'Boardwalk Empire' Season 2, Episode 4 Recap - 'What Does the Bee Do?'

With the premiere of “The Walking Dead,” a great episode of “Dexter,” playoff baseball, NFL football, a Steve Jobs doc and more, it would have been easy to forget about “Boardwalk Empire” last night, and that would have been a very big mistake. “What Does the Bee Do?” was quite literally the most explosive episode of the season.

Nucky has conveniently found a way around the Commodore’s Coast Guard trickery by way of Philadelphia and Arnold Rothstein. As tenuous as that relationship is, Rothstein is quite happy to set up a workaround, and take a healthy percentage as a result.

Jimmy heads to Philly himself to find a buyer for his own liquor and manages to find one in the very dangerous Yiddish butcher Manny Horovitz. Horovitz (played by legendary badass William Forsythe) agrees to buy a truckload from Jimmy, but not without first threatening to cut Jimmy to little pieces if he double-crosses him.

Of course Nucky has plans to put young IRA man Owen Sleater’s talents as an enforcer to good use, and he blows up the warehouse holding Darmody’s hooch with one of the Irishman’s homemade bombs. Of course two of Agent Nelson Van Alden’s men were snooping around the warehouse at the time, and one of them gets lit up like a Christmas tree. This is not going to be good for Jimmy.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we finally see Gretchen Mol (who plays Jimmy’s ridiculously hot mother Gillian) show the depth of her acting capabilities. She does a striptease for the Commodore as Diana, Goddess of the Moon a beautiful but punishing goddess. She shoots him with a fake arrow, tells him to prepare for the "righteous punishment of the gods," and he soon thereafter has a massive seizure and a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed and completely unable to speak out of one side of his mouth. More on how Gillian responds to the massive stroke later.

At Nucky’s home, Margaret is still having her struggles managing the help, and her conflicted feelings about managing them given her own upbringing. Nucky gives her some extra money to give the housekeepers as a bonus, and she’s shocked when they seem less than grateful. Turns out a drunken Nucky had promised to raise all of their salaries.

It’s clear that Margaret sees the potential for financial disaster in the near future, as she asks for money for clothes for the children, then hides it away for safe keeping. You get the feeling her instincts might serve her well in the future.

Nucky meanwhile is having a party at the Ritz chock full of naked and kinky whores imported from Philly especially for the Mayor’s birthday. Spanking and whipping commences - oh my! As the festivities are in full swing, legendary fighter Jack Dempsey makes a stop by to say hello.

While the champ is chatting with the er ladies about where they are from (again, Philly), Nucky’s lawyer gets the bright idea to have the whores confess to coming across state lines to entertain politicians and buy Nucky votes. This would change Nucky’s state indictment to a federal matter, which is something he can rely on his friends at the White House to help clear up.

Will the dangerous move pay off? Don’t count on everything going as smoothly as Nucky thinks it will.

Chalky White is back from prison and out amongst his people trying to clean up the mess from the massacre at the warehouse. He quickly discovers that his past deeds mean nothing if he is unable to take revenge for the killings when the mothers of the dead scream at him, blaming him for the deaths. He goes to Nucky for help, but Nucky advises him to “be a good boy.” Bad move, Nuck.

Chalky returns to his home and proceeds to go ballistic on his family for not serving the country-style food ("Hoppin' John" - or black-eyed peas and rice with bacon and onions) he requested. He’s clearly beginning to feel like a sell-out, and storms out, saying “it’s clear who the field n^&ger is in this house.” As we leave Chalky, he appears to be whittling himself a whooping stick, which is not going to be good for anyone involved, especially not the young man who's at dinner to court his daughter.

Jimmy’s wife, meanwhile, is exercising her artistic talents by sketching the half-masked face of fascinating assassin Richard, who spills the beans about a strange relationship he had with his sister, and then exposes his destroyed face. Uncomfortable things are clearly going to happen here.

Speaking of uncomfortable, the way this episode closes is even more explosive than the literal explosion at the liquor warehouse.

Gillian is now in charge of the Commodore’s care, and she starts by telling a loving story of how they first met. As continues, it becomes abundantly clear that this is no love story, and that she is set to exact some serious revenge for all the years of pain his rape and pedophilia has caused her. When we leave her, she’s beating the holy hell out of a semi-paralyzed and defenseless Commodore, seizing control when he’s most powerless, much as he did to her as a young teenage girl.

The question in the title of the show is "What Does the Bee Do?" and the answer, it appears, is that it stings. Damn, this show just keeps getting better.