‘Boardwalk Empire’ recap: Nucky’s criminal saga ends after 5 seasons

The sins of Enoch “Nucky” Thompson’s gangster past catch up with him in “Eldorado,” the series finale of HBO’s Prohibition-era drama “Boardwalk Empire.”

Nucky, played by Steve Buscemi, is murdered, appropriately, where he amassed his ill-gotten wealth: the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The assassin is teenage drifter Tommy Darmody (Travis Tope), who worked in Nucky’s crime syndicate under the alias of Joe Harper.

Tommy’s late father, Jimmy (Michael Pitt), was once Nucky’s protege. That mentorship ended when Jimmy betrayed Nucky in a failed power grab. With reconciliation out of the question, Nucky shot Jimmy in cold blood.

Now it’s Tommy’s turn for vengeance. After he was caught stealing at a hotel, Tommy tears up the money Nucky offers him to start a new life far away from the boardwalk.

“The war’s over. The other side won,” Nucky says, referring to how he just surrendered his illegal empire to mafia boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano (Vincent Piazza). “I can’t help you. Go home!”

But Tommy has no home. His mother, Angela (Aleksa Palladino), also fell victim to mob violence. And his grandmother, Gillian (Gretchen Mol), is confined to a mental institution after being declared temporarily insane in a murder trial.

With his future looking bleak in the Great Depression -- and his mind filled with hate -- Tommy pulls out a pistol and guns down Nucky. The fatal shot pierces his cheek.

Earlier in the episode, it appeared that Nucky was going to live out his days in Manhattan after reconciling with his estranged wife, Margaret (Kelly Macdonald).

Nucky also made more than $2 million in the stock market by manipulating his shares in a corporation that’s poised for dramatic growth in the liquor business once Prohibition laws are repealed.

“You’ve done well -- very well, I’d say,” Margaret tells Nucky as they consider renting an apartment in the luxurious Eldorado complex.

“My circumstances have changed,” Nucky says of his transition from bootlegger to Wall Street speculator. “There are things I won’t do anymore.”

“There’s what I know,” Margaret says of Nucky’s criminal past, “what I suspect and what I don’t think I should ever hear.” With that, they slowly dance together in what could have been their future home.

Before Nucky meets his end, he visits Gillian at the mental institution and tells her there’ll be money in a trust fund if she ever gets out.

It’s his way of atoning for the fateful day more than three decades earlier when he left 12-year-old Gillian (Madeleine Rose Yen) in the clutches of a rich pedophile, Louis “The Commodore” Kaestner (John Ellison Conlee).

“I promise I’ll always look after you,” Nucky told Gillian shortly before she was plied with alcohol and raped by The Commodore.

Nucky also reaches out to his boozy brother, Eli (Shea Whigham), who’s living in a seedy apartment. Nucky urges Eli to make amends with his wife, June (Nisi Sturgis), and their children. Then he gives Eli a sack full of cash -- along with a razor and brush.

“You and I, we won’t see each other again,” Nucky says prophetically. “I think that’s best, don’t you?”

Finally, Harlem drug kingpin Dr. Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright) is targeted by Luciano and his mob partners, Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef) and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (Michael Zegen). Narcisse refuses to pay extortion money so Luciano decides to pull the trigger.

“Two shooters, in public so people know,” Luciano orders. The public place turns out to be a church.

“One generation passeth away and another generation cometh,” Narcisse says to his fellow parishioners, quoting Ecclesiastes. “But the Earth abideth forever.”

The Earth, maybe. But not Narcisse. Or Nucky.