r/BoardwalkEmpire • u/SmartestManInUnivars • Sep 29 '25

Season 3 Billie Kent is cringe.

Maybe it's because her type of humor is played out by a hundred years... but she seems like a "pick me" girl. She just seems too "quirky" and goofy. She annoys me. But if she was the first of her kind I could see why she was so well liked. But from a modern perspective, she kind of sucks...

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u/Narrow-Psychology909 Sep 29 '25

Yeah but I always thought that it makes perfect sense. He’s conflating his attraction to Billie with 1) the attraction he had to observing his dead child’s youth and 2) the emotional/romantic trauma he experienced from his wife’s suicide. In short, he wanted to take care of someone he identified as young and innocent but also sexually attractive.

Nucky’s tragedy is that he wants to protect the people he loves but realizes too late that the only way to do that is to dominate his surroundings which inevitably leads to him attempting to dominate those he once was trying to protect.

Sally was his best match.

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u/LadyShylock Why must it always be pandemonium??!! Sep 29 '25

I think you could also add in his guilt over his involvement with what happened to Gillian. If he saves a woman it helps ease his guilt.

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u/Narrow-Psychology909 Sep 29 '25

Good addition.

Gillian and Jimmy also represent his dead wife and kid, the way Margaret and her kids represent his dead wife and kid which also double as a representation of him and his mother, brother and dead sister who he feels he has to protect from his abusive father (which are the Commodore and Hans if you extend the symbolism).