Previously, on Sons of Anarchy … A bunch of white supremacists picked the wrong town to move into (Charming, California) and the wrong lady to gang-rape* (Gemma Teller Morrow), then spent their brief tenure in the San Joaquin county hamlet learning to regret those strategic missteps.
Also: Agent Stahl -- whom you will all remember as having an ambition-to-competence ratio of approximately 100:1 -- managed to badly bungle a plan to take down the IRA's Northern California operations. She shoots an IRA informer, Edmond Hayes, then manages to pin the murder on Gemma (who was there to murder Edmond's girlfriend, Polly, the White Supremacist's Daughter).
Unsurprisingly, Edmond's dad does not take news of his son's murder well. Clay sums it up quite accurately with: "Cameron [Hayes] killed Half-Sack and took my grandson because Stahl lied and framed Gemma."
So we start this season with Gemma on the lam, Abel off-screen with a grief-crazed IRA gunrunner, and the SAMCRO regulars up to their eyebrows in all sorts of legal trouble. Here's what happens in the Season 3 premiere:
SAMCRO's managed to get Gemma out of California, and she's parked in a motel up near the Rogue river in Oregon with a few local riders and Tig to keep her safe. Clay makes the call to keep the news of Abel's kidnapping from Gemma, reasoning that, should Gemma find out what's happened, she's likely to head back to California, thereby increasing her chances of getting caught.
Even with Gemma unaware of the Abel situation, she's still convinced she needs to get back to California, so she tries to take off. Tig is the voice of reason who stops her first escape attempt. Yeah, swirl that phenomenon around in your head like a fine wine: livestock-molesting, ear-macerating Tig is the voice of cool rationality.
But Gemma's not to be deterred. When she sneaks out of her motel room -- someone needs to tell the SAMCRO boys up in Oregon to pay attention to their surroundings -- and tries to steal an SUV, she's caught by the outraged owner, and when she stabs him, that's when the SAMCRO boys finally realize Gemma's not doing her nails in the hotel room. Tig figures that it will be a lot less stabby for the Emerald State's residents if Gemma gets what she wants, so he agrees to help her head back to her family. First step: visit her newly-bereaved, demented dad. (He's a reverend. Which explains a lot about Gemma's attitudes toward religion.)
Meanwhile, back in Charming …
Jax spends much of the episode in a fog of helpless grief. The SAMCRO regulars have no time for moping around, and they get his ass back on the bike and begin chasing down any leads they can as to Cameron's whereabouts.
However, Jax still manages to steal away for some quality brooding time at his dad's grave. Piney finds him there and tells Jax to get his head together. This gets Jax going, and we find out the real problem: He's having work-life balance issues. It's hard to co-run a motorcycle club when your work insists on breaking into your home and stealing your kid. (Who in corporate America hasn't been there?) Piney's advice? Channel John Teller: "Be loyal, decent. Love the right things."
Tara has to go talk to Stahl about Cameron's baby-napping. That turns out to be the high point of her day: Jax pulls the "I'm no good for you" act and dumps her, then she has a panic attack during a neonatal surgery. But Tara rallies -- at least on the love life front, and tells Jax, "We're just better people when we're with the people we're supposed to be with." Since Jax has spent the last two seasons groping toward a vague-yet-idealized sense of self, the idea of Tara as his ticket to being a better person ultimately convinces him to un-dump her.
(By the way, Cameron and Abel made it to Belfast, and have met his cousin Maureen [played by Paula Malcolmson, thanks to the Laws of Casting that guarantee a minimum number of Deadwood actors on any decent show]. She's now taking care of Abel.)
Then it's time for Half-Sack's wake. Over the coffin, Clay gives Jax his version of the "get your head together" talk, pointing out that Jax is a leader in the club, and that means stepping up as a leader and a father even when he can't imagine doing so. When Clay mentions that John Teller unspooled after his son Thomas's death, Jax mutters, "I'm not my old man."
DING! We have a theme for the season: Whose son is Jax, really? He has Piney counseling him to embrace the best of what John Teller had to offer -- but John Teller is dead, and Clay is alive and doing whatever he can to get the baby he considers his grandson back.
And then the episode ends with a bang -- a van pulls up outside the funeral home and begins shooting. Wounded: Chuckie the masturbating accountant and some bystander's kid. Very likely dead: Hale, who gets taken out by the van when trying to shoot it down. One of the assailants falls out of the van and he's apprehended by the police, but Jax finally snaps, flings away all three officers and beats the guy into the middle of the episode.
* Not that there is ever really a right lady to gang-rape.
Previously on Sons of Anarchy: Meet the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Originals (SAMCRO), headquartered out of Charming, California. SAMCRO was started by a handful of alienated young men when they came home from serving their country in Vietnam and felt as if their country had no place left for them. One of those men, John Teller, had a sort of hippie-biker thing going; he is now dead, and the club's run by another founding member, Clay Morrow. Clay is nobody's idea of a hippie
Clay's married to John Teller's widow, Gemma. He's made John Teller's son, Jackson "Jax" Teller, the VP of the club. Most of the club members allegedly make their money off the auto body shop they operate, but the real truth is that they run guns, supplying all manner of groups who have their own reasons for not purchasing registered firearms. They also freelance in porn. The Charming police department is not unaware of these goings-on, but there's an informal understanding: SAMCRO keeps the town free of drugs and/or crime, the PD will not ask too many questions.
Hang on -- we're still on the background here.
Moving on to SEASON ONE: Jax becomes a father and it triggers an existential crisis, leading him to question who he is, who his father was, and what the "real" direction of SAMCRO should be. Not helping matters: his mom tries to kill his drug-addicted ex-wife/mother of his child; the former love of his life (Tara) is the neonatal surgeon assigned to his son's medical care; and Tara did not just bring emotional baggage back to Charming, but also an unhinged ex-boyfriend and ATF agent, Kohn. Jax decides against wooing Tara with flowers and skips straight to the part where he just kills her ex before Kohn can rape Tara. Truly, a love story for the ages.
Also: SAMCRO discovers that a sort of informal affirmative action is affecting their chokehold on the gun-running business; they're dealing with some racist thugs (Darby among them) who keep trying to set up a meth lab in town, thereby endangering the gentlemen's agreement twixt town and club; the SAMCRO-friendly police chief (Unser) will be retiring to battle cancer, and his replacement (Hale) is idealistic enough to believe that one does not live with the lesser of two evils, but tries to eliminate all evils. And then the ATF comes in to investigate SAMCRO, and owing to one agent's (Stahl) lethal combination of unearned hubris and incompetence, they manage to set off a chain of events that leaves Jax's BFF (Opie) a widower by Clay's right-hand guy (Tig).
Let's move on to SEASON TWO: Hale's brother makes a deal with some white supremacists (among them Zobelle and Weston) who promise to clean up Charming if they can just be left alone to stew in their own racist foolishness. It turns out their idea of cleaning up Charming is to gang-rape Gemma, reasoning that she'll run and tell the club, the club will understandably lose its collective mind, then do something so repellent, the town will demand they be expelled. Then the white supremacists can turn Charming into their personal hub for gun running and drug dealing.
However, nobody bothered to do advance work on the would-be victim, or else they would have realized that beneath the frosted hair lurks a tactical brain both Rommel and Patton would have killed for. And even though Gemma spends much of season two reeling from what happened to her, she only busts out the rape news when she senses keeping her mouth shut would fragment the club. Her timing is impeccable: an intergenerational smackdown between Clay and Jax is averted, and the newly-focused club manages to wreck Zobelle's life, put a stop to the plans to turn Charming into a heroin hub, and kill Weston. They even have Hale on their side, as he's had a chance to witness the lesser and greater of multiple evils and assess which he can live with.
Before we get to that comparatively happy ending, however: Clay and Jax butt heads over SAMCRO's adult-entertainment business and when the Caracara studio gets burned down, Jax incorrectly assumes Clay was behind it, and only Gemma's timely intervention keeps him from leaving the club. Once this drama's averted, Opie learns that Tig killed his wife, and there's a big ol' scene there, but eventually that calms down.
And the plot that takes us into season three was, of course, started by Stahl. She's after the IRA and leans on SAMCRO member Chibs to become an informant. He ultimately decides against it, and Stahl attempts to work on the local IRA talent. This backfires magnificently -- she ends up shooting her own witness in the back because she's too incompetent to hold anyone captive -- but Stahl manages to screw up a few more people's lives by pinning the IRA kid's murder on Gemma, (who was there to murder Edmond's girlfriend, Polly Zobelle).
Unsurprisingly, Edmond's dad does not take news of his son's murder well. Clay sums it up quite accurately with: "Cameron [Hayes] killed Half-Sack and took my grandson because Stahl lied and framed Gemma." In addition to the personal implications, this will probably not help SAMCRO's already shaky relationship with the IRA.
And NOW, on to season three.
Jax is shirtless, smoking a joint, and sitting on the floor of Abel's nursery. We get a wordless montage: Tara's in his kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee alone; Gemma's in a hotel room, pacing restlessly, and checking on her guards outside; Clay's sitting in church, smoking a cigar alone and brooding.
The conversation starts off badly (Tara: "I think you blame me.") and goes downhill from there. Jax has apparently been thinking in the shower, and he's decided that "This has nothing to do with you. None of it does," which is a handy way to diminish how Tara's cared for his child, jeopardized her career on behalf of his club, and begun carrying the guilt over Abel's abduction. So he pulls the "baby, I'm no good for you" card, tops it with a healthy dose of self-pity ("I don't think shit through, what it does to other people") and then ... declines to think through his decision to dump Tara and what it might do to her. This is Jax being noble. Or sort of a wuss who doesn't want to have to think about anyone else's feelings right now. Your call, really.
Tara spends the scene gaping at Jax all, Why am I so smitten with such an idiot? Why must you BE such an idiot? And would it kill you to comb your damn hair every once in a while? Bobby Elvis can probably teach you how -- his hair always looks nice, but after he heads out, she snaps out of her disbelieving state and lays waste to the nursery.
Gemma's giving herself a manicure, collecting the nail clippings over a section of newspaper, when something in the obituaries catches her eye. She takes off her glasses and stares around, clearly rattled by whatever it is she's read.
And now, time for SAMCRO to meet with LeRoy's friend. To the credit of the counterfeiter, he does not immediately lose control of his bladder when Opie looms, and we find out that the counterfeiter had made Cameron one set of papers (he's now Timothy O'Dell when he travels) but he didn't do any travel documents for a baby. This leads noted thinkers Jax and Opie to conclude not that Cameron found someone else for Abel's docs, but rather that Abel could still be local. Oh, hey, Bobby Elvis just had the same thought I did! Jax, in addition to taking the hair-care tips from Bobby Elvis, ask him for a primer on mental habits. The forger stammers out quickly, "Someone trying to hide a kid is not going to get any papers from me. I don't want that kind of trouble." Clay wants more details on what the forger did do, and learns that he met Cameron down in Chinatown, and there's a marina nearby. Juice is going to see if there are any boats registered to Timothy O'Dell.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the law, Hale's packing up to move into his swanky new sheriff digs when his housekeeping (officekeeping?) is interrupted by a visit from his brother and his brother's pet bouffant. Seriously, Jacob Hale's hair deserves its own credits; it looks sentient. And quite possibly as amoral as the human host upon which it perches. Jacob's come into his brother's office for a little fence-mending: "That shit with Zobelle -- I'm sorry." Hale sighs in exasperation: "Doesn't matter now. He's Interpol's problem. Weston's dead, courtesy of Clay, I'm sure." Jacob defends his bad judgment with, "I saw an opportunity I thought could help this town," and Hales takes the piss by acidly inquiring, "And how are the mayoral plans shaping up?" They're shaping up to be a plotline this is season is what they're doing: Jacob is facing off against Oswald (who is, you will remember, indebted to SAMCRO on account of what they did to his daughter's assailant back in season one), and Jacob wants the chief of police to endorse his run, nepotism be damned.
We go back to SAMCRO, which is now at the marina where one Timothy O'Dell keeps his boat. It is not a vessel made for the high seas. Nor is it occupied by anyone, which is a good news/bad news situation. On the plus side: No tiny infant bodies to be found. On the minus side: nothing that's useful at all. Jax does find a tiny knit SAMCRO beanie on the docks and it sends him off into another brooding fit.
And right outside the Rogue river, Gemma's skulking out of her hotel room, but Tig -- who knows from skulking -- immediately catches her and inquires as to what the hell she thinks she's doing. Gemma tells him she needs to borrow a ride, and heads for Tig's truck. When he grabs her by the upper arms to tell her she's not getting it, she shrieks, "Let go of me!" He immediately does, looking apologetic. Hands up, all of you who think that Gemma's rape affects Tig in deeper and more enduring ways than he'll ever admit. He whispers an apology and Gemma shows him the newspaper page in question and says, "I've got to go home. He needs me." Tig swears under his breath, then lays out the reality of the situation: Gemma's APB went wide, so "every cop in five states knows your face. And the Feds are offering $10K for any info. You gotta sit tight. I'm sorry." Gemma fulminates.
Then we cut to her son, doing likewise on the docks while all the other regulars look busy. It just hit me: I hope that the Teller-Morrow auto body shop has a B-team to come in and handle repairs when the SAMCRO principals take off. Can you imagine how annoying it would be otherwise? You're a customer, you want your car fixed, and "Whoops! Sorry -- can't do it. We had to close down the shop today for a reason we totally can't tell you. Um ... we'll call you?" ANYWAY, I have digressed. The boat's a dead end and Opie's about to make it less seaworthy by shooting several holes in the hull when a few African-American gentlemen come down, check out the scene, and leave again. Juice, Happy and Chibs are detached to follow them. Bobby Elvis is left to comment on Jax's mental state ("He's totally gone, man") while Clay decides enough is enough and Opie looms.
Clay's idea of handing it: take the beanie ("You'll get it back when we find him. Because we are going to find him, you hear me?") and give Jax the gun to sink the ship. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to the real fun: the SAMCRO boys in hot pursuit of the two other men they saw earlier. The chase takes out one car that has the misfortune to be in the way of the pursuit, gunfire is exchanged (Bobby Elvis does the honors) and Opie gets caught on a fence, so Jax stays behind to untangle him.
Within minutes, the two men have pulled into a house, where a dozen of their closest, most muscle-y friends are waiting with big guns. Bobby Elvis assesses the scene ("Oh, SHIT.") and Clay throws up his hands with a disclaimer that really, this is just a social call, albeit one that got off to an awkward start. One of the guys in the car angrily asks why Bobby Elvis tried to blow off his head in the car, and Bobby Elvis drawls, "Just tryin' to get your attention." The guy shoves a pistol to Bobby Elvis's forehead and says, "You got it now, bitch!" Bobby Elvis shrugs and deadpans to Clay, "I got his attention." "I can see that," Clay gravely replies. HA! Jax and Opie wheel right into this standoff. Bobby Elvis explains that SAMCRO has no beef with a group of younger, fitter, better-armed men. Rather, they're after the guy who owns the red boat. Unfortunately, that boat now belongs to said group of younger, fitter, better-armed men. Jax walks up and right into the muzzle of someone's gun as he says, "The guy that did own that boat? He kidnapped my eight month old son." The heinous act is enough to shock the crew into lowering their weapons. (This move reminds me a bit of The Wire and the whole truce-on-Sunday code, where people who would casually kill each other were shocked -- shocked! -- that anyone would ever open fire during the hours when old ladies were heading off to or coming back from church.) So, Jax and the sentimental gentleman confirm that it was indeed an "Irish dude" who used to own the boat and dumped it for quick cash, but there was no baby with him when he made the deal. Jax thanks everyone for their time, and the subdued SAMCRO putters off.
Jax eventually ends up at his dad's grave, just sitting and crying. One of his two gang rings (the "SO" one -- he's still wearing the "NS" one) is now atop John Teller's grave. When he decides it's time to go, he runs into Piney, who asks, "How's the old man?" Jax replies, "Still dead." Piney wryly says, "I hear that happens." "What are you doing, cruising for widows?" Jax asks. (Again: HA!) But alas, Piney's not there to get any black-clad dates; he's stuck making the arrangements for Half-Sack. Given how many people associated with SAMCRO get planted in any given year, do you suppose the cemetery's now giving them a frequent-customer punchcard? Bury 11 bodies and the 12th plot is free? Anyway, Piney makes a very sweet offer to be a listening ear if Jax needs one: "I'm not as smart as JT, but I've been known to have my moments." Jax declines, but Piney presses: "We're not shrinks, or priests, and if you don't want to talk to me, that's fine, but you're going to talk to somebody in this club and work this shit out." Jax admits, "I'm trying to find some kind of balance, Piney. The right thing for my family, the club ... every time I think I'm headed in the right direction, I end up in a place I never even knew would feel this bad. What do I do, man?" Piney tells the teary younger man, "Be loyal. Decent. You love the right things. That's who he was. And I miss him. I miss him." Piney stalks off, overcome. And as much as I get how Piney's trying to steer Jax to "know" his father as a man by emulating him as a man ... I can't help but wonder if he's really doing Jax any favors here.
Tara is finally talking to the FBI and Stahl. It's not a productive conversation.
Outside, Unser's giving Clay the 411 on whether or not law enforcement has any leads on Abel (short answer: no), then asks, "How's our girl doing?" (All together now: Awww.) Clay reassures Unser that Gemma's fine and "it's probably best I don't give you too many details." When Tara exits, Clay starts for Stahl (who's right behind her), and Unser holds him back, reminding him that he's no good to anyone behind bars. As Tara walks by, Unser asks if she's okay; Stahl, following behind, snottily says, "I'm okay too, thanks." Then she tries to goad Tara into saying something: "I find it hard to believe you've never run into Cameron Hayes before. He's been in town for months running guns for your future father-in-law." I find it hard to believe Stahl thinks anything Tara says here would be admissible in a court of law. Then again, this is the nation's most incompetent ATF agent, so maybe she's unclear on how due process works. Tara whips around and snarls, "I find it hard to believe you've still got a badge after what you did to Gemma." Stahl sticks to her Gemma story, and when Tara tells her to stay out of the way, Stahl blocks Tara from getting in her car and purrs, "Or what, doctor? You're going to have one of Jax's boys gun me down?" Tara points out that "I don't need a boy to handle my shit." Well, that's one of them in the scene who can claim that. As Tara drives off, Clay is practically smiling with paternal pride.
Stahl tries to puncture his seeming equanimity by sauntering over and assuring Clay they'll find Gemma. Clay shrugs, "From what I hear, that's not going to matter much for you. Chief tells me you really pissed off the FBI [by] stepping on a three-year neo-Nazi sting." Stahl attempts to deflect with, "Lot of bad guys out there. Sometimes the pursuit gets a little messy." Clay taunts, "Is that why your bosses pulled you off the Irish? 'Cause it got a little messy? Seems the boy in the bad shooting hit didn't do you much good after all. All you did by framing Gemma was get a man killed and a baby kidnapped." Stahl gives him the lemon face at hearing that, possibly because her other bright idea to frame Opie as a snitch led to getting a woman killed and a bunch of children going motherless. She's 0-for-2 so far in trying to use "the ends justify the means" as an argument for her actions. Clay leans in and indulges in a personal threat: "If anything happens to my grandson, I promise you: I'm going to shove a gun barrel up that bony ass of yours, and I'm going to blow your black heart out." Stahl looks slightly alarmed. As she should: if any show would follow through on that method of execution, it's this one.
Now that Jax has run his errands ("Go glower at wide variety of criminal elements; cry at Dad's grave; get more confused"), he's home again. He wanders around the kitchen and notices that Bobby Elvis left Gemma's most recent phone number on a pad of paper. Then he wanders down the hall and notices the nursery is trashed. A long sigh and a muttered "Jesus Christ." But Jax doesn't seem particularly surprised. Whether it's because he routinely drives the women in his life to the point of total, room-wrecking insanity or because he and Tara actually have the kind of history where this display of temper doesn't surprise him ... eh, it's a mystery for the ages.
Gemma has tired of the scenic Rogue River area and tries again to elude her guardians. This is not hard, as the two Oregon guys are keeping an eye on the road, and Tig is off doing who-knows-what. She tries a few car doors and gets lucky on #3, a big freaking' truck. Then Gemma tries hot-wiring it -- something that requires her reading glasses, which is an awesome touch.
Jax picks that exact moment to try calling his mom. We cut to Gemma asking the universe, "Really?" And as she goes to dig out the phone, the driver of the truck happens to come out and catch her. He drags her out by a thigh -- we quick-cut to Jax all, "Huh. Nobody's answering" -- and asks, "You stealing my car, bitch?" "No, I'm the valet, shithead," she snarls back. The guy's got Gemma pinned to the truck courtesy of a hand at her throat, and she swings back the hand still holding her hot-wiring knife and stabs the guy in the thigh. His screams attract the attention of the Oregon boys plus Tig, and Gemma turns to get back into the car. Tig asks, "Are you out of your goddamned mind?" She reluctantly concedes, "Maybe a little."
Cut to her motel room, where Tig is trying to impress how not-good her actions were. I love the staging -- she's in a desk chair, head down, slightly pouting, with her fists shoved between her knees, and Tig is on the end of the bed, looking for all the world like a very hairy Ward Cleaver about to tell the Beav that nice folks simply don't try to hot-wire cars and stab their outraged owners. That lasts for a second. Then Gemma rises and tells Tig that he knows as well as she does that he can't keep her there if she doesn't want to be. Tig throws a little guilt trip: "Why are you doing this to me? I promised Clay I'd keep you safe." But Gemma's got another road trip in mind, and tells the Tigger he can come with her if he's interested in keeping her safe. Tig knows when he's beaten.
Emilia the caregiver lets them in, and Gemma and Tig make their introductions. Emilia's been there for about six months, hired by Gemma's (late) mother when her father became too much to deal with on her own. Gemma says, "I didn't know he got that bad. How's he doing?" Emilia replies, "It depends. Some days, he's sharper than me. Others, he barely knows where he is." And he is not aware his wife died -- "trauma like that, it usually sends him deeper into the dementia. It's probably for the best." Gemma's clearly steeling herself to go in. Tig catches this and asks Emilia if there's someplace he can wash up. All of you, start the betting pool on how long before Tig is giving the caregiver the full Tig Trager experience. No doubt he sees it as a two-birds-one-stone scenario: he can give Gemma some privacy with her dad, and he can lay the groundwork for the inevitable naked time with Emilia.
Gemma heads into the living room and whispers, "Hi, Daddy." Fighting tears, she continues, "It's Gemma." Her dad rises, weeping, "My baby girl, my baby girl!" They embrace, but Gemma's happiness is tempered when her dad calls for her deceased mother. After a minute, her dad says, "She's probably down getting her hair done. Sit with me." As Gemma does, her dad says, "She'll be back soon." "I hope not," Gemma mutters. But she sits with her father and they fall back into each other's arms, tenderly, tearfully. And thus we meet another generation of Gemma's family.
This long and eventful day is drawing to an end, and we're at Half-Sack's wake. His military buddies are there, as are Sons of Anarchy from all over. Unsurprisingly, Hale and the rest of Charming's PD are out in force. Josh Hale materializes out of a cloud of sulphur and comments on how this one kid has a bigger turnout for his wake than a local archbishop did. Let that be a lesson to mainstream congregations across America: start wooing the valuable and populous outlaw motorcycle club demographic. Hale lays another piece of season three's plot foundation: "It makes folks a little nervous when they see SAMCRO vulnerable like this. It's not supposed to happen in Charming." Replies the man who spent last season skipping hand-in-hand down the street with the neo-Nazis, "They should get nervous, and see the scumbags for who they really are."
The SAMCRO regulars we all know and like are hanging out with Kozik. You may or may not remember that he's a member of the SOA Tacoma chapter, and that there is a deep history of bad blood between him and Tig. Kozik tells Bobby Elvis, Chibs and Opie he's sorry to hear about Half-Sack, and Clay tells everyone, "I was just telling Kozik we need bodies around our table. We're so deep in our shit, we're forgetting to bring up club ranks." Opie points out there are three hangers-on they can bring up -- Filthy Phil, Shepherd and Miles -- and Chibs points out that Happy's circumstances make him a good fit as a regular. Clay prods Kozik, who says he wants to come back to Charming. Bobby Elvis says flatly, "That ends on Tig, brother." Clay, however, assures him, "We'll make it happen." Unless Clay can personally assure Tig that Kozik will firebomb every doll factory in America, I don't see how Tig's going to take this well. But we shall see what we shall see.
sobell, AKA Lisa Schmeiser, is a business and technology reporter living in the SF Bay Area. She tweets at lschmeiser, writes for whomever wants to hire her, and admits her upstairs bedroom looks a lot like the nursery Tara trashed.
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A knock on the door: Bobby Elvis comes in and interrupts Clay's brown study to deliver a status update: they found "the guy," and Bobby Elvis has checked in with Tig. "They moved Gemma to a hotel outside Rogue River. Club friendly. That Tig and the Oregon guys ... they'll take care of her. She'll be okay." Clay makes the command decision that Gemma is not to find out about Abel, a move that is super-smart from a tactical perspective -- the last thing he needs is his fugitive wife leveling the West Coast with the strength of her nuclear-level fury -- but perhaps not that great in terms of long-term marital strategy. Anyway, Bobby Elvis does admit that he did tell Gemma about Half-Sack, on account of that hitting the news, but "we should be able to protect her from [news about the kidnapping]."
Now that Clay's been reassured in re: Gemma's situation, it's time for him to round up the boys and head over to talk to Jax. As everyone stalks out, all black leather and glowering, Chuckie the Masturbating Accountant wanders by with a pot of coffee and wanly says, "It's okay. I'll tidy up." Hee! It's the little things that make this show amusing. The camera focuses on John Teller's framed mugshot for a moment, then transitions to a close shot of Clay, who's taking his first steps to retrieve John's grandson from Cameron. Excuse me for raving, but it's just such a great little shot. Clay really took over everything of John's, didn't he?
SAMCRO rides by the now boarded-up tobacco shop and pulls into Jax's. Tara lets them in with a head nod and a curt "Nursery," and everyone goes charging back toward the room. Opie damn near blocks out all available light as he looms down the hall; Bobby Elvis gets a phone call and peels off toward the kitchen.
Ope is perhaps the best one to deal with Jax's brand of paralytic grief, so he's the one who peels the unconscious man off the floor and carries him down the hall to the bathroom. As he slaps Jax into semiconsciousness, he tells him that the club's got some information on someone named LeRoy, who did Cameron's fake IDs. Jax is all, " ... whahuhnow?" Chibs throws in his own brand of coaxing ("Come on, Jackie boy."), then stands vigil in the hall with everyone else while Jax is getting de-Calgoned back into reality.
In the hall, Tara throws up her hands and tells Clay, "He's been like this since it happened. I don't know what to do." Clay tells her they'll take care of him. Then Bobby walks out and hands over the phone with, "Love on the line." Clay and Gemma check in with one another, and she asks about Half-Sack's funeral plans. "Wake tonight, funeral tomorrow," Clay tells her, and Gemma frets, "I should be there." The conversation wraps up with a few sweet sentiments, then Gemma asks for Jax. "He just jumped in the shower," Clay says with 100% honesty, then ... "Kiss Abel for me. Tell my boys I love them." Jump cut to Clay wincing all, Faaaaaaaahck me, and you can tell it's killing him to lie to Gemma about Abel. Gemma chokes up, then hangs up.
After the credits: Piney's twiddling with one of Abel's toys and everyone else is hanging out in the kitchen, presumably to give Jax the privacy to complete his toilette. (Look, that hair doesn't get that never-been-combed look right out of the shower by itself. Or does it?) Tara pulls Clay aside for a quick talk and lets him know she's got to talk to Stahl and the FBI about the abduction today. She asks how much of the truth she should tell, and Clay says, "As much as you can. We want everybody looking for Abel. Just give them the basics. The Feds know how Cameron is and his IRA ties. Just leave out the details of our association." Tara asks, "What if those details help find him?" Clay doubts they will: "Cameron killed Sack and took my grandson because Stahl lied and framed Gemma. That's the real truth." Tara's got her doubts about this line of thinking, but Clay chirks her up by telling her how ably she's stepped up after witnessing a murder and Abel's kidnapping, and "You're the best thing that happened to Jax. We're all so glad you're around." He kisses her on the forehead and heads out, meets Jax in the hall for another hug, then heads out. Jax will ride with them, but he wants a minute to talk to Tara.
The conversation starts off badly (Tara: "I think you blame me.") and goes downhill from there. Jax has apparently been thinking in the shower, and he's decided that "This has nothing to do with you. None of it does," which is a handy way to diminish how Tara's cared for his child, jeopardized her career on behalf of his club, and begun carrying the guilt over Abel's abduction. So he pulls the "baby, I'm no good for you" card, tops it with a healthy dose of self-pity ("I don't think shit through, what it does to other people") and then ... declines to think through his decision to dump Tara and what it might do to her. This is Jax being noble. Or sort of a wuss who doesn't want to have to think about anyone else's feelings right now. Your call, really.
Tara spends the scene gaping at Jax all, Why am I so smitten with such an idiot? Why must you BE such an idiot? And would it kill you to comb your damn hair every once in a while? Bobby Elvis can probably teach you how -- his hair always looks nice, but after he heads out, she snaps out of her disbelieving state and lays waste to the nursery.
Gemma's giving herself a manicure, collecting the nail clippings over a section of newspaper, when something in the obituaries catches her eye. She takes off her glasses and stares around, clearly rattled by whatever it is she's read.
And now, time for SAMCRO to meet with LeRoy's friend. To the credit of the counterfeiter, he does not immediately lose control of his bladder when Opie looms, and we find out that the counterfeiter had made Cameron one set of papers (he's now Timothy O'Dell when he travels) but he didn't do any travel documents for a baby. This leads noted thinkers Jax and Opie to conclude not that Cameron found someone else for Abel's docs, but rather that Abel could still be local. Oh, hey, Bobby Elvis just had the same thought I did! Jax, in addition to taking the hair-care tips from Bobby Elvis, ask him for a primer on mental habits. The forger stammers out quickly, "Someone trying to hide a kid is not going to get any papers from me. I don't want that kind of trouble." Clay wants more details on what the forger did do, and learns that he met Cameron down in Chinatown, and there's a marina nearby. Juice is going to see if there are any boats registered to Timothy O'Dell.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the law, Hale's packing up to move into his swanky new sheriff digs when his housekeeping (officekeeping?) is interrupted by a visit from his brother and his brother's pet bouffant. Seriously, Jacob Hale's hair deserves its own credits; it looks sentient. And quite possibly as amoral as the human host upon which it perches. Jacob's come into his brother's office for a little fence-mending: "That shit with Zobelle -- I'm sorry." Hale sighs in exasperation: "Doesn't matter now. He's Interpol's problem. Weston's dead, courtesy of Clay, I'm sure." Jacob defends his bad judgment with, "I saw an opportunity I thought could help this town," and Hales takes the piss by acidly inquiring, "And how are the mayoral plans shaping up?" They're shaping up to be a plotline this is season is what they're doing: Jacob is facing off against Oswald (who is, you will remember, indebted to SAMCRO on account of what they did to his daughter's assailant back in season one), and Jacob wants the chief of police to endorse his run, nepotism be damned.
We go back to SAMCRO, which is now at the marina where one Timothy O'Dell keeps his boat. It is not a vessel made for the high seas. Nor is it occupied by anyone, which is a good news/bad news situation. On the plus side: No tiny infant bodies to be found. On the minus side: nothing that's useful at all. Jax does find a tiny knit SAMCRO beanie on the docks and it sends him off into another brooding fit.
And right outside the Rogue river, Gemma's skulking out of her hotel room, but Tig -- who knows from skulking -- immediately catches her and inquires as to what the hell she thinks she's doing. Gemma tells him she needs to borrow a ride, and heads for Tig's truck. When he grabs her by the upper arms to tell her she's not getting it, she shrieks, "Let go of me!" He immediately does, looking apologetic. Hands up, all of you who think that Gemma's rape affects Tig in deeper and more enduring ways than he'll ever admit. He whispers an apology and Gemma shows him the newspaper page in question and says, "I've got to go home. He needs me." Tig swears under his breath, then lays out the reality of the situation: Gemma's APB went wide, so "every cop in five states knows your face. And the Feds are offering $10K for any info. You gotta sit tight. I'm sorry." Gemma fulminates.
Then we cut to her son, doing likewise on the docks while all the other regulars look busy. It just hit me: I hope that the Teller-Morrow auto body shop has a B-team to come in and handle repairs when the SAMCRO principals take off. Can you imagine how annoying it would be otherwise? You're a customer, you want your car fixed, and "Whoops! Sorry -- can't do it. We had to close down the shop today for a reason we totally can't tell you. Um ... we'll call you?" ANYWAY, I have digressed. The boat's a dead end and Opie's about to make it less seaworthy by shooting several holes in the hull when a few African-American gentlemen come down, check out the scene, and leave again. Juice, Happy and Chibs are detached to follow them. Bobby Elvis is left to comment on Jax's mental state ("He's totally gone, man") while Clay decides enough is enough and Opie looms.
Clay's idea of handing it: take the beanie ("You'll get it back when we find him. Because we are going to find him, you hear me?") and give Jax the gun to sink the ship. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to the real fun: the SAMCRO boys in hot pursuit of the two other men they saw earlier. The chase takes out one car that has the misfortune to be in the way of the pursuit, gunfire is exchanged (Bobby Elvis does the honors) and Opie gets caught on a fence, so Jax stays behind to untangle him.
Within minutes, the two men have pulled into a house, where a dozen of their closest, most muscle-y friends are waiting with big guns. Bobby Elvis assesses the scene ("Oh, SHIT.") and Clay throws up his hands with a disclaimer that really, this is just a social call, albeit one that got off to an awkward start. One of the guys in the car angrily asks why Bobby Elvis tried to blow off his head in the car, and Bobby Elvis drawls, "Just tryin' to get your attention." The guy shoves a pistol to Bobby Elvis's forehead and says, "You got it now, bitch!" Bobby Elvis shrugs and deadpans to Clay, "I got his attention." "I can see that," Clay gravely replies. HA! Jax and Opie wheel right into this standoff. Bobby Elvis explains that SAMCRO has no beef with a group of younger, fitter, better-armed men. Rather, they're after the guy who owns the red boat. Unfortunately, that boat now belongs to said group of younger, fitter, better-armed men. Jax walks up and right into the muzzle of someone's gun as he says, "The guy that did own that boat? He kidnapped my eight month old son." The heinous act is enough to shock the crew into lowering their weapons. (This move reminds me a bit of The Wire and the whole truce-on-Sunday code, where people who would casually kill each other were shocked -- shocked! -- that anyone would ever open fire during the hours when old ladies were heading off to or coming back from church.) So, Jax and the sentimental gentleman confirm that it was indeed an "Irish dude" who used to own the boat and dumped it for quick cash, but there was no baby with him when he made the deal. Jax thanks everyone for their time, and the subdued SAMCRO putters off.
Jax eventually ends up at his dad's grave, just sitting and crying. One of his two gang rings (the "SO" one -- he's still wearing the "NS" one) is now atop John Teller's grave. When he decides it's time to go, he runs into Piney, who asks, "How's the old man?" Jax replies, "Still dead." Piney wryly says, "I hear that happens." "What are you doing, cruising for widows?" Jax asks. (Again: HA!) But alas, Piney's not there to get any black-clad dates; he's stuck making the arrangements for Half-Sack. Given how many people associated with SAMCRO get planted in any given year, do you suppose the cemetery's now giving them a frequent-customer punchcard? Bury 11 bodies and the 12th plot is free? Anyway, Piney makes a very sweet offer to be a listening ear if Jax needs one: "I'm not as smart as JT, but I've been known to have my moments." Jax declines, but Piney presses: "We're not shrinks, or priests, and if you don't want to talk to me, that's fine, but you're going to talk to somebody in this club and work this shit out." Jax admits, "I'm trying to find some kind of balance, Piney. The right thing for my family, the club ... every time I think I'm headed in the right direction, I end up in a place I never even knew would feel this bad. What do I do, man?" Piney tells the teary younger man, "Be loyal. Decent. You love the right things. That's who he was. And I miss him. I miss him." Piney stalks off, overcome. And as much as I get how Piney's trying to steer Jax to "know" his father as a man by emulating him as a man ... I can't help but wonder if he's really doing Jax any favors here.
Tara is finally talking to the FBI and Stahl. It's not a productive conversation.
Outside, Unser's giving Clay the 411 on whether or not law enforcement has any leads on Abel (short answer: no), then asks, "How's our girl doing?" (All together now: Awww.) Clay reassures Unser that Gemma's fine and "it's probably best I don't give you too many details." When Tara exits, Clay starts for Stahl (who's right behind her), and Unser holds him back, reminding him that he's no good to anyone behind bars. As Tara walks by, Unser asks if she's okay; Stahl, following behind, snottily says, "I'm okay too, thanks." Then she tries to goad Tara into saying something: "I find it hard to believe you've never run into Cameron Hayes before. He's been in town for months running guns for your future father-in-law." I find it hard to believe Stahl thinks anything Tara says here would be admissible in a court of law. Then again, this is the nation's most incompetent ATF agent, so maybe she's unclear on how due process works. Tara whips around and snarls, "I find it hard to believe you've still got a badge after what you did to Gemma." Stahl sticks to her Gemma story, and when Tara tells her to stay out of the way, Stahl blocks Tara from getting in her car and purrs, "Or what, doctor? You're going to have one of Jax's boys gun me down?" Tara points out that "I don't need a boy to handle my shit." Well, that's one of them in the scene who can claim that. As Tara drives off, Clay is practically smiling with paternal pride.
Stahl tries to puncture his seeming equanimity by sauntering over and assuring Clay they'll find Gemma. Clay shrugs, "From what I hear, that's not going to matter much for you. Chief tells me you really pissed off the FBI [by] stepping on a three-year neo-Nazi sting." Stahl attempts to deflect with, "Lot of bad guys out there. Sometimes the pursuit gets a little messy." Clay taunts, "Is that why your bosses pulled you off the Irish? 'Cause it got a little messy? Seems the boy in the bad shooting hit didn't do you much good after all. All you did by framing Gemma was get a man killed and a baby kidnapped." Stahl gives him the lemon face at hearing that, possibly because her other bright idea to frame Opie as a snitch led to getting a woman killed and a bunch of children going motherless. She's 0-for-2 so far in trying to use "the ends justify the means" as an argument for her actions. Clay leans in and indulges in a personal threat: "If anything happens to my grandson, I promise you: I'm going to shove a gun barrel up that bony ass of yours, and I'm going to blow your black heart out." Stahl looks slightly alarmed. As she should: if any show would follow through on that method of execution, it's this one.
Now that Jax has run his errands ("Go glower at wide variety of criminal elements; cry at Dad's grave; get more confused"), he's home again. He wanders around the kitchen and notices that Bobby Elvis left Gemma's most recent phone number on a pad of paper. Then he wanders down the hall and notices the nursery is trashed. A long sigh and a muttered "Jesus Christ." But Jax doesn't seem particularly surprised. Whether it's because he routinely drives the women in his life to the point of total, room-wrecking insanity or because he and Tara actually have the kind of history where this display of temper doesn't surprise him ... eh, it's a mystery for the ages.
Gemma has tired of the scenic Rogue River area and tries again to elude her guardians. This is not hard, as the two Oregon guys are keeping an eye on the road, and Tig is off doing who-knows-what. She tries a few car doors and gets lucky on #3, a big freaking' truck. Then Gemma tries hot-wiring it -- something that requires her reading glasses, which is an awesome touch.
Jax picks that exact moment to try calling his mom. We cut to Gemma asking the universe, "Really?" And as she goes to dig out the phone, the driver of the truck happens to come out and catch her. He drags her out by a thigh -- we quick-cut to Jax all, "Huh. Nobody's answering" -- and asks, "You stealing my car, bitch?" "No, I'm the valet, shithead," she snarls back. The guy's got Gemma pinned to the truck courtesy of a hand at her throat, and she swings back the hand still holding her hot-wiring knife and stabs the guy in the thigh. His screams attract the attention of the Oregon boys plus Tig, and Gemma turns to get back into the car. Tig asks, "Are you out of your goddamned mind?" She reluctantly concedes, "Maybe a little."
Cut to her motel room, where Tig is trying to impress how not-good her actions were. I love the staging -- she's in a desk chair, head down, slightly pouting, with her fists shoved between her knees, and Tig is on the end of the bed, looking for all the world like a very hairy Ward Cleaver about to tell the Beav that nice folks simply don't try to hot-wire cars and stab their outraged owners. That lasts for a second. Then Gemma rises and tells Tig that he knows as well as she does that he can't keep her there if she doesn't want to be. Tig throws a little guilt trip: "Why are you doing this to me? I promised Clay I'd keep you safe." But Gemma's got another road trip in mind, and tells the Tigger he can come with her if he's interested in keeping her safe. Tig knows when he's beaten.
So, after the day Tara's had -- getting dumped by her boyfriend, having to deal with Stahl -- she caps it off by heading in to do surgery on a toddler. Unfortunately, the good Dr. Knowles has a panic attack right as a fellow doctor makes an abdominal incision, and has to excuse herself. This does not go unnoticed by Margaret Murphy (AKA the administrator Tara beat up in season two).
When Tara heads back to Jax's place, he's busy trying to restore some order to the nursery. She offers to tag in, but he tells her, "I got it. You should go." Tara thinks not. She tells him, "I didn't come back to Charming to run away from Kohn. And I didn't stay because of what we did to him." Jax cleans up some diapers and shrugs, "It doesn't matter now." Tara continues, "When Donna was killed, those things you said to me in the hospital about my life being a series of hit-and-runs, that my face was the only one you saw --" "I shouldn't have said that shit," Jax interrupts. Tara protests, "It was the truth! I have created this ... very serious life for myself. And when I'm inside it, I barely know myself. I have these moments sometimes in the middle of a surgery, when suddenly I'm aware of, of ... my hands, doing these extraordinary things. And I think, 'Whose hands are these? What am I -- I doing here?' When I'm with you, I never ask that question." Jax doesn't want to be responsible for anyone else at this point, not in any way: "I'm not the answer. Look at me. Look at this!" Tara shoots back, "I am always looking at it! My brain never stops: 'Why am I here? Should I be here? Am I afraid to stay? Afraid to go? Afraid to be a mother?' Shit, it's endless. I drive myself crazy." And that is pretty much why she and Jax are a matched pair; both of them have the ability to observe their lives as they live them, and being unable to ignore the contradictions in their lives only exacerbates the ambivalence they feel.
Or maybe it's because, as Tara says, "We don't know who we are until we're connected to someone else." She steps toward him and grabs his cut, saying, "We're just better human beings when we're with the person we're supposed to be with. I wasn't supposed to leave. I belong here." Jax wipes away her tears and grabs her. So ... they're back on?
Tig and Gemma have been traveling under cover of darkness, and they finally arrive where they're supposed to be. Tig says uneasily, "Gem, maybe we should have called first." Gemma says resignedly, "He never answers the phone. That was her job. Come on." She stalks up the front walk to a nice-looking ranch house and rings the bell. The Latina caretaker who answers takes in Gemma and Tig and asks, "Can I help you?" Behind her, an old man's voice querulously insists, "If it's those colored boys again, you can tell them we don't need any more magazines!" Gemma sighs and says, "Tell the reverend I'm not here to sell him any magazines. I'm his daughter."
Emilia the caregiver lets them in, and Gemma and Tig make their introductions. Emilia's been there for about six months, hired by Gemma's (late) mother when her father became too much to deal with on her own. Gemma says, "I didn't know he got that bad. How's he doing?" Emilia replies, "It depends. Some days, he's sharper than me. Others, he barely knows where he is." And he is not aware his wife died -- "trauma like that, it usually sends him deeper into the dementia. It's probably for the best." Gemma's clearly steeling herself to go in. Tig catches this and asks Emilia if there's someplace he can wash up. All of you, start the betting pool on how long before Tig is giving the caregiver the full Tig Trager experience. No doubt he sees it as a two-birds-one-stone scenario: he can give Gemma some privacy with her dad, and he can lay the groundwork for the inevitable naked time with Emilia.
Gemma heads into the living room and whispers, "Hi, Daddy." Fighting tears, she continues, "It's Gemma." Her dad rises, weeping, "My baby girl, my baby girl!" They embrace, but Gemma's happiness is tempered when her dad calls for her deceased mother. After a minute, her dad says, "She's probably down getting her hair done. Sit with me." As Gemma does, her dad says, "She'll be back soon." "I hope not," Gemma mutters. But she sits with her father and they fall back into each other's arms, tenderly, tearfully. And thus we meet another generation of Gemma's family.
This long and eventful day is drawing to an end, and we're at Half-Sack's wake. His military buddies are there, as are Sons of Anarchy from all over. Unsurprisingly, Hale and the rest of Charming's PD are out in force. Josh Hale materializes out of a cloud of sulphur and comments on how this one kid has a bigger turnout for his wake than a local archbishop did. Let that be a lesson to mainstream congregations across America: start wooing the valuable and populous outlaw motorcycle club demographic. Hale lays another piece of season three's plot foundation: "It makes folks a little nervous when they see SAMCRO vulnerable like this. It's not supposed to happen in Charming." Replies the man who spent last season skipping hand-in-hand down the street with the neo-Nazis, "They should get nervous, and see the scumbags for who they really are."
The SAMCRO regulars we all know and like are hanging out with Kozik. You may or may not remember that he's a member of the SOA Tacoma chapter, and that there is a deep history of bad blood between him and Tig. Kozik tells Bobby Elvis, Chibs and Opie he's sorry to hear about Half-Sack, and Clay tells everyone, "I was just telling Kozik we need bodies around our table. We're so deep in our shit, we're forgetting to bring up club ranks." Opie points out there are three hangers-on they can bring up -- Filthy Phil, Shepherd and Miles -- and Chibs points out that Happy's circumstances make him a good fit as a regular. Clay prods Kozik, who says he wants to come back to Charming. Bobby Elvis says flatly, "That ends on Tig, brother." Clay, however, assures him, "We'll make it happen." Unless Clay can personally assure Tig that Kozik will firebomb every doll factory in America, I don't see how Tig's going to take this well. But we shall see what we shall see.
The wake is packed, and Tara heads over to the SAMCRO-emblazoned coffin, takes in Half-Sack's freshly patched-in cut, then prays at the coffin for a moment. When she takes off, it's only Clay and Jax there. Clay says bitterly, "He made it through Iraqi minefields only to get taken out in a goddamn kitchen. How you holding up, son?" Jax asks after Gemma. Clay tells her, "She's good -- worried about her family. She doesn't know about Abel. She'd take it on, make it her burden, and that wouldn't be helping anybody." Jax concedes that it makes sense, and Clay replies, "It makes sense for you too. There are 40-50 patches watching us right now. We represent the past, present and future of this club. Sure, the Sons are a democratic organization, but everybody knows what happens in Charming sets the tone for every charter." Jax asks, "What's happening in Charming?" Clay: "You tell me. These men behind us, they love you. They respect you. And they understand your grief. But they're also wondering what you're going to do with it." Jax snots, "That's my business." No, Clay tells him, it's not: "A lot of these guys are old enough to remember what happened to your old man, how he fell apart and lost focus when Thomas died." Jax replies, "I'm not my old man." And let us all have fun figuring out which father figure of his he's alluding to...
Clay chooses to hear what he wants: "I know that. They don't. You've got to show them something. Make the hard choice, son." Jax asks, "And what choice would that be?" Clay looks murderous for a moment, then lays it out: "Either Abel is dead and you want revenge, or he's alive and you would kill to find him. If you can't make that decision, then you better get down on your hands and knees and pray for something to get you there. Fast." He leaves Jax alone.
Which gives me a perfect opportunity to segue into my "Perhaps I Am Reading Too Much Into This TV Show" Theory of the Episode (let's call it "TOTE" for short). Skip this paragraph if you just want to find out what happens . If not ... so here's the thing: Have y'all seen The Royal Shakespeare Company Presents Hamlet ? Patrick Stewart plays Claudius in it, and one of the reasons his performance is so brilliant is because of how he chooses to depict the king: As someone who is eminently qualified to lead a nation to greatness. Stewart's Claudius is charismatic, calculating and competent, and he is not afraid of the ugly duties that underpin the authority he wields. In this Hamlet production, the audience is asked to observe the conflict between a good leader who's not a good person and a good person whose encroaching madness makes him a terrible leader. And I am seeing echoes of Stewart's Claudius in this scene: Clay's made some boneheaded decisions in the past, but here he shows that he's got a very canny understanding of what makes a leader, and he's asking Jax: Do you have what it takes? Because you need to step up, or be stepped on.
Okay, I'm done over-analyzing. Let the action resume! The opening thrum of Richard Thompson's "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" starts up, and Jax stands there at the body of the boy who died while trying to keep Abel safe.
We then zip to Belfast, Ireland, where Cameron and Abel are begging entrance into the apartment of his cousin Maureen (played by Paula Malcolmson, whom some of you will remember from her turn on Deadwood, others from her performance on Caprica).
The song continues, sinuous and tense, as Emilia checks in on Gemma at her dad's feet; she lays her head on his knee and her dad strokes her hair. Gemma looks a little wrecked by this.
Hale heads to his truck as the wake disperses. Everyone's outside, filling those awkward minutes where you're not sure where to go . Jax and Tara are glued to one another's side, Opie's back with his porn actress lady friend, and then a van drives by, opens the passenger-side door, and a few masked guys with guns open fire on the crowd.
Cue total pandemonium: Jax pushes Tara to the ground before covering her body with his, Chuckie the masturbating accountant takes a hit, and the Charming PD rises and responds. Unser manages to shoot the windshield, but that's as far as he gets. Hale's out of his truck and shooting, and the wildly-veering van hits him, flinging his body up and then -- when Hale hits the pavement with a sickening splat - running over him again.
One of the assailants has rolled, fallen or been pushed out of the van. He's unnoticed for the moment. SAMCRO's collective firepower is no good against the rapidly escaping van, and now everyone who's not in a cut has noticed that Hale is in really bad shape. Josh Hale and Unser both sprint over there. Both men reel at the extent of the damage done to the righteous would-be sheriff.
Three deputies have the left-behind assailant pinned. As Jax takes in the chaos around him -- a woman weeping for help because her son's been hit, Chuckie the masturbating accountant hunched over his wound, Hale reduced to a pile of bloody meat on the macadam -- all he hears is his own pulse. And he charges over to the officers, flings them out of the way, and begins savagely beating the guy into the middle of week. Piney looks horrified, while Clay and Opie rush in to pull Jax off before he can kill the guy.
And that's how we start season three. To those who say "Bring it," I am reasonably confident that it will be broughten.
sobell, AKA Lisa Schmeiser, is a business and technology reporter living in the SF Bay Area. She tweets at lschmeiser, writes for whomever wants to hire her, and admits her upstairs bedroom looks a lot like the nursery Tara trashed.
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