'Boardwalk Empire' Season 2, Episode 3 Recap - 'A Dangerous Mind'

Paz de la Huerta is sort of the definition of a “hot mess.” Her plump lips, curving hips, pert breasts and Betty Boop voice are the embodiment of sexuality, while her careless, careening exploits on-screen and off scream “watch out boy, she’ll chew you up.”

As Lucy Danzinger on “Boardwalk Empire,” she’s a walking, talking metaphor for the fallacies of Prohibition. While Michael Shannon’s Agent Nelson Van Elden wanders the streets of Atlantic City self-righteously beating down the doors of establishments serving liquor in the name of the Lord, he keeps temptress Lucy locked away and pregnant, the result of his own lustful adultery.

It’s a classic case of repression versus sensuality, and as "Ken Burns: Prohibition” documentary series has been telling us recently, it’s the pivotal story of life during the “Boardwalk Empire” era.

Of course, every man has his weaknesses, and in Agent Van Elden’s case, keeping his under wraps is becoming more and more tiresome and difficult. Lucy is bored and feeling trapped keeping locked up in a boarding house during her pregnancy.

She is called upon by her Vaudeville friend Eddie Cantor, who leaves her with a script from a show that’s casting in town, which she acts out in a mirror. Van Elden takes the script from her, telling her to banish the notion of being seen in public with child.

Lucy’s continued complaints, and the admonition of a confidential informant to “treat a whore like a queen, and a queen like a whore” cause Van Elden to purchase Lucy a phonograph, a rather stunningly out of character move given his extreme dislike of all things outside of the Lord.

Good thing too, as the gift comes just as she is about to fling herself down the stairs – a sort of incredibly crude method of abortion.

While the trouble gives Lucy great pleasure, something tells me this is just the beginning of trouble for Van Elden and just the lukewarm beginning of what will eventually be a supremely hot mess.

Speaking of messes, the Governor is in town, and the Commodore and Jimmy are meeting him for dinner at Babette’s Supper Club. As luck would have it, Nucky and Margaret and friends have decided to dine there as well.

When Nucky discovers that the Commodore is eating the last lobster, the one he has tried and failed to order for Margaret, he marches over to the table and flips the dish over.

After threatening and chastising them all, Nucky leaves, but not before chucking a few choice words Jimmy’s way about how he helped the Commodore pick up his Mom when she was only 13. Jimmy stands up as if he’s about to smack Nucky but is reigned in by the Commodore.

Though Margaret has not been able to get her lobster thermidore, she has received a letter from a detective agency in New York telling her that she has family from Ireland now in the States.

When she has Katy, one of the maids, call the house where the family lives and ask about a woman named Peggy Rowan, she is told that Peggy Rowan is dead. Towards the end of the episode, Katy confronts Margaret, asking her if she is Peggy Rowan. By Margaret’s look we know the answer.

On other fronts, Al Capone, who (as you might imagine) is quickly developing into one of the more frightening characters on the show, visits Nucky to tell him that Torio will no longer be purchasing liquor form him, as he has a new supplier. Nucky reacts badly, but Capone doesn’t seem too worried about it. Nucky asks Capone how business is in Chicago and how they are dealing with competition. Capone says, “We’re killing ‘em.”

Given the rise of Capone, the tension between Nucky and Jimmy, and the rise of Irishman Owen Sleater as Nucky’s enforcer, that’s likely to be a familiar refrain in the coming weeks.