“Boardwalk Empire,” Season 1, Episode 2

Season 1, Episode 2

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The woman in the black-and-white portrait photos of Nucky’s deceased wife is played by Molly Parker, best known to HBO fans as Alma Garrett on “Deadwood.” That’s not the only connection.

Often “Boardwalk Empire” plays like “Deadwood” expanded to an exponentially larger community. Like “Deadwood’s” mining town crime lord Al Swearingen, Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson lives in a hotel, if the Gem Saloon can be equated with the entire eighth floor of the Ritz. Both characters have girlfriends with loose morals, comic-relief flunkies and regular run-ins with a terrifyingly angry law enforcement officer. Michael Shannon’s “revenuer” Nelson Van Alden may be even more intimidating than Timothy Olyphant’s Sheriff Bullock.

This week, Van Alden lays out how Nucky has a stake in seemingly every larcenous or illicit activity in town, while finding opportunities for graft Swearingen could scarcely imagine. “There isn’t a single business he doesn’t get a piece of — sanitation, police, fire department,” Van Alden explains, accompanying a snappy montage of how Nucky’s “City of Atlantic” works. How influential is Nucky? An off-hand remark about a beauty contest, intended merely to help a sleazy business associate get laid, appears to provide the origins of the Miss America pageant.