Boardwalk Empire: what happens to Margaret?
Margaret Thompson (Kelly Macdonald) is one of the very few major characters who makes it out of Boardwalk Empire alive — and she leaves richer, sharper, and freer than anyone could have predicted in 1920. Here's her whole arc, start to finish.
Margaret in five seasons
- Season 1 — widowed on Nucky's orders, she becomes his mistress.
- Season 2 — marries him, then signs his fortune-making land over to the church.
- Season 3 — falls for Owen Sleater, loses him, and walks out on Nucky.
- Season 4 — brokerage secretary in Manhattan, and keeper of Arnold Rothstein's secrets.
- Season 5 — beats Wall Street with a short sale, and shares one last dance with Nucky.
From widow to wife
Margaret Schroeder arrives as a poor Irish immigrant with an abusive husband, Hans. Nucky has him killed — and framed — then takes Margaret as his mistress and, in season 2, his wife, conveniently ensuring she can't testify against him. The marriage curdles fast. After their daughter Emily is paralyzed by polio, a guilt-stricken Margaret signs Nucky's prized highway land over to the Catholic Church in the season 2 finale. He never really forgives it.
Owen, the pregnancy, and the crate
In season 3 she falls in love with Owen Sleater, Nucky's Irish enforcer, and the two plan to run away together. In "A Man, a Plan…" she tells him the stakes plainly:
"I'm pregnant. It's yours. You can do as you choose."
Hours later, Owen's body comes back from a failed hit on Joe Masseria — delivered to Nucky's suite in a crate. Margaret ends the pregnancy in the season finale, takes her children to a Brooklyn flat, and refuses Nucky's money.
The Rothstein years
By season 4 she's working as a secretary at a Manhattan brokerage when Arnold Rothstein turns up as a client under the alias "Abe Redstone." She keeps his secret; he arranges a decent apartment for her family. A deal with the devil, handled politely.
The short sale
Season 5 opens in 1931 with her boss shooting himself in front of the office after the crash. Worse, Rothstein is dead and his widow, Carolyn, threatens to expose the account Margaret helped him hide. So Margaret goes to the one man who understands leverage: Nucky.
Their reunion turns into a business partnership — using intelligence out of Joe Kennedy's orbit, Margaret shorts Mayflower Grain stock at exactly the right moment and makes them both a fortune. Their final scene together is a dance in an empty apartment, days before Nucky is shot dead on the boardwalk.