Episode Report Card Sobell: B | 2 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Juice Can't Concentrate
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 10.18.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The "MD" stands for "Maybe Dead:" Gemma finds the death threat in Tara's van, convinces her not to take it to the police, then immediately calls in the SAMCRO reinforcements to keep her son's old lady safe, apparently never dreaming that the threat originates with her husband. Unser tips off Roosevelt to the threat, but Tara lies (poorly) when Roosevelt swings by Teller Morrow to make sure she's okay. Her day gets worse when she figures out that Jax and the rest of the MC have now added drug smuggling to their vast repertoire of law-breaking enterprises. The only thing Tara has going for her right now is one thing she doesn't even know about: despite Clay's warnings to the contrary, Unser is persisting in trying to keep Tara safe, and it looks like he's enlisting Margaret in the fight.
It'll be tough making "Jax Teller" scan in a narcorrido ballad: The SAMCRO boys get an eyeful of what life with the cartel is going to be like after they're present during a horrific spray-and-pray right in the heart of the Mayan's cocaine factory. Using only his wits, a Social Distortion backing soundtrack, and one meager pistol, Jax heads out for vengeance against the shooters. He kills one, tracks another to Oakland (in theory, if mention of Fruitvale means anything), and figures he's found the apartment where the shooter is hiding. A few members of SAMCRO make a field trip – and they end up terrorizing an apartment full of women and children who are, as it turns out, also being terrorized by the Sonoro Lobos cartel. THAT is when it sinks in to SAMCRO that hey, cartels often target families to make people do terrible things. This galvanizes Bobby Elvis, who calls for a vote of no confidence; he thinks the club needs a new president.
Squeezed dry: Potter continues to put pressure on Roosevelt to get that sample from Juice, blithely suggesting that Roosevelt resort to entrapment. To his credit, Roosevelt suggests that Potter cram that suggestion sideways. Potter then threatens to torpedo Roosevelt's career, because apparently there is no member of the federal law enforcement who's not wantonly abusing authority for their own kicks. Anyway, Roosevelt reluctantly pulls an entrapment move on Juice. Potter suggests a few more mess-with-the-head moves Roosevelt needs to make on Juice, and Roosevelt elects instead to gently break it to Juice that he needs to cooperate with law enforcement. "It doesn't matter," Juice replies, sniffling. When he heads back to the club, Clay bestows the "Men of Mayhem" patch on him as an incentive for not being a sketchy little mope. Then Clay sends Juice back out to the Coke-K Corral. He doesn't show, electing instead to sew on his patch, then to hang himself from a tree. A branch cracks right as the screen goes black.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You and I detest all my sins, not because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offended 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 occasions of sin."
So says Juice, who is huddled in the woods ringing the Coke-K Corral. It is unclear whether or not he's returned to the site of his original crime (the cocaine theft) or if he's at Miles' unmarked grave. Either way, this scene tells us that Juice is in such a lather, he's grasping for the rituals of his childhood.
Then we see Gemma walking past Tara's momvan. It's morning in Charming again. Gemma goes to take the bucket seat out of the back of the car (one presumes she's got a base in her car too, although it sort of cracks me up to imagine Gemma all militant about car seat safety), and she notices the note in the front seat. She reads it over ("I'm going to hurt you, then kill you, doctor bitch.") and marvels at the correct use of commas in a compound sentence, then heads inside to show Tara.
Cut to her quizzing Tara, "Could this be someone at work? A patient? Something happen to a kid?" Tara -- who has managed to slap on some makeup this morning -- turns to Gemma and asks, "I'm humping a guy who kills gangsters for a living; you don't think he's maybe bringing his work home?" Only more politely. Tara goes to call the police, but Gemma argues that once Roosevelt's involved, it will only end badly for everyone. Tara pushes back: "This is a death threat, Gemma, delivered to my front door!" Gemma sighs and gropes for patience before telling Tara they'll just camp out at the compound for a few days. Tara vents, "Normal people call the authorities when their lives are threatened!" and Gemma points out to the lady who is sitting on a shoebox of cash that perhaps her life does not fall within the bounds of conventional propriety.
Speaking of the man to whom Tara's plighted her troth, he and Clay are on their way into the Mayan compound, along with the Teller & Morrow tow truck. And by "compound," I mean "residential block" which Alvarez has somehow managed to pull into a working cocaine-packaging operation. He is totally the biker outlaw Gallant to Clay's Goofus. "Goofus keeps getting members' old ladies killed, while Gallant is stone-cold outlaw enough to shoot his own son," or "Goofus has his members walk off with a key of blow while Gallant has an entire city block packaging cocaine for him." Anyhoodle, here's a fun fact: All of Alvarez's cocaine processors are women who work clad in but respirators and their underwear. I suppose the official explanation is that it prevents them from smuggling, but I suspect the overseers are all, "And the scenery is okay too, har har har!" By the way, the distribution is conducted entirely by clothed Mayans who are packing the bundles into hollowed out stacks of tortillas. Tig chortles, "That's embracing the stereotype, man." Alvarez says he has 28 dealers now, but he's looking to treble that number and colonize the prison market by the second quarter of fiscal year 2012. Just as Bobby Elvis asks about the heroin trade -- which Alvarez assesses in the exact same tones and phraseology I've heard on quarterly earnings calls at Intel -- Jax is distracted by a phone call. He announces that he's bugging out on account of his old lady. The rest of SAMCRO rolls their eyes and follows.