In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Okay, a lot happened in this episode, so let's break it all down by plotline:
OFF WE GO TO THE EMERALD ISLE: Cameron lays out his dilemma to the local parish priest/terrorist mastermind Father Kellan Ashby. As Cameron sees it: he and his boy were the victim of Jimmy O's machinations, and his taking the baby was dumb, but justified in the little-known "a son for a son" variant of ye olde "an eye for an eye" ethos. As Father Ashby sees it: Cameron has become a huge liability to the Real IRA and he's jeopardized the longstanding relationship the Irish have with the Sons of Anarchy. Also, he could care less what Jimmy O's scheming about because he's got God on his side. After Jimmy O has a sit-down with Clay and Jax and everyone agrees that Gemma was framed for Eddie's murder, he manages to successfully persuade Father Ashby to kill Cameron. And he keeps the news about Abel's whereabouts to himself for his own reasons. Cameron is killed while sitting in church.
RISE OF THE MAYAN EMPIRE: The SAMCRO boys do a little detective work and figure out that the spray-and-pray of last episode was the work of the Calaveras MC, as part of a patchover into the Mayan club. The Mayans are moving into Lodi, and they're still planning on using the Charming area as a throughway for their heroin market at the Stockton prison. Clay correctly reasons that SAMCRO can't afford an all out MC war right now, so he'll have to find another way to stop this.
O ABEL, WHERE ART THOU? We know Jimmy O is lying about Abel's whereabouts, but SAMCRO inches ever closer to finding clues as to what Cameron did with the kid. This week, they prevail upon Bobby Elvis to make nice with his ex-wife, Precious, as her new squeeze is a bounty hunter and can help them out. The bounty hunter agrees -- if SAMCRO helps him bring in a particularly brawny and truculent guy. Naturally, it does not go smoothly (Opie gets distracted in an adult bookstore when he notices some movies starring his new lady), but it goes, and SAMCRO realizes that Cameron made it to Vancouver with Abel. Road trip to BC! Road trip to BC!
YOU GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL DOLL: Gemma and Tig are still hanging at her parents' place. Tig manages to conquer his phobia of Rose's Hummel figurine collection long enough to successfully seduce Emilia, but Gemma's dad Nate shoots him during a critical point in the goings-on. (Nate was confused and thought Emilia was his wife stepping out on him.) Gemma's careless comment about why they can't go to the E.R. leads Emilia to discover the bounty on Gemma's head, and after a standoff in the kitchen, it does not look good for Emilia's long-term prospects, either employment or otherwise.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH: Jax and Tara continue to have communication problems. He neglects to tell her when he's getting sprung from the pokey, she forgets to tell him about her beatdown of Margaret Murray and subsequent break for personal time. These things happen, right? Anyway, she caps the episode by courting federal charges in heading out to help Gemma deal with Tig's gunshot wound.
WHEN ONE HAND WASHES THE OTHER: The Charming town council is facing an offer from the San Joaquin County sheriff's office: Dissolve the local PD and fall under county jurisdiction. Given David Hale's death, Josh Hale is pretty sure the offer will get traction among the good people of Charming -- unless Unser throws him the Charming PD endorsement in the mayoral race.
We'll get to the juicy little details in the recap -- Tig's theories of what women appreciate, how SAMCRO gets the Calaveras patch president to spill details on the heroin plan, what connection Abel's caretaker Mo has to Father Ashby, why I wish Brian Cox was playing Father Ashby -- but you're good on the general happenings.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's a long way from Charming to Dublin, yet here we are, at a lovely Catholic church where Cameron Hayes is giving his confession: "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been months since my last confession. I killed a man. He's part of the crew that murdered my son. I took the child of another man -- a son for a son, a twisted way of trying to replace Eddie. I made so many mistakes. Against God, what I believe, against the IRA. I don't know what to do. For these, and all my sins, Father, I am sorry."
While Cameron's speaking, we see Jax doing push-ups in his cell in the Charming lockup. What's striking is the contrast between Cameron's voice-over and Jax's activity; one man is surrendering the burden of his grief to a higher power, while the other is using it to fuel his fury.
The priest on the other side of the screen says, "These are very serious sins. You've broken your link to God, my son. You need to be willing to repay all those you've caused pain. Amend the wreckage." Cameron humbly nods. He gets absolution and a comparatively lightweight penance for murder and child-napping -- five Acts of Contrition. I mean, not that I'm in the business of meting out ritual prayer for wrongdoing, but your usual Act of Contrition -- "O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend You, my God, who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin." -- is shorter than most opening arguments in a Law and Order episode.
Ah, but the priest has an agenda. He orders Cameron to say his penance quickly -- all 310 words of it -- because they've got a lot of catching up to do. The ghost of Father James Chesney will be stalking this season, eh?
Back in Charming: Unser's letting Jax out of his cell. Jax is still shirtless and musclebound per whatever five-minutes-of-eye-candy-per-episode clause has been written in Charlie Hunnam's contract; he's also somewhat surprised to find that the whole "Throwing three officers aside like he's Harley Hulk, then kicking a suspect's ass until his head falls off" thing is pretty much not a big deal right now. The black band on Unser's badge explains why. As Jax rolls out, he pauses and says sincerely, "I'm sorry. About Hale." Unser ages twenty years in a moment as he says, "Yeah. Me too." As Jax walks off, Unser says resignedly that he knows how SAMCRO has to respond to last week's spray-and-pray attack, but Jax has decided to tilt the ol' work-life balance in favor of family: "I don't give a shit about retaliation. I'm going to find my kid."
So, I told you 310 words takes no time at all! Father Kellan Ashby is chewing out Cameron for showing up at his cousin Maureen's. Cameron is slightly worried about that, but he's more worried about Jimmy O, especially since that fearsome SOB thinks that Eddie and Cameron were singing to the ATF. Cameron wants to plead his case to the council, but Father Ashby thinks that's not really going to work. Cameron protests that he acted once he knew about Jimmy O's "plans to push out the Sons [of Anarchy]," and Father Ashby says pointedly that, "Jimmy doesn't make those decisions." (This will no doubt come as news to Jimmy.) Father Ashby continues, "You killed a man that was part of an organization that we have been allied to for more than twenty years. You kidnapped the grandson of the man responsible for that union. John Teller was a friend." That sort of puts a new spin on the whole "John Teller was a hippie who liked to ride bikes and wax philosophical, Clay Morrow's the one who dragged the club into illicit activities" narrative that Jax semi-believes, doesn't it?
Anyway, Maureen's looking after the baby, and Cameron vows to look after Abel as if the child were his own. Cameron pleads, "I know the history runs deep, but Jesus, Kellan, it's John's old lady who murdered my boy. There's got to be some understanding for that." Cut to Father Ashby deep in thought. He finally says, "I'll speak to Jimmy and the council. The Sons will require ... some further thought." Speaking of further thought: it's fascinating how both Gemma and Abel are referred to in the context of a dead man. What do the folks on the Emerald Isle think of Clay?
Back in Charming: Jax rolls out of the police station, and Clay greets him with a huge hug and a "Hello, my son." (I love this, and how it echoes last week's juxtaposition of Clay talking about Cameron taking his grandson right as we saw a shot of John Teller.) Unser comes out, and Clay asks him for intel on the shooter. The guy's got a few priors, but no known gang affiliations. Opie and Bobby Elvis are baffled by this seeming lack of associations. However, Unser warns them obliquely, it may be challenging to question the young man directly because he's under police supervision. He then redirects: "I've got some news on your bride. Zobelle's girl? Nine-mil in her hand when she hit the floor." Jax actually grasps what Unser is alluding to: Gemma could cop a plea for self-defense in the Polly Zobelle shooting, but Eddie took two in the back, so it's still murder one. (And oh, how I wish Stahl would go down for it. But she won't. She'll have a rare fit of competence and find a way to weasel out of any charges.)
Jax and Clay exposit a bit -- they're sitting down with Jimmy O in the afternoon, and I bet Chibs is just counting the seconds -- and then Jax has to go have relationship problems, so he peels off. Tara's pulled up and she's all, "Didn't think I'd be interested to know when you were sprung from the pokey, eh?" The rest of SAMCRO clearly wants to stay around and watch the free show, but they'd already started up their bikes and it would be embarrassing to turn off the bikes and openly eavesdrop, so they roar off to save face. Jax tries once again to ditch Tara with tales of how treacherous life as an old lady is, and Tara calls his bluff: "You trying to scare me? [Smooch. Nose bump.] I'll see you later." Jax walks over to his bike all, "Why couldn't I have hooked up with a junkie or an easily-spooked porn star? They would have been so much less trouble, right?"
Cut to Tig turning around a Hummel figuring in a cabinet, murmuring, "Look away. Don't move." HAAAAAAAA. Gemma catches Tig sidling away from the curio cabinet and he drops into a dining-room chair with an air of patently insincere nonchalance. Gemma comes over and says, "Let me guess ..." "They were freaking me out!" Tig spits. He leans forward to gulp some coffee to calm his nerves. Gemma opens the cabinet -- we see that Tig has turned around dozens of the figurines -- and picks one out, purring, "This one's my favorite." She puts it down by Tig's place setting, and he gasps, "Oh, Jesus Christ!" before throwing a napkin over it. Again: HAAAAAAAA. Also: Gemma is the only person the planet who can do that and not end up with an ear chewed off. The Tig/Gemma dynamic fascinates me, because I have no idea how much of it springs from a halo effect bounced off Tig's regard for Clay, and how much of it comes from the history those two share independent of Clay.
Anyway, Tig is still nervous as a cat even after Gemma tries changing the subject to Clay and news from home. He passes on the bare-bones details of the spray-and-pray, and seems to have difficulty breaking the news that Hale was killed. Gemma is appalled to hear it. The sentimentalist in me would like to think that Gemma still thinks of Hale as the kid who used to deliver her newspapers. She frets, "I hate being away." Into this conversation walks Amelia -- yeah, I spelled her name wrong last week, because I reasoned it would be similar to Emilio, so my bad -- and she looks around all, "What in the hell are you doing up?" Tig gets up and gives her an oily smile and a "Morning, doll." She gives him a look back that promises all sorts of pleasures, many of them of the naked variety. Gemma does not miss this, but decides to let it ride for now.
She asks if her dad's up, then has a tense conversation with Amelia about the late Rose and her incredible estate-planning skills. "Family was real important to her," Amelia says. "Don't remember much of that," Gemma bitterly remarks. The conversation goes downhill from there. Nate comes out, and Gemma rises with, "Morning, Daddy." It's obvious that Nate doesn't recognize her, and Gemma realizes this. She introduces herself and Nate blusters, "I knew that." Gemma gets coffee as Nate notices the curio cabinet and flips out with, "You know how your mother hates things out of place." "Now that I remember," she mutters. When Nate sits down, he strokes Gemma's face with, "I hardly recognize you. How old are you now?" Gemma is again taken aback, but says, "Fifty-three." Cut to Nate looking rattled over how old his daughter is.
Tig comes back in right then to tell Gemma he's got Clay on the line, and Nate does not deal well with this man popping out of nowhere. Not that I blame him. Imagine sitting in your kitchen drinking coffee when Tig materializes out of nowhere. Aside from the small percentage who just read that sentence and asked, "But is he clothed? Because in my fantasy he's not," you have to admit: a surprise visit from Tig is a pants-wetting moment. Gemma tries to smooth things over ("This is Tig, you met him last night"), and Nate tries to cover for his lapse in memory. Then he tells Gemma, "The coffee's too strong. time, you let your mother make it." Gemma, to her eternal credit, merely nods and says, "Okay. Yeah." And her face says a thousand different things -- pain, grief, regret, and resolution to give her dad the gift of an easy visit. What a pity this fantastic acting will be completely ignored by the Golden Globes and Emmy voters in 2011.
Zip! Back to Charming. Tara walks into administrator Margaret Murray's offic
e, only this time she's bearing paperwork, not a satchel full of ass-whooping. Tara wants a leave of absence. Margaret says, "I saw what happened yesterday in surgery. Panic attack?" Tara admits she doesn't know what it was, because it's never happened before. Margaret says, "I'm guessing you've never watched a man get stabbed to death before either." No, but she has watched a man get shot to death, then humped the shooter while the body cooled in the corner. Still, I'm guessing that's not something she'll share at work. Margaret says that Tara shouldn't have been back in the OR that soon. Tara, completely missing the point, snaps, "Now you get your way. I'll be gone." Margaret tries again: "Dropping out for six months will hurt your career. Maybe you should take a few personal days, think about this." Tara refuses to get it -- "Why should you care about my career?" -- and for a moment, I sympathize with Jax. Margaret spells it out: She cares about the hospital, and despite all her personal baggage, Tara is a gifted doctor, so it is in Margaret's best interests as a hospital administrator to protect Tara's best interests as a doctor. Margaret leaves, and THAT is when the lightbulb goes off over Tara's head. "You mean it's possible to separate the personal and professional? That some people even find this to be a preferable way of living? I ... need to think about this."
In another part of the hospital, Clay's striding through the corridors, the rest of the SAMCRO regulars trailing behind him. There's a little bit of chit-chat -- Opie offers Jax condolences on his grandma and Jax is all, "Whatever" -- and then the boys get down to solving the problem at hand: How to get rid of the guards surrounding the shooter's room so they can question him. Jax wants to see if Tara can help, but Clay has other ideas: "Let's go visit Chuckie, see if we can brighten his day."
Meanwhile, in a bar, Jimmy O is busy making the case to the home office that Eddie set him up, "put me in a safehouse so ATF could catch me with guns. Clay can back me up. He was there." I find it interesting that the Real IRA appears to be splitting along "John Teller's our legit connection"/"Clay Morrow's our man" lines, the same way SAMCRO does. Jimmy O presses his case: "I find it hard to believe that Cammy wasn't privy to what his son was doing. He needs to go away. Quietly." Father Ashby reminds him that the who-lives-and-who-dies decisions go to the council, and Jimmy O's all, "Well, the council is packed with idiots if it doesn't follow my recommendation." Only he's a lot more subtle. Father Ashby is nothing if not attuned to subtlety and issues a smackdown with, "You've been away too long. You've forgotten how we do things at home. It's not a one-man army." Jimmy O reminds Father Ashby that so far as he's concerned, his days of being an altar boy subordinate are over, and Father Ashby gets a tad snippy in response. When Jimmy O hangs up, he comments, "Our good priest, getting a mite too godly for his collar."
Back at the hospital, Jax is nosing around the front desk looking for Tara, and is surprised to find that she's off rotation for the indefinite future. Murray comes out and she has a brief chat with Jax about Tara's career prospects: "Tara asked for a leave of absence. I think it's a mistake. She needs her work. We both know she belongs here." Jax is impressed by this, not only because Margaret's managed to articulate what he can't, but because she's also doing so with huge bruises on her face from the beatdown Tara gave her a few days ago. (Note been: Jax has just figured out who gave Murray the bruises.) I may be going out on a limb here, but it seems that one thing Jax has always admired in other people is their ability to separate emotional reactions and strategic thinking -- possibly because he doesn't have that aptitude, and it's becoming apparent Tara's grasp on that skill is shaky -- and to see it in Tara's boss is reassuring to him. Anyway, Jax and Murray are in agreement: Tara needs to be back at work.
He strolls back to the hospital corridor and tells Clay that his old lady's no use. Clay drawls, "We got it covered." Cue Chuckie the Masturbating Accountant bursting through the doors of the hospital, clad only in a hospital gown, screaming, "They cut off my fingers! Oh my God, they cut off my fingers! They took my thumbs, Charlie!" HAAAAAAAA. The SAMCRO boys are amused too, and as the guards follow the screaming patient down the hall, Clay purrs, "I love Chuckie."
And now, a sight to terrify anyone who's not expecting it: a clutch of burly, leather-clad bikers bursting into a hospital room. Chibs and Opie pin the spray-and-pray dude down by the shoulders, and when he spits in reply to Clay's first question, Clay grabs him by the testicles and squeezes. That's not going to help his recovery. The boys soon determine it's not a Mayan hit -- not overtly, anyway -- but Jax has a hunch and peels open the guy's lip to see a "312" tat. Opie translates: "CL -- Calaveras, Lodi. It's a [motorcycle club for riders of definite Latino origin]." After the guys are outside, Bobby Elvis reminds them all that Calaveras is a Mayan puppet club, and asks, "What the hell are they doing proxying a retaliation?" This stumps the SAMCRO brain trust. Jax finally gets it: "Holy shit. What if the attack was an initiation?" Clay looks appalled as he realizes, "It's a goddamned patchover? Mayans are moving into Lodi."
Gemma's on the phone with Jax, explaining that Rose died of "the family flaw" (i.e. heart disease) and looking over a photo collage of herself and her brother as children. We see one shot of Gemma as a very young woman, singing into a microphone. Gemma sighs, "She's still pulling the strings. Even dead, Rose is a control freak." Jax cracks, "Sounds familiar," and Gemma says indulgently, "I am not my mother, you little shithead." Jax grins at this and tells his mom he loves her. Then the conversation gets awkward as Gemma asks about Abel. Fortunately, he has to hang up. Gemma takes a moment to compose herself -- and the camera swoops over the photo board to a picture of Gemma, clad in bridal/maternity white and beaming up at the SAMCRO biker who's got his arm wrapped around her while another smiles at them both. I'm guessing we're looking at a young John Teller and Clay Morrow. Gemma absently rubs the scar over her breastbone.
Cut to Clay telling Jimmy O, "Wasn't my old lady killed Cameron's kid. It was ATF -- Stahl, she shot him in the back. Gemma was there to settle a score with Zobelle's daughter. The Fed [word for woman which reduces her to an orifice] didn't want to take the heat for the dirty kill, and put it on my wife." Jimmy O feigns not being convinced, and Jax adds, "Why would my mom kill Ed? It doesn't make any sense. That's the truth, Jimmy." Jimmy says, "Jesus Christ, this shit just gets deeper." Jax presses his point home: "Cameron directed his vengeance at the wrong target. Now he's got my son." The Sons reason that Cameron's back in Belfast, but Jimmy O smoothly lies that "my intel says he's here ... Cammy can't make a move in the six counties without me hearing about it. He hasn't jumped off this rock yet. Any news about the boy, I give you my word, you're the first to know." Going by the look on Chibs' face as the meeting breaks up, it's clear he thinks Jimmy's word is only good when Jimmy decides it is. My guess as to why Jimmy's lying? Not only does it buy him time until the council decides to kill Cameron, it also sows fear and mistrust between the Irish and SAMCRO -- and he can step in and consolidate power once Ireland's lost control of the relationship.
Outside, Jax asks if Bobby Elvis's ex-wife is still making sweet time with her bounty hunter beau. He thinks the guy might be useful in hunting down Cameron. Bobby Elvis explains, "I'm currently at an impasse with Precious ... six months alimony, two months child support." Jax gives him a look like, Really. REALLY? and Bobby Elvis says, "Of course. Let's go visit the crazy red-headed rattlesnake."
Well, Precious is really more of a blonde. She's fierce enough to cow Bobby Elvis with a few well-chosen words about how expensive their child Tiki's inhalers are. Bobby Elvis tries to claim he's dropped $1000 in the mail, but she's not having it, and socks him across the jaw as she asks him to leave. Bobby Elvis sort of falls backward into Juice (who is probably all, "THANK GOD nobody ever thinks to write me a love life on this show") and Jax steps forward with his "They took my kid" pitch, pleading for help from Precious's new old man.
Meanwhile, Clay is meeting with his puppet motorcycle club, the Grim Bastards, headed up by T.O. Cross (Michael Beach, whom I still call "Al Boulet" in my head). The point to the meetup: to get intel on Mayan activity and Calaveras, and find out what Alvarez is up to. Clay tasks T.O. for help with finding a Lodi club officer so SAMCRO can find out what Alvarez intends.
Back in Charming, Jacob Hale and his hair are sitting in David Hale's old office. Unser comes by and asks if Hale the Lesser wants any help packing up his brother's stuff. No, but Hale would like a Charming PD endorsement for his mayoral campaign. At stake: the very existence of the Charming PD. After all, the working arrangement between SAMCRO and Charming PD has just been shown to be not working very well at all, and wouldn't it be a shame if the Charming City Council decided to take up the San Joaquin sheriff's office on its offer to take over all police duties in the town? Unser absorbs this threat, and refuses to shake Jacob's hand on the way out of the office.
Juice is talking with Precious's old man -- we're still keeping up the fiction that he's a hacker, apparently, although it's a mystery why someone with his alleged skills hasn't figured out a way to start quietly moving real money into SAMCRO's coffers -- and the bounty hunter points out that it's all very sad that Jax's son is missing, but he's more concerned about Precious and her volcanic fury. Here's how he thinks he can make everyone happy: If SAMCRO helps him bring in the high-risk, ex-military bounty Artie Brand, and they do it for free, he'll take the money they would have made off the day work and "throw it to Precious and the kids," and he'll run intel on Cameron Hayes.
Gemma's walking down the hall, when she's surprised by Tig coming out of the bathroom, clad only in a short pink satin floral robe. Their conversation is too delicious not to transcribe:
GEMMA: Oh! Heeeeey.
TIG: Hey.
GEMMA: Nice robe.
TIG: [crosses hands in front of the goods] Yeah.
GEMMA: Ah ... where you going with the baby oil?
TIG: I'm not going to lie to you, Gemma. I'm a very big man, and a little bit of lube sometimes is just the humane thing to do.
GEMMA: [obviously trying to keep a straight face] Mmmm. I hope that's the Guatemalan hottie in there, and not my dad.
TIG: Nah. Ah, yeah -- okay, I mean, Nate's a very handsome man, but not my bent.
GEMMA: [watches him leave, tries in vain not to smirk] Mmmm.
Back on bounty patrol, the SAMCRO crew and the bounty hunter have tracked down Artie to an adult bookstore. He is availing himself of the private booths in the back, which seems like a great place to corner him. Opie is tasked with keeping an eye on Artie's friends in the front of the store, while Jax and Juice head to the back. Unfortunately, Opie gets distracted by the fact that his girlfriend's all over several of the featured cinematic selections, so he totally misses when Hardy's friends wander off. Opie, you idiot. You are dating a porn actress. You are in an adult bookstore. Did it not occur to you that you might run across her work?
Anyway, because Opie's busy working out that madonna/whore complex (or that dead wife/live girlfriend issue, whatever), Hardy's friends come back right as Jax is trying to collar Artie. There's a bit of a standoff, but Opie finally, belatedly manages to take out the people he shouldn't have let back there in the first place. Artie gets away in the fracas, runs across the street, and does a little nyah-nyah-I'm-going-to-get-away dance that is interrupted by a Prius silently gliding through and sending him ass-over-teakettle into the street. As the bounty hunter scampers off to make his collar, Juice tells Jax, "Damned hybrids. Those things are dangerous." HAAAAAAA.
In the scene, SAMCRO is about to pay Calaveras club honcho Hector Salazar a visit at home. This will not involve ringing the doorbell and politely asking if they can chat about the Mayans' plans. It involves the guys more or less forcing themselves in and nailing Hector to the floor as soon as possible. Bobby Elvis is ordered to go find Hector's old lady. Clay asks Hector why his club is doing "Mayan bitch work," but before Hector can give a sufficiently belligerent and uninformative answer, his woman Luisa's got a gun on Bobby Elvis and is walking him out of the room. Bobby drawls, "I am having a rough day with the ladies." This is two episodes in a row where Bobby Elvis has a gun on him and he's cool and quippy with it. I hope this becomes a thing. Jax defuses this stand-off by headbutting Luisa. This sets Hector off, so Jax bounces his head off a few hard surfaces. Clay's all, "Dang, son," and Bobby Elvis seems faintly taken aback by this, but Jax isn't exactly reading the room for reactions. He wants to find out why the Mayans are patching over the Calaveras club. Hector vows not to say anything useful. Clay decides everyone's time would be better served if Jax did less hitting: "We'll take him to the hole and finish this." Hector burbles through a mouthful of blood that "You can't kill me -- I'm a patched president." But Clay shrugs off this admission with "I don't recognize your bullshit MC."
Meanwhile, in Belfast, Maureen is giving Abel a bottle. Father Ashby comes in and asks, "How is he, sis?" "He's a special one," she coos at Abel, and Father Ashby says, "They're all special at that wee age." Well, what sort of sentimentality can one expect from a man who's probably baptized hundreds of screamy infants? He then establishes that Maureen's daughter Trinity is on holiday and therefore won't be around to overhear any Real IRA business. And it's grim business Kellan delivers: "I heard from Jimmy. He has proof Eddie worked for the Feds. It gets worse. I spoke to Clay. Wasn't Gemma killed the boy, it was ATF. I've consulted with the council. If we leave it 'til Jimmy or the MC get ahold of Cammy ... it'll be brutal, Mo." Maureen keeps on cuddling Abel as she sadly acknowledges that Cameron's about die -- quickly, at any rate -- in order to begin limiting the damage his misunderstand hath wrought. There's a long, silent moment, and then she asks, "How does it land on the Cause?" Answer: it could land any number of ways. Mo intuits, "The last thing Jimmy wants is SAMCRO showing up here looking for [Abel]." Father Ashby deadpans, "Yes. That would complicate his plans." Mo is no dummy. She fixes Kellan with a stare and asks, "And what do you desire ... Father Ashby?" A long, calculating look back at Maureen, and Father Ashby replies, "To give the sacraments. To make sure our kin end up on the right side of God." Maureen is staring at Kellan like she just doesn't believe a word he says. And you know, James Cosmo is doing a fine, fine job here as a priest who can make one really fear the almighty whatever, but I do wish the show had managed to get Brian Cox, if only because he is so, so good at projecting that genteel menace which Father Ashby obviously deploys at will.
Tara is still re-folding all the stuff in Abel's nursery and, one hopes, regretting that she didn't lay waste to Jax's dresser instead. She notices the pad with Gemma's number on it, and calls.
Gemma's making soup for her father, and she calls out to Nate that lunch is almost ready. When she talks to her dad, she is nothing but gentleness itself; it's amazing how much of Gemma comes out in her voice. Anyway, Nate's coming out of the bathroom when he's distracted by noises down the hall. From the sound of it, Tig's baby oil deployment has moved beyond humanitarian effort into something approaching kinesthetic philanthropy. Nate, however, is confused: "Rose? Rose, you all right?" When he opens the door, he sees a naked Tig giving Amelia the business from behind. Well! Good to see Tig's all healed up from those dog bites his nethers were afflicted with in season one.
Gemma's phone rings and she picks it up with a wary "Yeah?" Tara chirps, "Gemma, it's me!" and Gemma -- still cautious -- asks if something is wrong. No, Tara just wants to see how Gemma is. "You on your cell?" Gemma asks. Nope, Tara's using a burner. "You're learning," Gemma says approvingly. Then she gets motherly: "You've been through it, baby. What happened with the prospect, that's shit no one should have to see." Tara winces on the other end. Gemma urges her, "You got to hold on to family, baby. That's what's getting me through it." This conversation is almost a funhouse-mirror version of the Tara/Gemma interactions of two seasons ago, where Gemma was ripping strips off Tara's back for abandoning Jax (and, by proxy, her). I feel like Gemma's given Tara the signal that she's family now. Right then, a gunshot goes off and Amelia screams. Gemma snaps, "Shit!" and hastily says her goodbyes to Tara.
Cut to Nate brandishing a shotgun and shouting, "How could you do this to me, Rose?" Amelia's wrapped in a sheet, backed into a corner, and Tig is lying half-on-half-off the bed with blood streaming down his left shoulder. Gemma comes in with, "Jesus Christ, Dad, what are you doing?" and Tig sort of laughs, "He shot me, the crazy old prick." Amelia shrieks the obvious: "He thought I was Rose!" and this snaps Nate out of his dementia. Gemma tries to mop up Tig, grumbling, "Holy shit, Dad," and Nate begins weeping, "What did I do?" Gemma looks up, her irritation instantly dissolved into pity.
Tig's finally covered up and sitting on the bed -- for those keeping score, Amelia's in the satin robe now -- and Gemma's feeding him some of Rose's leftover Vicodin. Tig asks after Nate, which is surprisingly considerate, and Gemma sees the sunny side of dementia by shrugging, "Hopefully, he'll forget by the morning." Amelia suggests they take Tig to the E.R., but Gemma says, "It was a bullet wound. They'll report it to the cops." Amelia replies, "It was an accident. They can't arrest your father." Gemma says, "It's not him I'm worried about." Cut to Amelia wondering if
she just had coitus interruptus with a felon. Tig tells Gemma she'll have to pull out the slug, and asks if she's up to it. "I'll just have to use a little lube," she snarks back. Tig immediately apologizes. When she picks up Tig's jacket, his gun clatters out. This does not go unnoticed by Amelia, who is clearly wondering exactly what she crawled into bed with.
So. The boys in SAMCRO have taken time out of their busy day to a) dig a hole deep enough to bury Hector up to his neck; b) stick Hector in the hole; c) tamp down the dirt, and; d) attach chains both in front and behind him. As much as I enjoy baroque and time-intensive forms of torture, I have to ask: Is this really an efficient use of anyone's time? Anyhoodle, the point to this is that Jax and Opie will ride their bikes super-close to Hector's head and totally freak him out. Bobby Elvis asks Clay what the hell he's doing, and Clay reasons that this is sort of therapeutic for Jax. And yet it's Hector who finds talking to be incredibly therapeutic. He finally admits to a ring of bikers that the Mayans are setting up a bag-and-cut operation in Lodi, the better to move heroin to Stockton prison.
SAMCRO heads back to their bikes for an informal discussion. Clay says, "This had to be the deal Alvarez cut with Zobelle. Deal must still be on the table. Mayans supply the dope, Aryan Brotherhood gives them the prison run." Jax points out, "Processing H in Lodi means they're running it through Charming to get to Stockton." Opie would like to take Alvarez down. Opie, you can't even take down two goons in a porn shop without it being a head trip -- what the hell will you bring to a war with the Mayans? Clay sighs heavily and points out, "We can't afford another war. We just ended one that finished us. We got assault charges pending. Gemma gone, Abel ... we off this guy, it's an escalation." "Bloody '92 all over again. But if we spare this shithead, it gives us a little room to negotiate," Jax reasons. Chibs is confounded: "Negotiate what? Alvarez wants us dead." Clay pissily replies, "Well, then, we'll just have to change his mind." Nobody particularly likes this path, but they have to admit there are no better options.
Gemma wanders into the kitchen to find that Amelia's got Internet access -- and Gemma's outstanding ATF warrant up on her screen. Gemma slings the shotgun over her shoulder and asks, "Doin' a little research?" Amelia tries to play it cool with, "Whatever you did, it's none of my business. I'm just here to do my job." Gemma puts the shotgun down on the counter and makes a big show of washing her hands as she says, "I appreciate that." Amelia then tries to slink off, giving Gemma a BS line about heading to Rite-Aid for some gauze. Gemma's all, "You should stick around. Under the circumstances, I think it's best." Amelia makes a lunge for the shotgun, informing Gemma that the reward's been upped to $25,000. Gemma stares down the barrel and says, "Woooooow. How many bedpans you gotta empty for that kind of cash?" Answer: A lot. Amelia says, "I'm sorry. Now get out my way." Unfortunately for her, the shotgun's empty -- but the pistol Gemma had tucked in the back of her pants is loaded, and she uses it to nudge Amelia off-screen.
Jax comes home from another packed day (get out of prison; visit the hospital; deal with Precious; meet with Jimmy O; deal with a bail bounty; bury a man up to his neck and scare him half to death; hold off on making war with the Mayans) and finds Tara packing. She tells him Gemma called and pulled the "we need a doctor" card, so off she's going. Jax vetoes it: "You get caught with my mother, it's aiding and abetting a fugitive. A federal crime." Tara asks, "What do you want me to tell her?" "Tell her you're taking a leave of absence," Jax says sharply. Tara sighs that she was planning to tell Jax, and he asks when she was planning to tell him about the beating she put on Murray. Jax then gets a phone call -- we can't really tell what it's about from the replies -- then says he's got to head out. But the two of them aren't done talking, he says. As soon as he leaves, Tara rolls her eyes all, "Oh, so we talk on your schedule" and finishes packing. She's out the door.
In Belfast, Father Ashby's giving Cameron a blessing and a kiss on the cheek -- hey, a Biblical reference to betrayal! -- and as Cameron sits in a pew, he is promptly garroted by one of the Casey brothers. Kellan watches for a moment -- evidently not too bothered that someone's breaking the fifth commandment right in front of him -- then orders another Casey brother: "Wait until dark. Mark him. Then drop him in Short Strand. I want everyone to know Cammy Hayes came home."
"Everyone" does not include SAMCRO. They've got a photo of Cameron at an Amtrak station and proof that he bought a one-way ticket to Vancouver. Jax is overwhelmed with relief that Abel's alive, and Clay says, "We know he's up north." Well, technically speaking, this is true: Belfast has the latitude/longitude of 54° 35' 0" N / 5° 56' 0" W, while San Joaquin county's at 37° 56' 45" N / 121° 16' 52" W. However, Clay and company are sort of missing the details in the bigger picture. How long until they realize Jimmy O's lying to them? When they're tooling around Stanley Park and Tig's eying the totem poles uneasily?
As the strains of "Be Thou My Vision" play, we transition to Maureen feeding Abel again. The baby smiles and wriggles as the chorus sings, "Into thy hands/ give thee my soul to keep."
Watch a rundown of the Mayan beef below, discuss the episode in our forums, and check out our gallery of the show's most shocking moments!
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.