthony Wayne’s hat it seems to symbolize  both him  heading into battle, and his mental inability to keep things straight due to his anger/rage.

I get so torn with Margaret, whenever she takes two steps forward in character development, it seems to go two steps back. This was maybe 1/2  a step forward, and that is mostly due to her take charge attitude. While Margaret plans/flirts with the idea of running away from Nucky and his empire, she has to deal with Nucky’s mental daze. He goes from remembering her before they were married, and then realizing his present state; he gives her the hummingbird earring only to be told by Margaret it isn’t hers. It is odd that after everything has happened Nucky is opening up to Margaret in this episode and admits to her that the power struggle will never end, and there’s no walking away from it — someone is going to do these things, and it will be him or it will be them, but there’s no leaving it behind. So is this a ploy by Winters, to tell us that even though Margaret has been struggling/fighting against Nucky’s empire, she will eventually fall in line and be the strong-independent woman he needs?

Gaston Means has gotten very little screen time, and I wanted to take the time during ‘The Milk Maid’s Lot’ to address the fact that in the show so far, we’ve seen a lot of stuff that he does behind the scenes eventually effect the characters in the show. It is good to keep in mind, that so far the effects of his meddling have lead to a partnership with Nucky that while be profitable for both, but why? What is he up to, and why is he helping Nucky?  Not sure what the end game is, but with how far we are in the series I don’t see us getting an answer ’till next season.