Ranking All Main Characters From Boardwalk Empire

Boardwalk Empire Characters Ranked Worst To Best

Boardwalk Empire
HBO

With a new year comes not just new TV shows to get our claws stuck into, but it's also an opportunity to revisit older series' or finally get round to watching a few critically acclaimed that previously passed us by.

As we push forward with the roaring 2020's, there's a strange nostalgia for a critically acclaimed series set almost a hundred years ago. I'm talking of course about HBO's incredible prohibition era gangster series, Boardwalk Empire.

For five seasons, we watched the rise and fall of an Atlantic City bootlegger whose navigation through the era of bathtub gin, cigarette girls and pin-striped suits also brought him into regular contact with some of histories most prolific criminal figures. And in doing so, gave audiences amazing and honourable performances that have to be seen to be believed.

Even though you were watching a show about immoral, criminal outlaws, it was hard not to root for most of the faces on screen. And while they weren't some of the nicest chaps in history, there were little cheers when they came victorious over the law.

In this list, I'll be ranking from worst to best, every person across the five seasons of Boardwalk Empire who was credited at some point as a main character.

21. Commodore Louis Kaestner

Boardwalk Empire
HBO

In a show filled with real-life murderers and gangsters, none were as deplorable or hateful as the menace of all evil - Commodore Kaestner.

As Nucky's mentor, and Jimmy's biological father, The Commodore's control over the two leads is palpable for the first season, and his devious power-hungry manipulations in the second set off the more violent chain of events. There was something almost generational about the relationship of the three characters, with Nucky serving more as a father to Jimmy than the Commodore himself.

His evil acts across history varied from small such as the influence and manipulation of Jimmy, through his racist and sexist belittling of his housemaid, and all the way to the rape of Gillian Darmody when she was a child, there was not redeeming quality about The Commodore.

His position as so low on the ranking is purely down to his position as a hateful, detestable figure. The Commodore was a man who threw his political (and once physical) strength around too casually during his time on the show.

Had it not been for his sickening vices, a lot of the horrific events in the show might have never happened.

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I overthink a lot of things. Will talk about pretty much anything for a great length of time. I'm obsessed with General Slocum from the 2002 Spider-Man film. I have questions that were never answered in that entire trilogy!