Although the characters on Boardwalk Empire aren’t exactly remembered for being brainiacs, it would be wrong to overlook how vitally important intelligence really is when it comes to surviving in this brutal, dog-eat-dog criminal world. No one can make it to the top without having a few brain cells to rub together, and no one will survive in the long term if they don’t have what it takes to out-play their adversaries.
Some of these characters seemed like hapless idiots, some of them seemed like complete geniuses, and most of them landed somewhere in between. There are a lot of measures of intelligence, and many personality and psychological quirks can lead to downright stupidity, so sometimes it can be hard to gauge intelligence with any certainty. But this is every character in Boardwalk Empire, ranked by intelligence.
Lucy Danziger
As far as characters go in the entirety of TV history, it’s hard to imagine someone denser and less burdened with thought than Lucy Danziger. Lucy began her journey on Boardwalk Empire as Nucky Thompson’s bed buddy, but Nucky understandably didn’t have much interest in Lucy beyond that.
Lucy should be commended for her ability to at least play the hell out of the hand that she was dealt, but she was a self absorbed, shallow, and generally useless person who was lucky to get out of the seedy world of Atlantic City’s organized crime with her life.
Gillian Darmody
Gillian Darmody may not be the brightest bulb in the boardwalk, but she did manage to get exceedingly far considering how her life began. The cards were stacked against Gillian from the get go, and although it seems like she may have been capable of more she was tragically stunted by her childhood trauma at the hands of Nucky and the Commodore.
Gillian learned to be cunning, and in any other circumstance she probably could have had a happy and successful life, but she consistently saw herself being outplayed by everyone else around her.
Nelson Vanalden
Nelson Vanalden is not the first or last example of characters with a modicum of intelligence that was severely sidelined by mental illness, but he seems to be the most extreme example of that in the series.
Nelson was a relatively accomplished cop, that is until he went completely postal, but honestly he could never compete with most of the criminals around him. He found himself being consistently outplayed by them both when he was their adversary and their companion, and it seems fair to assume that his completely unhinged and deranged nature was a huge contributing factor to his intellectual weakness.
Gyp Rosetti
Gyp Rosetti came into Atlantic City and Boardwalk Empire pretty hot, but he had the strategy and force of will to back it up. It’s difficult to discern whether or not Gyp’s initial success in Atlantic City was driven more by his intelligence or his willingness to do absolutely anything in order to win, but regardless of the circumstance, he went toe to toe with Nucky and the rest of the Atlantic City criminal elite and almost came up the winner.
However, the “almost” is a pretty enormous and important caveat in this instance, because whatever smarts Gyp had just weren’t enough.
Jimmy Darmody
Jimmy Darmody is kind of a conundrum when it comes to his mental acuity and intellect. On the one hand, he seems to be a pretty extraordinarily smart person who advances himself in the world of organized crime very quickly, but on the other hand he’s someone who has been coping with a pretty intense death wish for his entire tenure on the series.
And as anyone could surmise, that death wish led to Jimmy making some extraordinarily stupid decisions more often than not. But since it’s hard to discern what was stupidity and what was self destructive behavior, the only thing left to judge is the results of his actions, which left him on the losing end one time too many.
Richard Harrow
Still waters certainly run deep when it comes to Richard Harrow. He is reluctant to open his mouth unless it’s completely necessary, and sometimes he makes himself seem like an exceptionally simple man. However, beneath that facade is someone who seems to be very smart and capable.
Richard’s aspirations in life were incredibly mundane, and he found himself embroiled in the world of organized crime more by accident than anything. But once he was ensnared in the underworld he not only survived, he thrived. And it seemed like he may have been one of the rare people to get out of the crime world alive, but the fact that he didn’t keeps him lower on the list.
Chalky White
Life obviously wasn’t easy for a black man in the 1920’s, so the fact that Chalky managed to work his way to the near top of social strata is a huge indication of his intelligence.
Chalky worked with Nucky and the other crime kingpins in Atlantic City, and he was pretty sharp when it came to playing even terrible circumstances to his advantage. He had a real knack for betting on the right horse in almost every race, even when it seemed like the wrong choice at first, and had he not been masterfully manipulated and outplayed by Valentin Narcisse he would have earned the top spot on this list.
Al Capone
Since Al Capone’s home base was in Chicago instead of Atlantic City, he was understandably mostly a satellite character throughout the course of Boardwalk Empire.
But with that said, it wasn’t hard to see how Al Capone became one of the most famous and infamous gangsters in the history of the country. Al started off the series as the low man on the totem pole, but by the end of it’s run he was one of the most powerful criminals in the world. Al knew how to work the system to his advantage, and work it he did.
Margaret Thompson
Margaret Thompson surely showed herself as a force to be reckoned with from the moment she showed up in Nucky Thompson’s life. Initially it seemed like she might be some damsel in distress, but the reality of Margaret was that she was a wildly intelligent and capable woman who had been literally and figuratively beaten down by a bad marriage and abusive husband.
Once she connected with Nucky she found her opportunity to really shine, and ironically she often times found herself outplaying Nucky himself. When more was asked of her she always rose to the occasion, and she rarely played things badly.
Nucky Thompson
If there is any lesson to be learned from Boardwalk Empire, it’s that everyone’s sins come back for them in the end. It’s the great irony of Nucky Thompson that he was in fact the most intelligent character in the series, however he couldn’t outrun the reality of what awful things he did to crawl his way to the top.
Even when Nucky was down for the count and seemed on the verge of a fatal loss, he figured out a way around it and saved himself and his empire. But in the end he couldn’t save himself from the backlash of his own original sin.
