For everyone that is a little confused about all that went down:


To an extent, I don't know that could be helped. It's an enormous cast, and a whole new world, to introduce in 75 minutes, and Terry Winter had to concern himself with setting up storylines for the entire season. But it's still a confusing sequence of events, and one where I needed a second viewing of the pilot, and then some extracurricular Google'ing, to fully appreciate it.

The broad strokes:

• Rothstein and Lucky Luciano are running things in New York. They want to buy Nucky's latest shipment of Canadian Club.

• Rothstein then cheats his way to a huge night at one of Nucky's casinos, to the point where Nucky is actually paying Rothstein for the privilege of taking all that whiskey off his hands.

• Johnny Torrio, formerly of New York, is now working in Chicago under Big Jim, and young Al Capone (whose introduction is one of my favorite moments in the pilot, and one that I hope wasn't spoiled for you by pre-show promotion) works as Torrio's driver. Big Jim doesn't want to get into bootlegging, and insists that his people stick to the prostitution business.

• Jimmy Darmody, frustrated at his lack of advancement in Nucky's operation, approaches the similarly frustrated Capone and they decide to rob the Canadian Club after Rothstein's people have taken possession of it, at which point Capone will take it back to Chicago and sell it to Torrio.

• Torrio, eager to get into bootlegging, arranges to take out Big Jim and take his place.

• And because Rothstein assumes the theft was an inside job by Nuck's people, Nucky's now on the hook to him for both the liquor (on top of what Nucky already paid to acquire it) and the gambling money.

All of that is in there, including the bit about Big Jim not wanting to sell liquor, but it's only mentioned briefly by Capone while he chats with Jimmy outside the big meeting. Miss that line of dialogue, and you've pulled the main thread on the whole thing.