Boardwalk Empire Spoiler Alert: Nucky is Jimmy’s Father!

In episode 7 of this second season we see Margaret go to Brooklyn to visit her estranged brothers and sisters. It’s been such a long time that her younger sisters don’t really remember her, but her brother, Eamoinn, does and is suspicious of her newfound American affluence. In back story we learn that Margaret, or Peg as her clan call her, became pregnant out of wedlock in an apparent rape. In true form, the good catholics show no sympathy and instead try to send her to the Magdalene Sisters, an asylum for “fallen” girls. Knowing how horrible this experience would be for her Margaret bolts to the land of milk and honey instead, stealing the money that her mother had saved to send her only son to America. She miscarried the baby on her Atlantic crossing.

To make admins, Margaret hands Eamoinn, her brother, the money that she stole. He indignantly refuses, saying he cannot trust where it had come. In the meantime Margaret makes a connection with her youngest sister, Aylesh, who loves school and reading. In a bit of foreshadowing, the bookish Aylesh riffs on who the man behind Margaret’s social and economic good fortunes is.

He is very mysterious. he is very powerful. he has minions. People do his bidding, or they pay the price. But he has a secret tragedy. His heart was broken. He’ll never let anyone near it again.”

Everyone laughs it off as Aylesh’s book-inflamed imagination. Any student of the narrative knows it was too significant to ignore. My guess the season’s Cliffhanger will be an Oedipal revelation that Nucky is Jimmy’s father. We will find out that Jimmy’s conniving mother rejected Nucky and instead seduced the powerful Commodore  to pin paternity on him. Nucky kept her secret out of his love for her, and vowed to father the boy anyway he could. You heard it here first.