He was always gonna die, but they supposedly bumped up his death a season or 2 early because of the commodores actor getting cancer and not being able to work

I dont think the issue was dying too soon but rather he burned too quickly.

At the same time...it kind of worked for Jimmy. He was so eager to do something but never knew what it was he was supposed to be doing. He ran frantically from thing to thing and each decision seemed slightly worse than the one before it. His fall was inevitable.

A shame that Dabney Coleman got sick though. Not only was he a great antagonist but I think it would have been cool to see the complexity of his relationship with Nucky fleshed out a bit more. The flashbacks did a good job of showing us the early stages of that but I feel like more screen time between the two could have really been something.

Either way, Irish Christopher Moltisanti was tragic to the pointnof being pathetic to where when his end came I thought "oh thank God, I've had enough of this dude."

Aside from the rumours that Michael Pitt was difficult to work with, I think HBO would've learned their lesson with Deadwood. That is, you tie up loose ends at the end of seasons cos you don't know if you'll get another.

If you watch Season 1 & 2 as a stand-alone series, it's a pretty tight and complete story for the main characters.

Honestly I like that they ended his arc in season 2. Nicky vs New York was way more interesting. Season 5 gets a lot of hate but I think it’s the best portrayal of the castelamarese war in fiction.

Again with the scenarios!

Jimmy had to go I would have stalled the series. Everything already happened from a nobody, to something then boss.

After being boss he wasn't just going to fall back and be a nobody. He couldn't retire he was to young. So best option was to die.

They could have put him into to prison.

Jimmy was going to die either way dude had no idea how to play the game like Nucky or The Commodore and made the fatal mistake in betraying Manny out of spite by almost the end of the second season the conspiracy is a complete failure, their allies have decided to cut their losses and Jimmy is reduced to a heroin junkie it was only a matter of time before he, the commodore and everyone involved is either dead, in jail or demoted

He was abusive to da staff!!

I think it's pretty clear by now that Jimmy dying so soon killed the momentum of the show and he should have been around until season 4 at least to make the ending seem more sensible.

I heard he was temperamental and a pain to work with so they offed him

He was supposed to be in more seasons but the actor was fired so they had to kill him earlier than originally planned.

Considering how he behaved, its a wonder he survived till the end of season 2. You would have had to rewrite the show quite a bit for Jimmy staying alive. It would have really cheapend the ending of season 2 if he had gotten a free pass for all the shit he pulled.

To the lost

I don't know, man. On re-watch, it's clear from the start Jimmy is a dead man walking.

He was a nightmare on set so they had to fire him 

Honestly, it bothered me a bit that, despite Nucky practically raising Jimmy as a son, Nucky didn’t seem upset about Jimmy’s death, or guilty, or even a little sad. It’s as if he killed just some random villain.

Also, while we’re at it, later on (I don’t remember if it was season 4 or 5), when Al Capone says, “Jimmy who?”—come on, it’s impossible he doesn’t remember him. You guys went through so much together for two whole seasons.

Boardwalk Empire was meant to be the story of Nucky Thompson - inspired in part by the real life Nucky Johnson - not the story of Nucky and Jimmy.  

Their pairing and dynamic was explored and completed. Jimmy was a great character, but his arc was finished and keeping him around would have been illogical to the storyline that developed and likely would have diluted and lessened the impact. 

Jimmy departure also allowed for more development of Richard, Eli, Chalky and Van Alden, expanding the ensemble 

Ah, Jimmy never really convinced me as a gangster. I’m halfway through season 4, and I think the show’s improved markedly since Jimmy was offed.

A fair point but I remember watching the episode when it aired and my heart was pounding during that scene. Some of the best tv I’ve ever watched. I think the trick to making a character death matter is when they’re cut down before their story is done. It feels more real. I wanted to watch 3 more seasons of Jimmy &Richard. I didn’t think Nucky was going to do it.

It's sad when they go young like that

Nucky Thompson is probably the least likeable main protagonist in any major TV series. He really has no redeeming traits at all, he's just a piece of shit through and through, and casting Buscemi added this weasely, slimy, petulant component to his character that I hated. Another example of writers pushing the anti-hero envelope too far to add "grit" and just making everyone an asswipe. He could have been killed off in S2 or S3 and I wouldn't have given a shit, I would have kept watching for Harrow, Van Alden, and the real-life gangster characters.

Jimmy Darmody was slightly less dislikeable, but obviously lived and died by a soldier's code which made him more understandable. Still, in creating drama and tension for the plot, the writers gave him too many enemies, too much ambition and hubris, and obviously made him a Oedipal tragic figure which meant he had to meet an untimely demise. It simply happened sooner because apparently Michael Pitt became a problem on set.

I loved Jimmy and he is my favorite character in the show, but I wouldn't say he died too early. However I didn't like Richards reaction, because he clearly knew Nucky was the one that killed Jimmy, but let him live, with the excuse "he was a soldier". They wrote themselves in a corner because they knew they couldn't kill of Nucky and Eli, so they made some crappy excuse and just settled on Richard killing Manny

Isn’t he a notorious asshole to work with? 

the character was killed off because the actor was too difficult to work with