Season 3 picks up 16 months after the shocking events of Season 2. It's 1922. Nucky decides to hold a flash New Year's Eve bash. Margaret helps him the hosting, despite their recent disputes. On the lam, Van Alden works as a clothing iron salesman in Chicago when he stumbles into a dispute between Al Capone and Dean O'Banion. Jimmy's death has left Richard as his son's caretaker, but Gillian refuses to let him learn the truth about his parents.
Boardwalk Empire has grown into a series interested in the rippling effect that competition, greed and duplicity can have on an individual and the choices he or she makes.
Jack Huston does more with half his face than most actors do with the whole lot, and he imbues a man of few words with the depth only long-form television is able to provide.
Hanging in there is very easy on a show with such dazzling production values, which turn the 1920s into a darkly lit dream, and such knockout performances.
That's Boardwalk Empire. It may not have the mystery or emotional depth of The Sopranos, but it lays out its story and makes sure all the pieces fit together very, very well at the end. And when you get to the end, that can feel awfully satisfying.
Boardwalk Empire is in the tradition of gangster stories that treat their principals less as tragic heroes than as troubled businessmen, and there's something businesslike in its handsomely mannered approach to elaborating underworld myth.