I finished watching the final season last night. Was it disclosed exactly what became of Nucky’s first wife? She apparently miscarried their child but last I noticed, she was alive and didn’t seem like she was dying. Did I miss the part where she died or left or whatever or was that left unresolved?
In one of the last episodes of the first or second season (I don’t remember which), Nucky told Margaret how his first wife had died long before. IIRC, she did indeed miscarry, and she was shown in flashbacks in the final season only. Margaret was still alive at the end of the series and was doing business with Joe Kennedy, Sr.
It seemed as if she was growing dissatisfied with the relationship, in which case she could have left once the baby was out of the picture but on the other hand, she had just had a miscarriage and some blood loss and seemed confused or dazed when last seen so maybe she did die. If it was ever stated one way or the other, I missed it.
In the last episode of the first season (“A Return to Normalcy”), Margaret walks through a church graveyard and sees the headstone for Mabel and (baby) Enoch Thompson. The son lived for a week in 1912 and Mabel died a month after.
Later in the episode Margaret asks Nucky about his wife & son, and he tells her the following:
[QUOTE=Boardwalk wiki]
Enoch Jr. was sickly and underweight. Mabel was determined to nurse him to health but she had little support from her husband, who was terrified of the frail baby, afraid to hold him or even look at him. Nucky avoided them completely and put everything into his new job as county treasurer.
A week after the birth, Nucky returned home late and finally found the courage to look at his son, at which point he immediately realized the baby was dead. According to him, Mabel had “completely broken with reality", caring for the infant’s corpse for days as if he were alive.
Mabel was diagnosed with melancholia shortly before or after Enoch Jr.'s burial. Doctors assured Nucky that she would recover with time, but Nucky knew better. Nucky admits that he knew Mabel needed him, but he was "so very, very busy.” Mabel, left alone once again while her husband worked, slashed her wrists with his shaving razor a few weeks after the baby’s burial, on January 19, 1913.
[/QUOTE]
Is Nucky’s account to Margeret reliable? In the final episode there was no indication of a living baby, to the contrary, Mabel was evasive about what actually happened and referred to whatever happened as a “mishap” (if I remember right). Could the grave markers have been for a second, later child?
BTW, I thought the “Buschemi teeth” they gave the actor playing young Nucky were overdone and distracting.
" Nucky avoided them completely and put everything into his new job as county treasurer." He was still sheriff in the flashbacks in the final episode so there must have been a later baby, right?
Yes. The flashbacks in season 5 take place in 1897 (and earlier). She had a miscarriage, then years later in 1912 gave birth to Enoch Jr. who died shortly after.
Whether she had any other miscarries in intervening years in unknown.
Thanks!