‘Boardwalk Empire’ series finale: Terence Winter on Nucky Thompson – Tommy Darmody shock

For a series that spent so much time building up, “Boardwalk Empire” chose to end its series on Sunday night in a very surprising fashion. Of course, there are some major spoilers ahead, so do not read on if you want to avoid any and all spoilers.

Nucky went out in a way that was fairly full-circle, and touched back to the series’ most-shocking moment before this in season 2: The death of Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) at Nucky’s hand. It was his own son Tommy Darmody, now a teenager, who put the bullets into his chest at the end.

Speaking to Deadline about this decision to kill off Steve Buscemi’s character in the closing minutes, showrunner Terence Winter discussed how this ending, which was decided upon at the end of season 4, came about:

“This ending was so much more personal and more satisfying, Nucky is the cause of his own undoing, it’s an act of betrayal come full circle.”

So why was this ending different than the real-life story of Enoch Johnson, who actually lived to be in his mid-80s? As Winter stated, that ending just didn’t pack the same punch:

“There’s the true to life version of Nucky’s end where he went off into the sunset and into obscurity, but our Nucky isn’t Nucky Johnson, and this ending felt like the more dramatic choice, the better choice in wrapping up his life.”

We’re definitely not going to dispute that this was easier more exciting television, and we were happy that the show chose to go in this direction in the final minutes. It felt like as good of an ending as this series really could have had, which is something that they should be very proud of.

What did you think: Was this the best possible ending for the series? Share your thoughts with a comment.