Potter has set Act II into motion: He pressures Roosevelt to lean on Juice, and so Roosevelt does. He bids Juice to get one of the tracking stickers(!) the cartel uses to monitor the progress of its cocaine shipments. Juice, however, is terrified by the task and ends up stealing an entire brick of the stuff. The theft is not unnoticed by the episode's end, but we'll have to wait to the episode to see how it's explained away.
More Potter-iffic fallout: Big Otto tasks Gemma with getting the club to find out who killed Luann. (Both of them refuse to countenance the “sheriff's” implication that it was very probably Bobby Elvis who did.) thing we know, Clay and Jax are bringing the issue into church, but they've changed the story to protect Bobby Elvis: Although there was semen in Luann's pants, it's a mystery as to whose (cut to Bobby Elvis sweating a few bullets), and they like Georgie Caruso (Tom Arnold) for it. Since the club's all paranoid about Sheriff Roosevelt finding anything on them he can, they decide to handle Caruso first. They do, with an assist from David Hasselhoff, and Clay decides to keep Caruso alive because he can hook them up with perverse Asian investors that can flirt with the Charming Heights project, then cruelly dash Mayor McCheese's hopes at the last minute. This will not backfire on SAMCRO at all, I am sure. Then Bobby Elvis goes and lies to Big Otto about killing Georgie.
(Honestly, it's a shrewd move on Clay and/or Jax's part: By protecting Bobby now, they're insulating themselves against suspicion should anything happen to him later. And given Bobby's very obvious disapproval of the cartel move, something's going to happen … and that's when the “Oh, it turns out he was having things to do with Luann” story will come in handy.)
The hunt for Georgie provides an excuse for a Lyla-related subplot. I know – it was hard to curb my elation enough to type steadily, but here we are. While hanging out in her dressing room, Opie discovers Lyla's taking birth control, which would be quite counterproductive to the whole “Let's have a baby” thing they supposedly had going on. Opie reacts as any rational man would: he sleeps with Ima.
Piney has a talk with Clay: He knows that JT was trying to get the club out of the gun business right before he was killed, he's pretty sure Clay engineered JT's death, and he has the letters to prove it. He says, “You kill the drug muling or you let the rest of the club read those letters.” Rather than remembering that the club is made up of men who have been known to throw porno mags across the room if the captions were too wordy, Clay freaks out at the prospect of the letters surfacing. Gemma vows to find the letters for his and her peace of mind. She also knows that if she doesn't spin the situation carefully, both Tara and Piney will end up dead. Her idea is to have Unser find the letters in Tara's office and hand them over to her. Unser finds the letters – or copies of them, anyway – and reads them. Then he and Clay have a vicious argument, during which you can actually see Unser strip away decades of self-deception and justification, and the upshot is that Clay wants to find the original letters and launch into Operation Cover My Arthritic Ass, Collateral Damage Be Damned. When Gemma checks in with Unser, he lies to her about having handled the letters. So Gemma feels free to lie to Clay the morning about having found the letters in Tara's desk drawer.
Line of the night:
Clay, to Gemma: I had John Teller killed while I was bedding his wife.
The episode begins with Gemma doing old lady outreach for the club: She's visiting Otto in prison and offering sympathy in her own inimitable fashion: "Jesus, Otto. What the hell happened? I'm sorry, sweetheart. What do you need from me?" Otto needs closure for Luann. He explains, "Sheriff paid me a visit. His office took over the homicide. Found semen on Luann. Bobby's." Gemma's shocked by this -- whether by the fact that Bobby violated a club precept or by the fact that Luann was willing to have relations with him. She tries to discredit Roosevelt -- setting up a Potter-sponsored communications misunderstanding I fear will blow back on the good sheriff in a future episode -- but Otto cuts her off by saying he's seen the relevant report and it's legit. He concludes, "Last guy tapping a bitch is usually the one who killed her." Gemma can't believe it, so Otto challenges her: "I want you to ask Clay a question: 'What would it feel like to lose the one he loved the most?' You tell the club, you tell the guy who was bedding my wife, they need to find the scumbag who killed her."
Ominously (or not?), we cut to Bobby Elvis. He's with the rest of SAMCRO. They're meeting with the Mayans but, alas alas, the bagging operation won't be up for another day, so SAMCRO will have to babysit all 30 bricks of fine uncut Colombian marching powder for a day. Jax does not look thrilled by this news, and even less thrilled that a Mayan will be sticking around to keep an eye on things for Alvarez. Jax pulls Miles aside and orders him, "Lock those crates in the gun room. No-one gets in. Put Phil and Rat-boy on the front and back." Clay orders everyone home for some shut-eye, with plans to meet up at the club house by noon. I hope for the guys' sake it's noon the day. but knowing this show's timeline, probably not. Outlaw bikers: Getting more done before noon than most law-abiding people do all day.
Juice doesn't even get the consolation of a nap, as he has to meet up with Roosevelt. Juice attempts to be hard and loyal, but Roosevelt correctly calls out Juice's worst fear (being drummed out of the club) and says he'll sit on the information about Juice's dad so long as Juice feeds him information about the Galindo cartel involvement.
Meanwhile, Jax heads home. It is worth noting that Tara's effected one heck of a redecorating job in the past 14 months. Either she went insane with nesting or Gemma had a lot of spare energy to burn. Whichever, the effect is nice: the walls are blue, the furniture no longer has that "You can't see the beer stains if I throw this naked-woman-straddling-a-Harley plush afghan over it" look because it's been replaced, and Tara's got lots of canvases with landscapes on the wall. Jax kisses his boys and his fiancée hello, then brings Tara her souvenirs. Souvenir one: a brick of cash that is literally the size of a standard masonry brick. Souvenir two: its twin.
Tara decides not to ask too many questions about why Jax is carrying enough currency to set up a Charming branch of the Fed. She just takes the cash, and Jax tells her, "Got to put it in the safety deposit box, in your name. There's going to be a lot more." Tara swallows before asking neutrally, "All in cash?" "No strings, no tax -- this is real, babe. Just like I promised you." I am in no way well versed on whether or not any law enforcement agency can seize the contents of a safe deposit box, but I'm thinking if these two really want to keep their money untouchable, they need to call in a professional and learn how to hide it in plain sight via a brokerage. Anyway, Tara takes the cash. She saves her sigh until after Jax walks off.
, we see the guys in church. Jax and Clay spin a story for the guys: "our sheriff has a lead on Luann's murder" (factual error number one) and there is an unknown assailant who did the deed, as his DNA is in the system (factual error number two). We cut to Bobby Elvis looking nervous, but Juice quickly assumes that Georgie Caruso is the one who did it. Clay rumbles, "We should have handled this shit when it first happened. Old ladies, they got a way of coming back and biting you in the ass." Spoken like a man whose actions got one murdered a few seasons ago! And I love that the camera goes to Piney as Clay says that. Jax sets up the plot of the week: If Roosevelt's got proof of a suspected killer, the club needs to get to him first so they can extract Otto-appropriate vengeance. There's a ticking clock here too: Once Otto's out of the infirmary, he loses visitation. The camera goes to a very uncomfortable-looking Bobby as Clay says, "I want a brother to look him in the eye and tell him it's been handled. He deserves that." Juice asks Opie if Lyla can help them track down Georgie, and Opie sullenly says so: "She's on a shoot today." Chibs reverently raises his eyes to heaven as he whispers, "Beautiful thing, two girls in love." Clay orders, "Before we all sail off to the isle of Lesbos, for a job well done." He then hands out big bricks of cash to everyone present. Kozik, Happy and Miles' stashes will be waiting for them until they return to grace our screen again.
Piney pointedly shoves his cash away and gives Clay a murderous look. Bobby Elvis clears out and it's only the two old men across the table. They debate what the dead JT would have done, and Piney sets a trap for Clay about how "John changed his mind about the guns, remember?" Clay steps into it: "Yeah, he talked about, uh, getting us out." Piney springs the trap and drops his knowledge about the meeting JT set up -- and never made it to -- about getting SAMCRO out of the gun-running business." He then informs Clay of the letters' existence and how they basically finger Clay for JT's murder. Clay reminds us all of the death myth: "JT laid his bike down on 580, was crushes by a semi. It was an accident." Piney says, "We'll never know. Lowell, senior, disappeared the week, and he was the only one JT trusted to work on his bike." Clay goes on the offense, asking Piney what he stands to gain by bringing all this up. Piney tells him: "It's not about me. You kill the drug muling, or I'll let the rest of the club read the letters." Clay claims Piney doesn't have the letters. Piney figures he can't lose either way -- the truth comes out or the drugs go away. Clay protests that you don't exactly quit a cartel. Piney thinks otherwise, and gives Clay a deadline of a week. And "In case you're still thinking about slitting my throat, I wouldn't. I have contingencies in place." This, I can't wait to see.
Outside, Bobby Elvis is quietly freaking. Jax points out that Otto does have Bobby Elvis's name (so Otto knows), but he and Clay figured Bobby Elvis didn't Luann. Bobby Elvis says, "Sheriff's got my DNA. Why didn't he question me?" Jax has no idea, and oh, won't it be funny when this all comes out at exactly the wrong moment and Roosevelt's all, "I visited who and said what?" (Ten bucks says Potter's there, and drifts by with a look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.) Anyhoodle, Jax has decided that avenging Luann for Otto is this episode's Errand of the Week, so they're going to get to it. But first, Clay's got to run a few errands.
Clay heads into Gemma's office and says baldly, "Piney says he knows I killed JT. Threatened to tell the club." Gemma dismisses this as the ramblings of a man who just had a cardiac incident, but Clay points out that Piney had inside information: "Says he found some old letters. Guess maybe Tara did tell somebody." Gemma can see where this line of thinking is headed and tries to divert Clay, but he makes his case with every step he takes toward Gemma: "I'm sure JT wrote about how Piney was the only one he trusted. Makes sense for Tara to turn to him." Gemma gets up and insists, "Tara would not hurt this family!" (What a long way she's come since season one when she told Clay, "I didn't trust her [as a high schooler], I don't trust her now.") Clay is not really paying attention to any of Gemma's character testimonies. He begins making the case for more murder with, "The history that Tara and Piney know? Very dangerous." Gemma says, "You're talking about the cofounder of this club and the mother of our grandchild." This should be Clay's big neon clue that Gemma's not buying what he's selling, as Gemma has made it abundantly clear that she will protect those who she considers family at all costs. However, Clay is more concerned with covering his own ass, and lays out why the club would not hesitate to murder him: "I had John Teller killed while I was bedding his wife. It does not matter what the reason was, Jax finds that out, he cuts off my goddamn head, he sticks it on the reaper pole. Now, we got to stop this in its tracks, you and me. Otherwise we lose everything." Hey, does anyone else remember toward the end of Season 1 when Clay's having issues and Gemma says dismissively, "You're losing control, just like he did." THAT will be what makes Clay lose everything -- when he loses Gemma's respect and backing.
For now, however, Gemma tries to steer Clay off his paranoia-fueled course by pointing out, correctly, that neither one of them has any idea what's in those letters, Piney is a known malcontent, and the smart move would be to just find the letters, because if Clay and Gemma can sit on those, then nobody else has any proof of anything. Clay decides to listen to the missus on this one; Gemma promises she'll find the letters and warns her husband, "Until I do, Clay, nothing happens. You understand? Not to Piney, not to Tara. You hurt them, you hurt Jax." And there is screaming neon clue number two that Gemma is not going to be backing Clay on this play: This is the woman who said in Season 2 that God put her on this planet to be a fierce mother, and she probably has not let go of that conviction. Clay promises Gemma and they hug, but both of them wear the shell-shocked look of people who just realized they can't really trust their spouse to be in their corner on a big problem. (And they can't exactly bring this to marriage counseling: "My wife won't back my plan to kill our daughter-in-law so I can keep the murder of her first husband covered up!" Can this marriage be saved?")
That discussion out of the way, Clay's gone to visit Unser. He butters him up with a beautifully restored motorcycle ("Consider it my first payment on a long-overdue debt"), then airs his concern about Tara having JT's old letters. "I need you to find them now... when you track them down, you give them to me, I'll get rid of them," he bids Unser. Having thus broken his promise to his wife, Clay prepares to leave.
But look! Here comes Gemma, who seems none too pleased to see Clay, quite possibly because she needs to lean on Unser to help her find those letters -- although she disguises it as a charity pot drop-off for Unser. Clay pecks his wife and heads off. Gemma's morning of being lied to by the men in her life continues, as Unser claims he and Clay were merely setting up "trucking shit," and not talking about how Unser needs to fetch some letters for Clay.
Gemma snarls, "Don't you lie to me." Unser folds and sits with a plaintive "I'm between a big rock and a really hard place here, Gemma." Gemma figures it out; she seems less surprised than irritated that Clay would break a promise to her. Unser feebly defends Clay with "He's worried," but Gemma's all, "Yeah, we've gone beyond worried into kill-happy. Get the letters -- they're in a locked desk drawer in Tara's office. If you're lucky, Tara still hasn't learned to lock her door because she loves it when her mother-in-law and/or ornery old bikers lie in wait in her bathroom." Gemma emphasizes how Clay cannot get his hands on those letters. She stalks off and Unser sits back with a look like he regrets every decision from the last twenty years.
Oh, hooray, we've reincorporated porn into the regular storylines! The boys are on a set with Lyla, who tells them that Georgie Caruso has gotten out of the entertainment end of the adult entertainment industry and is now making high-end sex toys. Lyla's sparking up as she drawls about passing up an opportunity to make a doll with Ima and "the Saffron sisters," and Opie leans over to grab the joint away. He also provides exposition: Lyla is now under contract to one-named producer-director-hyphenate "Dondo." Lyla heads out to work with him and Jax follows, as he decides he needs to make Dondo's acquaintance. Since Opie can't stand what Lyla does for a living (which makes me wonder if he can't stand having her income contribute to the household or if his dislike is suspended temporarily with every direct deposit), he elects to stay in her dressing room. While doing a bit of tidying up, Opie discovers Lyla's stash of birth control pills. He is not thrilled to learn that Lyla's approach to taking charge of her fertility is to nullify it.
Meanwhile: let us behold the splendor of Dondo! (And wonder why, once again, we've been saddled with a bad D&D name. You just know Dondo travels with the Rod of Samtaz or something.) Dondo is the alter ego of David Hasselhoff, providing exposition and chin dimples: "Georgie contacted me a few weeks ago, said he wanted to use my best seller -- Saffron Sorority Girls -- to make a new run of his dolls." Tig's eyes bug out in horror and he stammers, "Wait, wait -- dolls?" Dondo, oblivious to Tig's discomfort, says zestily, "Yeah. Life. Sized. Sex. Dolls. They look and feel just like the real thing. It's a huge market." We go back to Tig, who looks haunted by the knowledge that out there is a perversion even he cannot abide. Jax bids Dondo to call Georgie and tell him "Sorority Girl #1" (a.k.a. Lyla) had a change of heart -- to do it for Luann.
Dondo bites into the notion of avenging Luann with all the relish of a drunk having a delicious hamburger: "You're telling me Georgie had something to do with Luann's murder? I know what [it means when the bikers want a 'private chat.'] It means you're going to whack him." Jax and Bobby Elvis crack up before explaining that Adriana La Cerva's presence in season one notwithstanding, the Sons aren't the Mob. "We don't whack people, Dondo," Jax says. Dondo is disappointed: "Well, that's too bad, because I'm not going to hook you up unless you crush that hyper-douchebag's skull. I loved Luann. She mentored me. She taught me that I was more than a big cock." We cut to Tig, whose brain is still broken by the horror of people having sex with dolls. But Dondo is adamant: He wants Georgie dead. The bikers are all, "... Well. If you insist."
Meanwhile, Unser breaks into Tara's office and steals the copies she's made of the letters. He leaves a stack of blank pages in their place, which is baffling and dumb, given that he grabs the blank paper from her fax machine and it would be five minutes' work to make a second set of copies. Then Tara would never know someone had broken into her office, and Unser would still have what he needed. But that's apparently too logical.
Potter's war room: At this point, the nest of post-its on one wall has turned into a veritable rat-king of paper and there's a crude timeline attached like a tail. Roosevelt comes in, and Potter exposits about the Galindo cartel (It's organized! As cartels are!) before asking how Juice is coming along. Roosevelt says, "We're close, but he's going to need some assurances, so you're going to have to close the deal." Potter's not buying it: "We need to set the hook deeper into his mouth before I risk stepping out behind the magic curtain." Roosevelt's all, "And you will be doing this... how?" Potter wants Juice to pull a sample from the cocaine -- "a couple grams. Let us confirm point of origin and his level of commitment." Roosevelt slowly points out that if Juice gets caught, he's dead. Potter patiently says, "That's the point. It proves the risk of getting outed for color is greater than the risk of working with us." Roosevelt is not a fan of this, and argues that playing the race card thusly could blow back on him: "Word gets out that I got someone killed leveraging color?" Potter pretends he cares about this and tells Roosevelt, "I'll make sure your involvement with Juan Carlos is stricken from the record. No credit, no responsibility. Fair enough?" Roosevelt agrees, but the minute he leaves, some nameless agent says, "You know we can't strike him from the record. Shit's already been uploa--" "Shhh," says Potter. Aw, man. Why does every fed on this show have to be an unscrupulous SOB? And why does Roosevelt -- who is doing a fine job filling the moral vacuum Hale left after he was spread across the pavement -- have to have so much shit piled on him?
Unser's at the trailer of despair, reading the letters and grimacing in dismay. He's thrown them into his little fire bowl right as Clay comes motoring up. Clay sees what Unser is doing and sprints over to retrieve the letters from the fire. Unser shouts, "I wish I had never found them! The lies were easier to stomach." Clay snarls, "Save the pain and sorrow for my old lady." Unser replies, "That's the difference between you and me, Clay. I actually feel bad for some of the shit I've done. The lie you fed me about why John Teller needed to die... you told me JT's weakness was going to bring violence to Charming... JT wasn't weak. He was conflicted. He wanted to end guns, go legit. That's why you killed him and had me cover it up." Clay deflects, as Clay always does. Unser helpfully exposits about JT's letters detailing Clay's two prior attempts to kill him, so now we know what Clay is going to be fixating on for the remainder of the season. Unser asks if Gemma's going to be so understanding: "Does she understand the real reason you killed her man?" This hits Clay where he lives, so he acts on a long-held suspicion: "What's the matter? Are you afraid the love of your life betrayed you too?" Unser stares Clay down; he's taken his measure and it seems almost freeing to be clear of any illusions or rationalizations.
Back at the porn studio, Georgie is busy trying to sell Dondo on the doll experience, Ima toddling in their wake. Dondo's just nodding like a big, tanned bobblehead until the SAMCRO boys come out. Chibs says they need to talk, and moron Ima instantly makes things tough by pulling a gun out of her purse and shouting, "I didn't do anything!" Within seconds, Georgie's got the gun off Ima, attempts to shoot his way clear, scampers away, and is brought down by Jax. When Bobby Elvis finally catches up, he completely loses his cool and attempts to kill Georgie with his bare hands. Whether it's out of a sense of trying to make things right with Otto, out of guilt for banging a brother's old lady, or a chance to misdirect suspicion on the off-chance Potter was right about him, I have no idea. It takes Chibs and Tig to subdue the older man.
Clay's thrown the letters back in the fire bowl. It has not escaped his attention that he's burning copies. Unser's like, "Yeah, well, I don't have the originals. Tara still does." Clay claims he's going to "protect both of us," which we all know is code for "I'm probably going to get Tig to murder Tara, since I don't have a track record of jumping to conclusions and killing innocent people in my own self-interest or anything."
Georgie's now ball-gagged and cuffed with what looks like a prop from a Dondo shoot -- the SAMCRO boys are nothing if not resourceful -- and Juice drifts off because his phone just rang. He shakily tells Chibs there's a problem at Clear Passages ("Smokers or shitters?" Chibs delicately inquires), then takes off with Chibs' blessing.
No sooner does Unser get one Morrow out of his thinned hair than the other one pulls up and notices that he's burning a boatload of copied letters. Unser lies to Gemma with, "The shit John wrote -- too painful for you to read. Sorry." Gemma's face betrays a brief flash of panic, then she takes Unser's hand and thanks him for what he's done. I find it fascinating that Unser chose to lie to Gemma about the letters and/or whether or not Clay ever got them. Does he think it's a kindness to keep her in the dark about why Clay killed her husband?
Roosevelt and Juice are meeting in a small cell, and Roosevelt's laying out the request for a sample of the cocaine. "If it's uncut, it has markers and the lab can isolate the region," Roosevelt explains. Juice is still playing dumb about the cocaine, but Roosevelt tells him, "You tell me who's pushing it out in Sanwa, we connect the cartel, leave SAMCRO out of this. (sighs) Look, I just want things to get back to normal. Your MC out of drugs, your daddy back in the closet." Having articulated Juice's most fervent desire, Roosevelt gets Juice to agree to it, or at least not actively oppose the request.
Zip! Back to plot-of-the-week. Clay heads into Dondo's studio and says, "Georgie! We missed you!" He takes out Georgie's ball gag, and Georgie begs him, "Can't you talk sense into these psychos?" Clay purrs, "These are my rational guys. I get Happy here, 'ball gag' takes on a whole new meaning." Georgie protests that he didn't kill Luann, but Jax has had enough of the club's Errand of the Week plotline and begins garroting Georgie. Ima takes this moment to cling to Opie for comfort. Opie is all, " ... there, there?" Georgie screams that he has millions of dollars, and they're all at Clay's disposal if only he's allowed to live. Georgie pants, "I got Asian backing. Billionaire sex freaks. I'm serious!" Clay's all, "Hold it. Can we use these Asians for our own ends? Say, get them to claim they're interested in investing in Charming Heights, then have them pull the money at the last minute and completely screw over Mayor McCheese?" None of the bikers seem keen on this plan -- mostly because it involves keeping Georgie alive -- but they go along with it. It also helps that nobody knows how Clay promised Osborne he'd make sure Charming Heights goes through. Bobby Elvis asks, "What the hell do we tell Otto?" and Clay is all, "We, kemosabe?" Jax says simply, "Tell him the truth. The club needs Georgie alive for a minute. That's a post-dated check. As soon as we shut down Hale, we cut Georgie's heart out."
Juice pulls up to the guns-n-drugs barn and lies to Filthy Phil about why he's checking up on the drugs. Conveniently enough, Rat's on a coffee run, and Miles and the Mayan are off doing who-knows-what (or who...). Juice recognizes an opportunity when it's staring him in the face, so he waltzes into the barn to get the tracking sticker. He's pulled a brick out of the crate, and right as he's getting ready to grab a sample, Filthy Phil comes on over to say hi because he's lonely. Juice panics and shoves the brick of heroin down his pants, then chit-chats with Filthy Phil. Before he can shake the big, dumb human mountain, Rafi (the Mayan) comes by, so Juice has to lock up and waltz out of the barn with a big brick of fine uncut Columbian cocaine snuggled against his nethers. Rafi absolutely suspects something is up, but he can't figure out what.
We then see Juice hanging out under a tree, holding the brick and trying not to panic as he waits out the guards. Quick cut and... it's daylight. Juice correctly realizes he is screwed, and runs toward the barn chanting, "Ah, shit, shit, shit" the whole way.
Daybreak at Clay and Gemma's. Gemma is already up and coffee-fueled, which is bad news for the barely-awake Clay, as she's loaded for bear and begins firing off questions as to Clay's whereabouts. Clay mumbles, "Just handling that Otto thing. Handled." He sits down, and the scene of the heavily-tattooed Clay sipping his coffee at a table adored with a bowl of floating gardenia flowers is never not going to be funny. Gemma then hands over a plastic bag filled with charred paper bits. Clay asks, "What's this?" and Gemma replies, "The letters. I found them in Tara's office, locked in a desk drawer." We cut to Clay's face, and the look he's giving Gemma -- disbelief, betrayal -- is heartbreaking. Gemma is not even trying to sell her lie particularly well, even as she claims, calmly and dully, that they were mostly love letters to Maureen and she was so pained, she had no choice but to burn them. Clay appears to shrink in on himself as he picks up the baggie full of paper fragments he burned. He mumbles, "Sorry." Gemma figures they can move on: "It's done, baby. Piney's suspicions don't mean shit. Nobody can hurt us."
We cut to Clay, who has just endured the deepest hurt of all. (No doubt remembering how he taunted Unser: "Are you afraid the love of your life betrayed you too?" Or thinking that he now has an answer for Otto's question: How does it feel to lose the one you love the most?) Clay leans over and kisses her hand: "Yeah. Thank god." The two sit at the table silently. I have to admit: I had a lump in my throat at the end of this scene. One of the things I have always loved about this show was the way it depicted Clay and Gemma's marriage as a mature, passionate relationship where they really did seem to try and be their best selves for each other. And they've both given in to their worst instincts, so now there's an irreparable fissure beginning to grow between them.
Meanwhile, Juice decides the best thing he can do with his purloined brick is to bury it in the woods. On the bright side, whoever ends up looking for it will be able to easily find it after they notice all the chipmunks ordering bottle service and behaving like total a**holes.
Back at the clubhouse, some guy behind the bar -- Clipper, according to the closed captioning -- tells Jax that Opie spent the night in the apartment. Jax heads back to find his best bud. Opie greets him with a grunt of "Rough night," and that, naturally, is when Ima makes her morning appearance. (Good news! She's still keeping up whatever it is she does to keep the glutes thong-worthy.) Pulling up her strapless bra as she saunters into the room, Ima grins, "Well ... mornin'." Jax gives Opie with a pointed look and says, "Really rough." Opie rolls his eyes all, Save me from hypocrites and Ima drapes herself on him for show. Jax leaves with, "Guess I'll leave you to it," and Opie finally shakes Ima off. You would think she'd learn that these guys are not so much with the morning-after breakfast and chitchat.
Opie heads outside for a cigarette. Conveniently enough, Jax is there. He has the decency to wait until Opie's had his first hit of sweet, sweet nicotine before inquiring, "Did you lose your mind?" Opie does not deign to reply, and Jax strides over and says angrily, "Hey! You got a family, man. You got a new wife! Getting your dick sucked by a crow eater is one thing, but --" "I know," Opie says, in a tone that indicates he's in no mood. Possibly because he's already got a burning sensation when he pees. Oh, wait, here it is: "I found birth control and morning-after pills in Lyla's stuff. All this time I've been trying to have kids, she's been killing it off!" Oh, boy. Jax feels bad for Opie, but he points out that "tapping that crazy bitch" is perhaps not the most constructive way to deal with a sense of betrayal within a relationship. Opie's all, "Worked for you."
Jax winces, then admits he deserved that crack. He sits to Opie, lets the other man collect his thoughts then asks, "What's going on?" Opie admits, "I keep trying to force things, and the shit don't fit. And Lyla... none of it feels real. I mean, I miss... I miss Donna." Now that Opie's admitted that expecting the well-meaning but semi-hot mess Lyla to take the place of the strong, principled Donna was kind of a dumb move, he storms off.
Speaking of trading up or down on second partners, we're back at Jax's place. There's a gorgeous garden in the front (Gemma's doing? She had some excess energy when Clay wasn't around) and a sign indicating that the place is being remodeled. Tara comes out with Thomas's car seat and gets into her shiny, clean minivan. (Minivan! Remember when she used to drive that bad-assed Charger around?) Unser discreetly pulls out and begins following her.
Meanwhile, it's visiting time in Stockton. Someone wheels Big Otto over to the table where Bobby Elvis is nervously twiddling his thumbs. Bobby Elvis opens with, "How you holding up, brother?" but Big Otto's having none of it: "You got something to tell me?" Bobby Elvis gives a refreshingly BS-free apology: "I'm sorry. I got no excuse. It just happened." Big Otto grills him: How long? Did you love her? Bobby Elvis says no, he didn't love Luann. "And she didn't love me. You were the only one who mattered?" Big Otto has revenge on the mind, and Bobby Elvis lies about them finishing off Georgie Caruso in revenge for Luann. Because, as we all know, lying never, ever comes back to bite anyone in the ass on this show.
And now, for the final scene: the boys are counting out the bricks for the Mayans and they've just made the unwelcome discovery that there's a brick missing. The show ends with everyone in the room looking alarmed for various reasons, and the camera closes in on Juice, who couldn't look guiltier if he had a big neon "GUILTY" sign blinking over his head. But, as we've established repeatedly in this episode, even if there were neon signs broadcasting the truth, not a single SAMCRO member would be able to see them clearly.
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