The second season of the HBO television series ''

Boardwalk Empire ''Boardwalk Empire'' is an American period crime drama television series created by Terence Winter and broadcast on the premium cable channel HBO. The series is set chiefly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the Prohibition era of the 1920 ...

'' premiered on September 25, 2011, and concluded on December 11, 2011, consisting of 12 episodes. The series was created by

Terence Winter Terence Patrick Winter (born October 2, 1960) is an American writer and producer of television and film. He is the creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO television series ''Boardwalk Empire'' (2010–14). Before creating ''Boardwal ...

and based on the book ''Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City'' by Nelson Johnson. Set in

Atlantic City, New Jersey Atlantic City, often known by its initials A.C., is a coastal resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. The city is known for its casinos, boardwalk, and beaches. In 2020, the city had a population of 38,497.

, during the

Prohibition era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic be ...

, the series stars

Steve Buscemi Steven Vincent Buscemi ( ,As stated in interviews by Buscemi himself, some may insist that his pronunciation of his own name is "wrong" because it does not match the original Italian pronunciation as well. It is not uncommon for people to pronou ...

as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (based on the historical Enoch L. Johnson), a political figure who rose to prominence and controlled Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholi ...

period of the 1920s and 1930s. The second season takes place between February and August 1921. The second season was released on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1 on August 28, 2012.

Cast

Main

Jack Huston Jack Alexander Huston (born 7 December 1982) is a British actor. He appeared as Richard Harrow in the HBO television drama series ''Boardwalk Empire''. He also had a supporting role in the 2013 film ''American Hustle'', portrayed the eponymous ...

and Gretchen Mol were promoted to series regulars for the second season after appearing in several episodes during the first season. *

as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson *

Michael Pitt Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor, model, and musician. Pitt is known in film for his roles in '' Murder by Numbers'' (2002), Bernardo Bertolucci's '' The Dreamers'' (2003), Gus Van Sant's '' Last Days'' (2005), and M ...

as James "Jimmy" Darmody *

Kelly Macdonald Kelly Macdonald (born 23 February 1976) is a Scottish actress. She is known for her roles in '' Trainspotting'' (1996), '' Gosford Park'' (2001), '' Intermission'' (2003), '' Nanny McPhee'' (2005), '' No Country for Old Men'' (2007), ''Boardwa ...

as Margaret Schroeder *

Michael Shannon Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor, producer, musician, and theater director. He is an off beat actor known for his on-screen versatility, performing in both comedies and dramas. He became known for his frequent ...

as Nelson Van Alden * Shea Whigham as Elias "Eli" Thompson * Aleksa Palladino as Angela Darmody * Michael Stuhlbarg as

Arnold Rothstein Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 4, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletic ...

Stephen Graham Stephen Joseph Graham (born 3 August 1973) is a British actor. He is best known for playing Andrew "Combo" Gascoigne in the film '' This Is England'' (2006) and its television sequels ''This Is England '86'' (2010), '' This Is England '88'' ...

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...

Vincent Piazza Vincent Piazza (born May 25, 1976) is an American film, television and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of gangster Lucky Luciano in the HBO television series ''Boardwalk Empire''. He has also played Earl Hefner in the comedy-dra ...

Charlie Luciano Charles "Lucky" Luciano (, ; born Salvatore Lucania ; November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano started his criminal career in the Five Points gang and was instrument ...

Paz de la Huerta María de la Paz Elizabeth Sofía Adriana de la Huerta y Bruce (; born September 3, 1984), known professionally as Paz de la Huerta, is an American actress and model. She had roles in the films ''The Cider House Rules'' (1999) and ''A Walk to Re ...

as Lucy Danziger *

Michael Kenneth Williams Michael Kenneth Williams (November 22, 1966 – September 6, 2021) was an American actor. He rose to fame in 2002 through his critically acclaimed role as Omar Little on the HBO drama series ''The Wire''. He has been described as a "singular pre ...

as Albert "Chalky" White *

Anthony Laciura Anthony Laciura (born September 27, 1951) is an American actor and operatic tenor. Laciura is often noted for his abilities as a comprimario, and actor. Born in New Orleans, he studied voice there with Charles Paddock, also the teacher of Tich ...

as Eddie Kessler *

Paul Sparks Paul Sparks (born October 16, 1971) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as gangster Mickey Doyle in the HBO period drama series ''Boardwalk Empire'', writer Thomas Yates in the Netflix political drama series '' House of Cards'', m ...

as Mieczyslaw "Mickey Doyle" Kozik *

Richard Harrow Richard Harrow is a fictional character on the television series ''Boardwalk Empire'', played by the actor Jack Huston. Fictional biography Backstory Richard was a sharpshooter in the US Army during World War I. He was badly disfigured during th ...

* Gretchen Mol as Gillian Darmody *

Dabney Coleman Dabney Wharton Coleman (born January 3, 1932) is an American actor. Coleman's best known films include ''9 to 5'' (1980), '' On Golden Pond'' (1981), ''Tootsie'' (1982), '' WarGames'' (1983), '' Cloak & Dagger'' (1984), ''The Beverly Hillbillies ...

as Commodore Louis Kaestner

Recurring

Episodes

Reception

Critical reception

The second season of ''Boardwalk Empire'' received extremely positive reviews from critics. On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the second season scored 82/100 based on 14 reviews. Another aggregator website,

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, reported 91% of critics gave the second season a "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 34 reviews with an average score of 8.2/10, with the site consensus stating "Boardwalk Empire delves deeper into both its intriguing supporting players and its rich tapestry of moral ambiguity."

Awards and nominations

The second season received 12

Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...

nominations for the

64th Primetime Emmy Awards The 64th Primetime Emmy Awards, honoring the best in prime time television programming from June 1, 2011 until May 31, 2012, were held on Sunday, September 23, 2012 at the Nokia Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, California. ABC televised the cer ...

and won 4 altogether. The series received its second consecutive nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, while

was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. The series won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series for " 21", and Outstanding Special Visual Effects Television Miniseries, Movie, or Special for "Georgia Peaches" at the

64th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards The 64th Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony was held on September 15 at the Nokia Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles and was televised September 22, 2012 on ReelzChannel. This is in conjunction with the annual Primetime Emmy Aw ...

Tim Van Patten Timothy Van Patten (born June 10, 1959) is an American director, actor, screenwriter, and producer. He has directed episodes of ''Perry Mason'', ''Boardwalk Empire'', '' Black Mirror'', '' Deadwood'', '' Ed'', '' Game of Thrones'', '' The Pacific ...

won the

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series is presented to the best directing of a television drama series, usually for a particular episode.Though this category is the dominant one in which dramatic directing has been ...

for " To the Lost".

References

External links

* * {{ScreenActorsGuildAwards EnsembleTVDrama 2010–2019 Boardwalk Empire 2011 American television seasons Fiction set in 1921 fr:Boardwalk Empire#Deuxième saison (2011)