'Boardwalk Empire' sneak peek at Tommy Gun's Garage

By Lori Rackl

TV Critic

Some lucky Nucky fans got an early look at “Boardwalk Empire’s” next episode Tuesday night during an HBO screening at Tommy Gun’s Garage on S. Wabash. (An apt location given that this season sees the introduction of real-life Chicago gangster Dean O’Banion, credited with introducing the Tommy gun to the mean streets of Chicago in the ’20s.)

Cast newbie Meg Chambers Steedle, a 2008 Northwestern grad, was at the screening of season three’s second episode, airing Sunday night on HBO. Steedle, who puts her singing, dancing and acting chops to work in HBO’s Prohibition era drama, plays Nucky’s new squeeze, Billie Kent.

“I’m excited — I haven’t seen the episode yet,” Steedle said before the screening started.

A few minutes into the show, she got an eyeful of herself — completely naked — on the big screen, in a post-coital scene between her and Nucky (Steve Buscemi). That sparked some awkward giggles from the audience.

In an interview last week with “Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter, he told me Steedle’s character was “very loosely inspired by a woman named Dot King, who was a flapper/showgirl who lived in a building owned by Arnold Rothstein. But the similarities pretty much end there.”

“She represents this new American girl,” Winter added. “It’s the dawn of the flapper age. This free-spirited young woman who comes and goes as she pleases is really a very new thing. She represents the new energy from the early 20s.”