Boardwalk Empire Finale Recap: Find Out Nucky Thompson's Ultimate Fate In HBO Show's Shocking Finale! 'An Act Of Betrayal Comes Full Circle' Reveals The Show's Creator!

It's the end of the Boardwalk Empire era on HBO. After several seasons that was a mixture of triumphs, and disappointments, the series ends its run on the cable network. Up ahead, are spoilers as we do a Boardwalk Empire finale recap, so if you haven't seen the last episode of this HBO gem, stop reading now.

The last episode of Boardwalk empire is entitled "El Dorado." It was written by showrunner Terence Winter (The Sopranos), and Howard Korder. This episode was directed by Tim Van Patten. The Boardwalk Empire finale recap can be summarized as follows: Nucky dies. Of course we're talking about Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, the crime boss, bootlegger, played brilliantly by Steve Buscemi. In El Dorado, he is gunned down by Tommy Darmody. If you recall Boardwalk Empire's season 2, this teenager is the son of Jimmy Darmody, whom Nucky killed in that season's finale. All season long, it seems that Tommy had been planning this act of revenge, as he worked his way into the inner circle, getting close with Nucky, pretending to be a kid named Joe Harper. He was, in fact, taken under Nucky's wings as his sort of protege.

In an interview with Deadline.com, showrunner Terence Winter shares, "This ending was so much more personal and more satisfying, Nucky is the cause of his own undoing, it's an act of betrayal come full circle."

This ultimate demise of Nucky's was actually hinted at in the Boardwalk Empire final season trailer released earlier this year. In the short clip, we see the star of the show, Steve Buscemi, as Nucky Thompson saying ominously: "The trick is to stay alive long enough to cash out."  It is clear that survival and a splashy exit is what our main character has in his mind. But the Boardwalk Empire final season 5 trailer also carries a warning of a tagline: "All empires fall."

For Winter, the series finale shocker was poetic justice, with no other ending as an alternative.  "Howard, Tim and I came to this conclusion at the end of season 4," said Winter.

As a backgrounder to this Boarwalk Empire finale recap, this season was set in 1931, in the beginning of the Great Depression, and coincidentally when the mob scene was being shaken up with Al Capone's (played in the series by Stephen Graham), incarceration and the formation of the mob commission by Charlie Luciano (Vincent Piazza).