The HBO prohibition drama, Boardwalk Empire, which enters it's fifth and final season September 2015, is known for its blend of fact and fiction.

Salvation Coming for Nucky Thompson?

The show is based on Nelson Johnson's nonfiction book of the same name. The book explores Atlantic City, NJ during the height of prohibition, along with criminal activity in the area during the 1920s and 1930s.

Boardwalk Empire Adds New Character

While series creator Terence Winter chose to change the name of real-life gangster Enoch "Nucky" Johnson to the fiction Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (Steve Buscemi) to allow the program room to drift from historical accuracy, the character and his real-life counterpart do share a number of traits.

Thompson spent time during the series living in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, just like Johnson did. His first wife died when they were young and he married a second time to a women he had previously helped with financial difficulties. Thompson even wears a carnation in his lapel, just as Johnson had.

HBO's Boardwalk Empire has made some notable changes, including the premature death of Thompson's man James "Jimmy" Darmody (played by Michael Pitt on the show and based loosely on the real-life James H. Boyd).

However, as the series draws to a close, with fact or fiction win out?

Johnson died of natural causes in 1968, which indicates that Thompson might just make it out alive. Johnson's brother Alfred "Alf" Johnson also lived into the 1950s, which might mean good things for fictional Eli Thompson (Shea Whigman).

 Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) on the other hand, might not be so lucky. The real-life Rothstein was shot and killed in 1928.

With the final season of Boardwalk Empire quickly approaching, audiences will soon know who lives, dies, and manages to come up on top.

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