A Guy Walks Into a Bar

"A Guy Walks Into a Bar" is the first episode of the first season of Mob City.

Synopsis
In 1925, Ben Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Sid Rothman kill a group of men and steal their booze-laden truck. In 1947, a man drops off a note in Police Detective Joe Teague's mailbox; Joe later discovers the note inside a matchbook and goes to a bar called "Bunny's Jungle" at 8 PM, as directed on the matchbook. While there, stand-up comic Hecky Nash gives Joe a bodyguard job in exchange for a grand to back him up on a blackmail deal. Joe is hesitant about it, and Nash leaves the bar awaiting his answer. Joe immediately pulls Nash's files and tells his superiors, Detective Hal Morrison and Captain William Parker, about the deal and how it could involve something big. Morrison sets up an undercover mob squad in the LAPD. Joe agrees to Nash's deal and meets with him later in the oil fields hills, in a more private area, while backup awaits down the hill. Sid Rothman meets with Nash, and they exchange some negatives for cash. Joe is hesitant to signal his fellow officers upon recognizing the pictures. Rothman leaves with his package, and Nash celebrates his victory at getting 50 grand in cash. However, he is quickly gunned down by Joe who then wipes the gun down, leaves it near Nash's body, and hides the money in his car. Morrison and the cops arrive, and Joe fabricates a story which points to Rothman as Nash's killer. Joe retreats to Bunny's Jungle, guilty of killing Nash. There, Ned Stax, a mob lawyer, sits next to him. Joe slides him the match book with the note on it, revealing that Ned was the one who had left it in his mailbox, and then gives him Nash's money. Ned offers the money back to Joe, claiming that his boss Bugsy Siegel wants him to have it, but Joe turns him down, not wanting to be an enforcer for the mob. The two part ways wishing each other Semper Fi, the U.S.Marine Corps motto, revealing they had fought in the war together.

Main cast

 * Jon Bernthal as Joe Teague
 * Jeremy Luke as Mickey Cohen
 * Milo Ventimiglia as Ned Stax
 * Jeffrey DeMunn as Hal Morrison
 * Alexa Davalos as Jasmine
 * Neal McDonough as William Parker
 * Robert Knepper as Sid Rothman
 * Edward Burns as Ben Siegel
 * Gregory Itzin as Fletcher Bowron

Recurring cast

 * Andrew Rothenberg as Eddy Sanderson
 * Pihla Viitala as Anya
 * Ron Rifkin as Fletcher Bowron
 * Simon Pegg as Hecky Nash
 * Amin Joseph as "Skeety"
 * Ernie Hudson as "Bunny"

Deaths

 * Numerous counts of unnamed people at the beginning of the episode
 * Phil Holtz
 * Hecky Nash

Trivia

 * First appearance of Joe Teague.
 * First appearance of Ned Stax.
 * First appearance of Hal Morrison.
 * First appearance of Jasmine.