Friendless Child

In the Sopranos, flashback were shown, but they were minimal and showed why Tony is the person he is. In Boardwalk Empire, the flashbacks are a part of the story and young Nucky is a main character, He is a struggling man who wants to help, but he knows for a fact that helping others has its limits. Enoch 'nucky' Thompson has always been shown as someone who plays an act, what you see is not who he really is, and this episode tells you who he was and why he isn't that in a brilliant way that couldn't have been done better. To tell one how and why this episode works, would be to spoil it, and in a stupid way, because, to fully embrace the episode, you would need to be someone who has been with nucky since the beginning.