‘Boardwalk Empire’ recap: Nucky cries ‘uncle’ in mob war

To save the life of his kidnapped nephew, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) agrees to surrender all his criminal enterprises to rival bootleggers on “Friendless Child,” the penultimate Episode 55 of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.”

Nucky thinks he gains the upper hand in an escalating mob war by capturing Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (Michael Zegen), a longtime friend of gangsters Charles “Lucky” Luciano (Vincent Piazza) and Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef).

But the strategy backfires when Luciano’s men seize Nucky’s nephew Willie Thompson (Ben Rosenfield), an assistant district attorney in New York.

“Whatever your uncle does to Benny, that’s gotta reflect on you,” Luciano tells Willie, who’s bound to a chair and choked by thug Pinky Rabinowitz (Ethan Herschenfeld).

“Whatever happens to me, sooner or later you’re all going to jail,” Willie warns his captors. That’s because U.S. Attorney Robert Hodges (Reg Rogers) has staked his career on defeating “the army of hoodlums who have made our streets unsafe for decent people.”

To resolve their standoff, Nucky and Luciano – backed by their heavily armed henchmen – meet for a prisoner exchange. After Benny is released, however, Luciano recaptures Willie.

“We had an agreement,” Nucky insists.

“This is business. I want all of yours,” Luciano replies, referring to Nucky’s lucrative operations in Atlantic City and Cuba.

Mickey Doyle (Paul Sparks), who manages Nucky’s Onyx Club on the boardwalk, tries to retain his job by bargaining with Luciano. But having no patience with wisecracking Mickey, Luciano impulsively shoots him in the throat.

Nucky is nearly gunned down by Luciano as well, but manages to talk his way out of it.

In exchange for his nephew’s freedom, Nucky will assassinate one of Luciano’s main rivals, Salvatore “Boss of All Bosses” Maranzano (Giampiero Judica).

“You deliver, we deliver,” promises Luciano, who lets Willie go shortly after his father Eli (Shea Whigham) puts a bullet in Maranzano’s head.

Meanwhile, in a flashback to 1897, Deputy Sheriff Nucky performs a detestable job for powerbroker Louis “The Commodore” Kaestner (John Ellison Conlee). The Commodore has just sexually abused a young girl, and Nucky is entrusted with bringing her home and offering bribe money to keep the mother quiet.

Nucky couldn’t protect that unfortunate girl, but he does try to help Gillian Darmody (Madeleine Rose Yen), a dirty-faced yet well-educated orphan who steals from boardwalk merchants.

“I wish to make amends for the things I stole,” announces Gillian, who begs Nucky not to send her back to the New Jersey orphanage she ran away from.

“They lock you in a room,” Gillian says. “They don’t give you food or water. They tell you you’re born in sin, that your whole life is a sin!”

“No child belongs there. It’s brutish,” exclaims Nucky’s pregnant wife, Mabel (Maya Kazan). “She has no one. Children her age are not wanted.”

But before Nucky makes a decision about Gillian’s fate, she runs away again.

“What did you say to her?” Mabel angrily asks Nucky.

“I care about you,” Nucky responds. “I care about the family we’re going to have together. That’s all that matters to me. You can’t fix everything!”

In a flash forward to the present, Gillian reaches out to Nucky once more. This time she’s trying to win her release from a mental institution after a murder trial jury declared her temporarily insane.

“I write in the last hope that you can think of me once again,” Gillian says in a letter to Nucky. She fears for her life and her sanity after spending seven horrendous years in a place “determined to crush my soul.”

“There is forgiveness for everyone,” Gillian writes. “Please help me!”