Welcome back to Chicago! Yep, looks like my suspicion at the end of last episode was on the money: Jimmy’s first stop in Chi-Town was to get back into Al Capone’s good graces, although it’s pretty evident from Al’s idea of a prank that he’s more than a little bit of a loose cannon. Firing a gun off at that range is likely to cause permanent hearing loss, wouldn’t you think? Still, it’s true: opium is good for what ails you. Not that Jimmy’s interested in pursuing that particular line of medication. His focus is more on his new female companion and nursemaid, Pearl, and after seeing how violently Al deals with his “clients,” it was all too easy to imagine Jimmy following Pearl to California. Al reminds him that he’s got some pretty big coattails that he’s welcome to ride on, but Jimmy shrugs, tells him he’s only passing through, and then offers the kind of advice which reveals that he could have his own criminal empire if he’d just put his mind to it. The difference between their styles of business only becomes more evident during their meeting with Charlie Sheridan (not to mention when they’re getting fitted for new suits), but I can’t blame Jimmy for wanting to let Al be hoisted with his own petard: the dude asked for it with his boorish manner. I mean, I know how history ultimately turns out, but surely Al needs to learn when to be a thug and when to be a businessman. On a related note, though, as soon as Sheridan’s boy came back into the whorehouse, I knew Pearl was in trouble, but I didn’t know exactly what was going to go down. Rough stuff, that. Come to think of it, it probably couldn’t hurt Jimmy to know when to be a businessman and when to be a thug.
Nucky’s practicing to look surprised for an upcoming birthday party when the ever-gorgeous Lucy pops by to inform him that she’s going shopping…which, of course, means that she needs money. After she departs, he chats further with Eddie about the guest list for the party, talking about how he’s anticipating to pull in some funds from an upcoming road appropriations bill. The fact that he’s pointedly underlined this fact leads me to believe that things aren’t going to go quite how he’s hoping they will. Nucky seems to be the only one in his camp who cares about finding out who Chalky’s man last week, but as he loudly reminds them, “Chalky cares, so that means I cares, and you can bet your ass, come Election Day, you’re gonna care, too.” It looks like Nucky’s chances at reelection are directly tied to whether or not he pulls in the African-American vote, but you’ll notice that Nucky has no ego about his situation and makes the very important distinction that it’s not that the populace in that community are doing what he tells them, it’s that he tells Chalky, and they do what Chalky tells them. Eli’s got a good point – Chalky’s not going to want to give up what he’s got – but better safe than sorry. Nucky’s getting positively anal about making sure everything’s right for the party and is stressed out to the Nth degree, leaving Eddie trying to maintain his good-cop persona and save face, but even he seems a little nervous about how crazy Nucky’s getting. It’s clear that he won’t be calming down until things have been smoothed over in Chalky’s community.
