Without any of the fanfare that was afforded to the finales of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos, celebrated US series Boardwalk Empire comes to a close this week.

Starring Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, the prohibition-set drama was littered with colourful characters and as well as providing a captivating recreation of the era.

· Reasons to love Boardwalk Empire
· Spring TV guide

The fifth and final season saw a crucial seven-year time jump forward to1931, putting generational change right on the table as Nucky struggled to hold onto his dwindling empire whilst revaluating the key choices that drove him into a life of crime.

Ahead of the final episode, being aired on Foxtel this week, here’s the moments and characters that defined the fifth season of the show – and we catch you up where episode seven, the second to last, left off.

Nucky’s Rise to Power

A young Nucky and the Commodore in season five of Boardwalk Empire. Photo: HBO

In a startling innovation, season five explored a season long flashback into Nucky’s youth. The sequence was the most intriguing aspect of the series, where the previously mysterious and unknowable Nucky is revealed in his full depth to the viewer.

First we meet seven-year-old Nucky in 1884 in his full innocence, trying to protect his mother from his weak, abusive father, before coming into contact with the Commodore (whom we saw as an old man in seasons one and two played by actor Dabney Coleman and by John Ellison Conlee in the flashbacks), the aristocratic town power broker, who encouraged the yooung Nucky to ignore his mother’s pleas for him to be pure of heart and become a hustler.

Flash forward to 1897 and we see Nucky in his early twenties as town sheriff, eager to get ahead but frustrated by his lack of progress into the Commodore’s good graces. Gradually Nucky comes to realise that in order to truly get ahead he must abandon his moral compass and do whatever is necessary to get ahead. This realisation was crystallised in the penultimate episode as Nucky realised that in order to join the Commodore’s inner circle he would need to help him procure small children to abuse as a paedophile.

The power of this extended flashback through the season was that it contrasted Nucky’s youthful naivety with his cold cynicism and misery as an older man.

As events pick up in 1931, with Nucky into his late fifties, we see his life has come full circle: his finances have been wiped out by the great depression and his reputation has become diminished as a successful bootlegger. Moreover, he seems resigned to his increasing irrelevance, seemingly more melancholic, weaker and disempowered than in previous seasons.

We see the cost of his success written all over him as he sinks into alcoholism and loneliness. With his empire crumbling, the finale of episode seven left the possibility for Nucky to find a final source of salvation.

In the flashback sequence, Nucky came upon an orphaned adolescent Gillian (Gretchen Mol), before making the decisive and morally corrosive step of giving her over to be abused by the Commodore.

Now in 1931, with Gillian holed up in an insane asylum with a doctor apparently committed to removing organs in the hope of curing mental illnesses, she writes a desperate plea to Nucky to save her. As the finale begins we are left wondering if one final and belated act of kindness can redeem Nucky from the decision 34 years earlier that would destroy him.

Al Capone

Al Capone. Photo: HBO

Season five begins with Al Capone at the height of his powers, living in opulence and grandeur in a hotel suite. Of course he has also become increasingly paranoid and deranged: casually murdering his underlings between cocaine binges.

Given his power and notoriety, the FBI has placed a mole in his operation, posing as a senior level mobster who enlists Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon) and Eli Thompson (Shea Whigham), who are now a two man team in Capone’s operation,  to steal crucial information that will indict Capone. Of course, the two bungle the job and Van Alden is shot dead trying to strangle Capone once he gets caught. But not before the FBI mole gets his hands on Capone’s dirty ledgers (the ones that would eventually lead to him being imprisoned for tax evasion).

In the series finale we expect for Capone to finally learn his inevitable fate.

Luciano and Lansky

Lansky and Luciano.  Photo: HBO

For the first four seasons Charlie “Lucky” Luciano (Vincent Piazza) and Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef) operated a small time operation while being mentored by more senior mobsters. In his opening scene of season five, as a statement of intent, Lucky Luciano murders his mentor, the previously unassailable Joe Masseria (Ivo Nandi) and plots to take over his New York criminal operation.

In the marking of generational change, Luciano and Lansky entered into an escalating war with Nucky Thompson to take over his operation in Atlantic City with the hopes of creating a nation wide criminal syndicate. As episode seven came to a close the two came to an uneasy truce with Nucky with his fate still hanging in the balance.

Eli

Eli Thompson. Photo: HBO

In the seven-year interlude from season four, it became apparent Eli had become a raging alcoholic with little to live for, so much so, he even forgot he’d been carrying on an affair with Van Alden’s wife on the side.

Improbably, Eli escaped from Chicago and made it back to New York to see his son Willy (Kevin Csolak) but not before witnessing him being kidnapped by Luciano and Lansky in their escalating war against Nucky.

Eli went to Nucky and the estranged brothers bury the hatchet to try and secure the boy’s release.

Willy, for his own part, had been seeking to make a more respectable name for himself in the New York district attorney’s office, but becomes embroiled in their gang war – seemingly unable to shake off the tainted Thompson name.

At the end of episode seven, Nucky was able to secure Willy’s release by paving the way for Luciano to create a vast criminal empire of his own through the United States.

Boardwalk Empire finale is broadcast express from the United States from Monday, October 27, 2014 at 4:30pm on Foxtel’s Showcase channel.