Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Belfast and the Furious
By Joe R | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.09.2010
ggests, but -- is that mature emotional development I see? Outta TIG? He and Piney don't seem thrilled about it, but they're agreed to go with Kozik's plan.Belfast. (Well. "Belfast." Make those filters as green as you want to and shoot on the cloudiest day you can manage, you're not keeping that California sunshine away.) SAMCRO helmets up and rides out to find Liam's dockside retreat. When they get there, McGee makes an excuse to hang back -- he says he's collecting his bearings, but really he needs to make a phone call to Liam, warning him to get away. At the same time, Jimmy O pulls up to the adjacent slip, close enough to have a front-row seat to the proceedings. Those proceedings include Liam trying to make a getaway on his bike, only for Jax to make a flying clothesline tackle on him. The boys grab him and haul him inside, and Jax tells someone to call Sean Casey -- "We've got a confession to record." Across the way, Jimmy tells Donny they're going to need at least four more men -- and some automatic rifles. Meanwhile, McGee catches up, and Clay tells him he may need a strong stomach for what comes next. Not the greatest news for a guy who's already looking pretty green around the gills.
So that strong stomach thing applies to the viewer too, because once the boys chain Liam up and hang him up like a side of beef in a meat locker, Casey unravels his satchel of tools and begins using them in ways you would NEVER treat a side of beef in a meat locker. Meanwhile, outside, Jimmy's backup has arrived, and they're armed to the teeth. Inside, Liam screams and denies all involvement, which only leads stone-faced Casey to enact more punishment. McGee can't take it and steps out. "This is some medieval shit," Bobby grumbles, while Happy smiles big in agreement. After a few more invasive strikes by Casey, Liam's screams begin to take shape. With the video camera ready to record his confession for the IRA, he wails, "I'm sorry!" It all comes tumbling out -- in thick-ass Irish, so forgive me if I don't quote verbatim. But basically: Jimmy ordered the blast, Liam carried it out, and he didn't tell McGee because he knew he wouldn't have the stomach for it. Clay now steps up: "McGee's working for Jimmy?" Liam nods aye. Clay punches Liam's perforated midsection and demands to know who else. "No one else!" Clay then yells for someone to go find McGee. Jax then asks Casey if he got everything he needs (he did), and then tells him to turn the camera off, before shooting Liam through the heart and ending the poor bastard's suffering.
Outside, crazy guitar music has kicked in, and Jimmy's men are storming the warehouse. Clay orders his guys to lock the doors from the inside. Jax sends Casey off with the tape to give to Ashby. "No matter what," Jax stresses, "he keeps his promise about my kid." Casey splits. The Sons make for the roof. Jimmy's guys haul ass up the stairs and Bobby starts dousing Liam's place with gasoline. Oooh! This looks like fun! Jimmy's men storm the castle and find Liam's corpse. They also find a curiously strong gas smell, and before they can bolt, SAMBEL members chain the doors shut behind them. Jimmy yells for them to get to the roof, but while he's on his way up the ladder, he has to dodge the Molotov cocktail Clay drops down the chute. The loft erupts, engulfing at least one of Jimmy's goons in flames.
Jimmy makes it to the roof, though, where he's immediately swarmed by SAMCRO. Jax is playing it smart, making sure no one shoots the bastard. "It's the priest you wanna be hatin'," Jimmy yells to Jax. "He's playing you, Jackson, he's never giving you your son back!" Before we can figure out if that's bullshit or not, McGee emerges from behind Jimmy and starts shooting at him. Jax -- again, finding ways to keep Jimmy alive without being obvious about it -- yells for someone to grab McGee, since he's a traitor and all. Jimmy's men emerge from the makeshift chimney, and now it's a shootout. Jimmy makes a run for it and hits the stairs down. Jax tries to give chase, but he's too far behind. Jimmy and Donny speed away.
Meanwhile, McGee tries to make it to a ladder and climb down, but Clay catches up to him. The shooting has stopped, and Clay just wants to know why McGee did it. "I'm getting old," McGee says. "This life hasn't given me much in the way of retirement. It was just about the money, brother." Not sure if that's supposed to make it sting more or less for Clay, who steps up to the ledge and tells McGee to hand over his jacket. With ominous, wailing A.R. Rahman/Battlestar Galactica style music swelling in the background, it's not like we don't know what's coming. Clay embraces his old friend, even gives him that old Sicilian "kiss of death" (mixing our criminal cultures, aren't we Clay?), and then quietly as you please, he shoves McGee off the roof. He lands with the softest of thuds. Bye, McGee. You were kinda terrible at being a double-crosser, but we'll remember your mustache fondly.
After the break, Jax and Clay are having a sitdown powwow with Father Ashby and some IRA officials. They thank Jax and Clay for sticking their necks out to get this proof of Jimmy O's treachery, but when Clay asks for info on how they can find him, they tell him it's a matter for the Army now. Jax looks a little panicked and says that wasn't the deal. Father Ashby, mostly inscrutable but I'd say he looks rather abashed, tells Jax that this is how it has to be. Jax stands up and starts yelling, but Clay calms him down. Ashby tells the room, by way of explanation, that he and Jax have some "outside issues to discuss." He looks at Jax, with a "Not in front of company, baby" look, and Jax is left to seethe quietly for the moment.
Charming. Salazar is satisfied enough knowing that SAMCRO is cooperating with his demands that he declines to duct-tape Tara and Margaret's mouths shut. That's awfully considerate of him, since it leaves them free to discuss the odd business of Margaret's wicked big back tattoo. Here's the sitch: Years and years ago, Margaret had a boyfriend who was a biker. She thought she was in love. But he was Bad News Bears, and she was in deep. She gave him money, she bought him drugs, ultimately started dealing for him. Then, on Christmas Eve in 1989, they both OD'd. She survived, he didn't. Tara says she's sorry, but Margaret's not. She leaves the tat there so she always knows that "that shit is behind me." Also presumably because it would be crazy expensive/painful to have a giant-ass tattoo like that removed. Tara takes it all in, pondering.
Clay and Jax return to the Sons, having been unable to track down Ashby elsewhere. Bobby mentions with some urgency that the police found the bodies at the docks, and they're going to come calling, sooner rather than later. Opie says they'll find Abel, catch Oswald's plane tomorrow night, "and get the hell off this moss-covered shithole." Aw, Opie. Talk about someone who hasn't had enough to do in this Belfast storyline. Also, hilariously, Chibs tips his bottle Ope's way and says, "Amen, my brother," to the "moss-covered shithole" line. No love lost for the motherland for Chibbs. Guess that's not surprising.
Jax, frustrated, says he's going for a walk; Gemma snaps her fingers at Opie to go and keep an eye on him. The rest of the Sons disperse too, but Gemma holds Clay back for a minute. She can see what's been weighing on him since they came back from the warehouse. Killing McGee has really taken a lot out of him; he was an Original 9 member and all. There was a lot of history there. And while I'm sure there was -- and for sure the audience was told that McGee was Original 9 and all -- but the show did a pretty poor job of rendering the gravity of that relationship until now, after the fact. If we'd had a better sense of the kind of longstanding brotherhood Clay and McGee shared -- not to mention the way McGee tied into John Teller -- this moment (and certainly the moment on the roof) could have had a much bigger emotional impact. Alas. Gemma tries to comfort Clay, but he's not in the mood to be comforted.
Charming. Piney, Tig, and Kozik roll up on Alvarez's home, the location of which is clearly a super-guarded secret, because his gate is totally unlocked, and he comes upon the Sons while carrying his baby into the backyard. This is not a man who's worried about an attack on his home front -- if that circumstantial evidence doesn't sway you, the panicked look on his face sure will. He pulls out his gun -- so he's not completely free of precaution -- which leads Tig and Piney to pull out their guns, and before you know it, everybody, including Mrs. Alvarez, are going all Mexican standoff. So to speak.
Kozik scrambles to be the voice of reason before they all end up dead. He puts his piece away first, saying this is a "friendly visit." Alvarez hands the baby off to his old lady, but he keeps the guns on the intruders in his backyard. They explain that Salazar gave them the address, that he kidnapped Jax's old lady and wants them to kill Alvarez and steal his cash. Alvarez has a bit of a chuckle at the idea that he's got a quarter mil in his safe. "Two old watches, insurance policies, and my kid's baby teeth," that's all he's got in there. Kozik says they can find the money someplace else -- what they