Nucky Thompson

It was revealed a little while ago that the fifth season of Boardwalk Empire will be the last, and while that’s very upsetting news for fans of the HBO series, it does at least mean that the team working on the show have had enough time to plan a suitable finale for Nucky Thompson and the colourful cast of characters.

The fact that the final season will jump ahead seven years is perhaps a sign that creator Terence Winter had a lot more story to tell had he been given the chance, but it should be a fascinating setting regardless.

The jump means that Boardwalk Empire’s final run of episodes will likely take place around the time of The Great Depression, and if it is around 1931, that’s about two years before the end of Prohibition and, thus, the end of Nucky Thompson’s biggest source of income, and a good point for the series to end.

It was also during this period that Al Capone’s time as one of Chicago’s top crime lord’s came to an end, so there will be a lot of very interesting real-life history to explore during this period as well.

The teaser promises a very solitary time for Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson, and seeing how the story ends promises to be one of TV’s biggest highlights when Boardwalk Empire returns in September.