Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Have Some Coke and a Smile, and Shut the F*** Up
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.13.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.While in Stockton, Clay brokered a deal with the Mexicans: the club is now muling pure, uncut cocaine for Danny Trejo. Remember that SAMCRO historically shuns the drug trade -- and indeed, one of the tenets of their pact with Unser was that they'd keep drugs out of Charming. Now, however, Clay's getting very nervous about the inevitable day when he has to step down, and he sees this deal as his nest egg. Although Jax initially protests, he soon makes his own bargain with Clay, promising he'll maneuver the club into approving the new line of work so long as Clay lets him walk away from SAMCRO without repercussions.
The SAMCRO boys are bitterly divided on the issue: Piney and Bobby Elvis are adamantly opposed; Juice and Opie are opposed only because they don't care for the risk; Tig wants what Clay wants. Their division closes over temporarily when the contretemps of the week break out. This time, it's Opie and Jax in peril after the Russians ambush them at the Wahewa's bullet shop. Danny Trejo's cartel shows up to kill everyone. As any cartel headed by Danny Trejo would. The club still has to vote, but I'm guessing Opie is now pro-cartel.
The local law enforcement is none too happy about all those dead Russians, but their displeasure with the man Potter has dubbed "Mayor McCheese" runs a pretty close second. Although many of the suits have cleared out, Potter and Roosevelt quickly figure out that SAMCRO didn't kill the Russians merely for revenge, and begin speculating on what "bigger play" the club's about to make. Roosevelt decides to rattle the SAMCRO cage, which he does by finding a boatload of fire code violations and taking an ax to their wall of mugshots. He also buries the hatchet in the table at church. "You pushed me to this," Roosevelt tells Clay. "I strongly suggest you don't do it again."
On the domestic front: Gemma is panicking about the contents of the letters between Maureen and John, and spends the entire episode trying ransack Jax and Tara's house for those letters. On the plus side: the house also contains a toddler and an infant, so nobody's going to notice if it's been tossed. Gemma eventually realizes Tara keeps the papers on her, heads to Tara's office and finds that not only does Tara have the letters, she's also got a copy of John Teller's accident report. Unser tells Gemma not to freak too hard about this, but you can tell Gemma's not going to rest until she's certain JT hasn't influenced Jax or Tara.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Morning comes to Charming. Clay lumbers into his living room and Gemma gives him a kiss, a cup of coffee and a moment to let down his guard before she nails him with a Gorgon-like glare of inquisition. Clay instantly guesses, "The papers?" "Yeah," Gemma replies. "The latest Mary Worth plotline is really chapping my ass." I kid! Gemma hasn't gotten past the big story on the front page about the four bodies found in Charming Heights. I can't get past the premise that the morning papers would have a story on the bodies already. Given the timetable these guys were operating on (shooting up the Russians in the middle of the night), the earliest the bodies would have been discovered is what, 6AM when the first construction crews began arriving for work? So what I'm saying is, it's a hell of lot more plausible that Charming.patch.com would have led with the story in the morning, while the local dailies -- which were probably to the presses around 2AM -- would not have. What is highly implausible is that either Gemma or Clay opens up their morning by sitting down at the computer and firing up a local news website.
Anyway. Clay's all, "Eh, it's all in a night's work," so Gemma plows on to what's really chapping her ass: the letters Maureen Ashby gave to Jax. Gemma's worried that whatever's in the letters is so mind-bending, it will permanently ruin Jax and Tara for SAMCRO. Clay dismisses that as unlikely: "It's probably a bunch of love letters and half-gay poems." Gemma hisses, "Or a stack of hate." How about none of the above? Based on what we've heard so far, ol' JT pretty much pioneered the LiveJournal format 25 years ahead of time. Nobody gets me! It's hard to be an idealist! I took a quiz and the character I'd be from The Lord of the Rings is Boromir, which totally sucks! Clay attempts to talk Gemma down, but she won't rest until she's sure that she's successfully reversed whatever brainwashing-from-beyond-the-grave John Teller's effected on Jax and his old lady. After Gemma leaves, Clay broods a little.
We zip to morning at the Knowles-Teller house, where Tara's running around getting ready for work, while also prepping the boys for the day and holding Thomas. Jax is sitting there cuddling Abel. Tara offers to scotch the usual childcare rota since Jax is home, but he demurs with, "I don't want to mess with their routines." Tara slides into a seat at the table -- Thomas, as per time-honored TV convention, is passed out -- and comments with a grin that it sure will be nice having the father of her two children around to actually help rear them. Before Jax can tell her, "Yeah, don't get any ideas ..." he notices the morning news, which is leading with the bodies found on the construction site. Tara, who is feeding Thomas now, asks if Jax was involved. He replies, "How much do you want to know?" Tara switches off the TV and says, "All of it." Jax tells her it was retaliation for his shivving. It's great that they're having such clear and honest communication, but maybe this is the kind of conversation that can wait until the kids are in bed? Or perhaps it's always been a parenting goal of Jax or Tara's to have their son go to preschool and proudly announce how their daddy likes to retaliate against the Russians? Whatever. The conversation's cut short by Gemma coming in and dryly saying, "We-ell, look at this perfect family." (And here is where I wonder if she's seeing herself and JT at that table before it all went so wrong.)