I heart Margaret Schroeder

For the last week, since the second season premiere of "Boardwalk Empire," I've been reading all over the 'net other people's opinions of the show, which seem to vary from "it's slow and boring" to "it's slow and boring, but really well made." Well, I think "Boardwalk Empire" is riveting. It's true that it's more character-driven than plot-driven, but when the characters are this well-written and illustrated, I'd watch them sit around and do crossword puzzles for an hour.

Case in point: Margaret Schroeder, played by Scottish actor Kelly MacDonald, whose story in tonight's episode may have put the character on my all-time favorites list. I already liked Margaret; her season one arc took her from impoverished, abused wife of a baker's apprentice (what the hell, by the way... aren't apprentices usually like 15 years old? Hans was the biggest deadbeat ever) to the "kept woman" of the most powerful man in Atlantic City - a move she owes almost entirely to her own street smarts.

Last season, we saw Margaret struggle with the idea of selling out some of her principles if it meant providing a stable life for her children. I loved how the show gave Margaret some agency, some say in her choices. She wasn't just some naif being dragged along by forces larger than her; she was a shrewd, intelligent woman who, by the end of the season, was able to admit to herself that, as Nucky told her, "a good person wouldn't be here right now." She dropped the Temperance Society pretense and started owning her choices.

Starting with tonight's episode, Nucky's beginning to appreciate the woman at his side. It's Margaret who retrieves Nucky's "Here's All the Illegal Stuff I Did Today" ledger from under the noses of the state investigators, and it's Margaret who suggests that maybe going forward he shouldn't keep a written record of his various illegal activities. But what I really loved is that this Margaret-as-Consigliere seemed like a perfectly natural progression of her character, not just something that the writers needed to happen. That last scene in the episode has been coming since the first time Margaret went to see Nucky in the pilot, and that's awesome writing.