How I Pimped Your (Grand)Mother

S05E07

Good news, everyone! Gemma's little automotive incident from last week did not produce any lingering injuries for anyone. Let's hear it for seat belts, modern infant carseats, and being married to the show creator! Gemma is, of course, wracked with guilt over putting the boys in harm's way. It doesn't help that Clay totally covers for her with a far-fetched story about how a van full of hired thugs totally ran Gemma off the road, because now she's guilty about feeding Jax and Tara a lie they totally swallow. Nero comes in and urges her to stop the lie – and sort of nudges the process along -- and while that reduces one complication (no more fibbing to Jax and Tara!) it introduces MANY more, in that Tara declares Gemma persona non grata at the Teller-Knowles estate and Jax tells Gemma that if she ever wants to get in with his family again, she needs to give Clay what is known in the escort business as "the girlfriend experience" and pretend to fall in love with him all over again, then feed Jax all the info she gleans during pillow talk. I am positive that ordering his gang-raped mother into a coerced sexual relationship with a man who beat her like Chris Brown won't backfire on Jax at all!

Back to a van full of thugs: You will recall that last week, a van ran Jax and Chibs off the road and then conducted a spray-and-pray, yet the two club officers somehow dodged a hail of bullets and brought low one of their would-be killers. This week, Jax chops off the hands and dispatches one to Unser for ID'ing the guy; he sends the other to Pope for the same purpose, and to test whether Pope's a liar. (Spoiler alert: No. At least, not about pissant stuff like this.) Pope dispenses more gnomic wisdom about the gamesmanship of power, then Jax finds out that Frankie was the one who hired the two men to kill Jax and Chibs as part of his "I better kill them before they get me" plan.

Frankie is also the kind of guy who makes a back-up plan, namely: sneak into the brothel and hold Nero and Lyla hostage until he gets lots of cash and a clean break. This mutates into lots of cash plus Chibs as a hostage. Frankie goes to execute Chibs, and then Chibs says some not-very-nice things about Italians, so Frankie just pistol-whips Chibs and runs off. Chibs has a very restful remainder of the episode snoozing in the dirt; scalp wounds are more for show than they are serious. You know, sort of like a Kardashian.

Also along the no-more-lies lines: Juice comes clean to Clay about the boxes he checks on the census form and how they led to the events of the past season, and in turn, Clay tells Juice about how he used the nomads to stage the break-ins. Clay swears all this secret-swapping has made them besties and everyone in the club totally does it. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes Clay to conclude that killing Juice and crying, "RICO spy!" will help him consolidate power. In a parallel development, Roosevelt has a conversation with Jax wherein we learn that the skin under Rita's fingernails did not produce conclusive DNA evidence. However, Roosevelt has leverage he can use with Jax: If Jax delivers unto him the men who killed Rita, Roosevelt will tell him who within SAMCRO has been ratting on the RICO case.

Lisa Schmeiser thinks it's hilarious how the “Oakland” scenes show Palos Verdes in the background -- and knows that the preceding independent clause makes sense only if you know a little something about SoCal geography.

So, the last episode ended with Gemma's SUV flying off a mostly deserted, windy mountain road and tumbling into the ravine below. This one starts with a rescue crew telling Gemma to stay calm riiiiiiight as an unconscious Abel is rolled by on a gurney. That seems counterproductive. I am also wildly curious as to who called 911. Was it the trucker into whom she almost drove? I'm just saying: the EMTs coming so fast on an abandoned mountain road raises a lot of questions.

Meanwhile, at the scene of another accident ... Tig is helping Jax and Chibs load a big, dead body in the back of Tara's mom-mobile, because what else says, "Getting away from it all" like "Transporting the corpse of a man who tried to kill you?" As Tig helps heft the remains into the trunk space, we see Tara fuming in the passenger seat. Tig nervously asks Jax what he's going to say to Tara, and Jax replies, "I'm going to tell her there's a dead black guy in the back of her car." Cue Chibs rolling his eyes all, NOW is when Jax decides to play the honesty card with his old lady?

Oh, look! It turns out the best cure for arthritis is pure, scheming evil. I look forward to the New England Journal of Medicine reporting on this using their case study of "C.M., an aging biker." Anyway, after Clay parks at his bachelor pad and heads inside, he barks at Juice to leave, but Juice frets over someone going after Jax. Clay looks legitimately stunned, because nobody but him gets to try to kill his own bikers! Then Juice -- who is so stunned and terrified, his eyes have assumed manga-like proportions in his face -- breaks the news about Gemma's accident. Clay reels.

Up at the cabin, Tara is asking Jax how the would-be killers found him, and Jax is all, "Do I look like a necromancer? I can't communicate with the dead! Now baby, go relax and ignore the wet, squishy sounds as I take care of the corpse." Tara facepalms.

Segue to a sequence that is both mordantly funny -- there's be-bop playing on the radio! That automatically makes things funny! -- and deeply disturbing, because Jax coolly picks up an ax and chops off the hands. One goes to Unser for ID'ing via AFIS, the other goes to Pope. "Why Pope?" Tig asks. "Because if [Pope] hired [the dead guy], then he'll probably lie about who he is?" Jax mutters that he's tired of watching his back --

Which is right when Tara bolts behind him, saying, "We have to go!" One of the other bikers hastily throws the tarp over the body so she can't see it, which oddly gallant and/or shrewd (what she can't see, she can't testify about). Jax is all, "What happened?" and Tara hold up the phone and says only, "It's my babies." Oh, has she remembered that she might actually like Thomas? That's the real shock.

By Sobell

The shot is of Jax and Tara sitting in an observation room off the operating theatre, watching the surgeons put Abel back together again. Jax asks how long it's going to take, and Tara flips into doctor mode: "They run the wire through his leg, up to his heart." Jax marinates in some parental guilt, and Tara brings it to a boil by telling Jax that if his mom was drunk or high, she'll do something so vicious, it can't even be spoken aloud. Jax is all, "I love you, but if Gemma was driving under the influence, don't expect me to hold back during the footrace to see who kills her first."

Speaking of Grandmother of the Year, she comes to in her hospital room and Clay's is the first face she sees. Clay soothes her by lying about Abel ("He's going to be fine, just a cut on the head") and the two of them sort of fall back into the same patterns they had back before Clay used Gemma as a punching bag. Then Clay asks, "What happened, Gem?" Gemma is sobbing too hard to answer, so Clay just rubs her back.

The hospital elevator dings and out stride Happy, Juice, Chuckie & Filthy Phil, who is manfully restraining from saying anything like, "I would have made a much better babysitter. I already have a rear-facing Britax mounted on my bike." The bikers (and entourage) descend upon Chibs, Tig and Bobby Elvis in the waiting room, and really, at this point, the club should just take the proceeds from one of their muling runs and use it to set up the Winston Family Memorial Waiting Room, they're in the hospital holding vigil so often. Anyway, there's some exposition on how everyone's doing (short answer: ALIVE) and we get mutterings about the bikers getting ready to put the hurt on whomever struck out at Jax and Chibs and Jax's family. Yes, the brain trust thinks all these things are linked.

Little Abel's passed out in his hospital bed but honestly, the kid's so placid the rest of the time, it's not like his state is significantly quieter. A red-eyed Jax is keeping vigil by the bed; Tara is lounging in a sort of dull slump, broken only when Margaret the hospital administrator smilingly brings out the unharmed, clean-bottomed and fed baby Thomas. Tara dandles the baby on her knees and Bobby Elvis reluctantly interrupts the family reunion to let Jax know that Unser is here, presumably with information about the hand that Jax gave him earlier.

Jax rolls over to the room, takes in Clay standing vigil over Gemma, then coldly asks, "What happened? Were you drunk?" Gemma can't even look at Jax, so Clay smoothly lies that the "guys in a van" came after her and ran her off the road. Jax switches to being concerned, then asked if Gemma got a look at her assailants. Gemma can truthfully say she did not. Jax instantly switches into solicitous son mode, assuring Gemma that the boys are okay and saying that this whole incident is his fault. To Gemma's credit, she protests that assessment vigorously. Clay, who is standing in the door, is all, "...Yes. Be distracted. Overthink this. And soon, it will all be mine again!" The bikers whom I have begun to think of as the "senior bikers" -- Chibs, Tig and Bobby -- come in to verify that Gemma's alive and well, and Chibs gallantly blows her a kiss before they all stomp off again.

Out in the hall, Clay trots out the misdirection ploy again: "Only one guy we know gets off on dead kids." A quick shot to Tig, but it is worth noting here that Clay's the one who began killing gangsters' children first. Anyway, everyone is all, "Yes, let's all go meet with Pope and accuse the millionaire Bay Area developer-cum-drug lord of having nothing better to do with his time than repeatedly try to kill us, then deny it." And honestly, at this point, if I were Damon Pope and some hairy unwashed biker looked at me from beneath the Neanderthal ledge of his beetled brows and mumbled for the umpteenth time about how every black person in California is surely on Pope's payroll and therefore out to kill bikers, I'd be all, "You want me to kill you and your friends that badly? GAME ON." And then I'd hire Aryans to do it, just to mess with SAMCRO's collective head.

Having checked "undermine the incredibly lucrative business arrangement Jax made" off his daily to-do list, Clay goes back into Gemma's hotel room to remind her that everything he does, he does for Gemma. Then he kisses Gemma's hand and heads out to leave her sitting in the hospital bed.

And now Roosevelt's joined the party in the hospital. Clay stands up and says, "The club owes you an apology." "For killing my wife?" Roosevelt asks. Haaa, no -- if Clay began apologizing for all the wives his schemes had dispatched, this would be a two hour episode. No, Clay's apologizing for "being careless about vetting new members." Roosevelt shrugs, "They were white, racist and violent. That fits all the requirements, right?" Clay shrugs all, Well, duh, then asks what Roosevelt needs from the club. "Detectives will want to talk to you all about the nomads, and they'll need any records that you have on them." Bobby's about to throw some static at Roosevelt, but Juice leaps up with the Manga Panic eyes and says he'll pull what the club has.

By Sobell

Roosevelt uses the opportunity to pull Juice aside and press him for information on Frankie Diamonds. Juice correctly inquires, "Who do you think I am? I don't know shit, man." Roosevelt just pins the younger man with the bleak, pitiless stare of a man who's lost his world. Then he says casually, "You seem a little nervous. I bet you Clay's real curious about our private conversation. Our blood bond that we share." Juice's eyes grow so large, they're going to give that creature with the grapefruit-sized eyeballs a run for its ocular majesty. He says, "You're going to get me killed." "That concern left me when I watched my wife die," Roosevelt says. He walks off, leaving Juice feeling squeezed.

A busy train yard in "Oakland," where Damon Pope is patiently explaining for the umpteenth time that if he really wanted to kill Jax and friends, they'd be dead already. (Also, as someone who lives but an estuary away from the Oakland docks, it cracks me up whenever we get these establishing shots, because those hills in the background are Palos Verdes and the guys are so obviously at Long Beach.) Also, we can tell this show is clearly in the realm of the fictional because Pope is waxing rhapsodic on how he's going to develop his new parcel of waterfront property as affordable multi-family housing. Then he tells Jax to stop sending him hands. Jax defends his decision with the kind of rhetoric normally only found among callers-in to right wing radio, and Pope asks Jax to be smart: "Someone wants you dead and hired a black guy to do it. Unemployment's crushing the 'hood. Brothers need work." Then Pope moves the plot forward by having information on dead handless Charles' associates, one of whom is sure to be the second shooter and therefore a valuable source of information. Jax is listening (to his credit) and thinks aloud to Pope about how he's trying to eliminate all possible doubts before going after an inside guy. "Maybe I should get me one of those goon squads," he snots, and Pope smiles indulgently: "Stay close, Jax. You won't need one."

Oh, it's tense! Chuckie speaks for all of us with "I need to step out. My bowels get very loose in situations like this." Nero gallantly says, "Well, on that note ... I'll check in on you." Clay offers to walk Nero out, the better to make edicts like, "Whatever there was between you and my wife, it's over." Nero replies that really, Clay gets no say in any Gemma/Nero relationship updates. Clay pretends he didn't hear that and spells it out: "Make no mistake: You get in my way with Gemma, I'll kill you." Nero says, "Don't worry, mano. I don't make mistakes -- not like you." Then he saunters off, because he has half a working brain, which puts him at twice the brainal* capacity of anyone in SAMCRO.

(* The term "brainal" was introduced when my husband and I were talking one evening after a very long day of work, and one of us said to the other, "You're asking me to do math right now. I don't have the, like, brainal capacity to do it!" And thus, a new portmanteau word ("brain" + "cranial") was born.)

Oh, look, bikers have gone to terrorize the brother-in-law of Charles Turner! He is a remarkably bad shot, and also strategically retarded, as he runs up to the top of a building that has no alternate exit. So Chibs and Jax conduct a conversation -- at gunpoint, natch -- with the doomed Ray, wherein he says that his old friend from the Chino penal institution, Frankie Diamonds, was the one who hired Charlie and himself to kill Jax. Jax asks, "Why'd you go after my mom and family?" and Ray's all, "Look, I don't even know you. We didn't go after your family." Chibs concludes, "Frankie hires a black guy, makes it look like Pope ... that greaseball is smarter than he looks."

And speaking of deceptive-looking greaseballs, Jax commits a fairly horrifying murder here, first gut-shooting Ray -- which is a horribly painful way to die -- then pushing him off the roof of the building. It's fairly horrifying because it's a sign that Jax has lost any and all code regarding how people die. The security-guard thing in "Small World" could be hand-waved with "Jax is projecting his fury over Opie's life and death and the wife's murder is a sick funhouse version of how Opie's wife was in the wrong place at the wrong time." This is just gratuitously brutal. And judging from the looks on Chibs' and Happy's faces, they're a little taken aback too.

Juice is busy staring at a pile of papers on a desk in a SAMCRO office when Clay comes in. There's some small talk -- the only records SAMCRO has for the nomads are dues payments -- and Clay comes out with it: "Anything you need to tell me? With Roosevelt? He's been pressing you pretty hard since we got out of Stockton. Why just you? What's he know, Juice?" Juice nearly wets his breeches, blinks his saucer-sized eyes, and lasts approximately 25 seconds before drawing a shaky breath and admitting that his father is black, the sheriff found out, and he tried to use that for Juice to work with the Feds on a pending RICO case against the club. Juice tells EVERYTHING: "Otto flipped, gave them past crimes. Eli threatened me. The Feds want the Irish and the cartel. [Eli] said if I gave him some evidence, that he would spare the club." Clay gives the patented SAMCRO expression of dismay ("Jesus Christ!") then channels every ounce of authority he thinks he has as he asks, "What did you do?"

Juice tearily confesses, "I stole that brick of coke. Miles caught me doing it. I panicked. We fought. He came at me with a knife." Clay is silent for a moment. Then he asks about the RICO case. "I guess they couldn't make it," says Juice, who is blissfully unaware of the CIA curveball thrown in the season four finale. Clay takes this all in. Then, deciding that the best information is that which Jax doesn't have, he decides to seal Juice to him by confessing -- partially -- to sending the nomads to Unser's trailer to get killed and killing Greg. Clay concludes, "Everybody at that table's done something that puts them outside the reaper. Self-disclosure kills the group. Now, what we just shared here makes us even -- honest. We're connected. Nobody else needs to know." And the scene concludes with poor fatherless Juice looking up at his chosen father figure, ready to follow him to Hell. (Start the death pool now, y'all. SAMCRO is the club that eats its young.)

Tara comes by to visit Gemma, who is unpacking a stellar array of GILF-wear from her prepacked hospital satchel, and how much do I love it that at some point, Gemma was puttering around the house and was all, "Yeah, I might as well keep a bag packed for the hospital, because I end up there an awful lot." Maybe when SAMCRO fulfills my dream of opening the Winston Family Memorial Waiting Room at the hospital, Lyla and the Crow Eaters can stock it with prepacked hospital kits including lacy black tank tops and a pack of Marlboro Reds. ANYYWAY. The point is, Tara's come by to check up on Gemma and gets very emotional at the thought of something happening to Gemma, God's Fierce Mother and Trusted Protectoress of the Teller-Knowles Offspring. Gemma is absolutely miserable in the moment, knowing that the truth will not really set her free so much as it will get her disowned, and then to put the guilt cherry on top of the regrets sundae, Jax comes in all, "Mother, whyfore are you not with the telling of the truth about the events of last evening?" Gemma lies and it's evident that Jax absolutely does not believe a word out of her mouth.

Jax then leaves to take a phone call, which is never good news, and this one takes him to the New Best Little Whorehouse In Charming, where it turns out that Nero called him under duress. And by "duress," I mean, "Frankie has Nero tied up and has shoved a gun barrel in Lyla's mouth." The sight of the Widow Winston in such peril compels Jax, Chibs and Bobby to put down their weapons. Frankie then asks for $200,000 or he kills Lyla. Nero immediately shouts that he's got it -- well, to be precise, he's got 65 percent of that in a safe in his closet -- and the promise of the cash is enough to get Frankie to take the gun out of poor Lyla's mouth. Nero calls out the combination (I'm guessing 10/19/03 is someone's birth date or death date) and Bobby Elvis goes to get the cash.

Despite kneeling on the floor with his hands behind his head, Jax is every inch the chilly king as he asks, "How do you think this ends for you?" Frankie blusters that "None of this was my idea, kid. Clay promised us shit he couldn't deliver!" Jax can barely hide his smile as he gets Frankie to confirm that yes, Clay was behind the break-ins, and he was hoping that his scheme would get the gavel back in his gnarled knuckles. However, Frankie disclaims any knowledge of any attempt on Gemma or the kids. Sitting over the corner, Nero does not pipe up, "That's because there wasn't one."

Anyway, Frankie leaves, but not without taking Chibs as a hostage and shooting Lyla in the thigh for good measure. (The wound will keep everyone distracted as he makes his escape.) We see Lyla gently bleeding all over a red sofa while Bobby Elvis applies direct pressure. Lyla asks, "Is [Frankie] going to kill Chibs?" Bobby Elvis reassuringly lies, "Nah, he'll probably just let him out when he gets far enough away." Nero comes in and says there's a doctor on the way -- a client, so there's no worries about the police getting involved. Poor Lyla. I wonder how this will affect her career: Do porn consumers consider visible bullet scars a liability or is she about to get a whole new fanbase? This show raises so many more questions than it answers.

Then Jax has to go have a version of the "I'm so disappointed in you, son" talk from his new dad Nero:

NERO: You remember what you promised?
JAX: I know. I'm sorry this shit landed here.
NERO: We ain't even open yet and I got an employee with a bullet in her leg.
JAX: I know. I'm going to handle it.
NERO: How you gonna handle it? More bullets?
JAX: Come on, man. It's a club problem.
NERO: No, no -- it's your problem. And now it's my problem. That's the way this whole partner thing works, man.
JAX: I got it. And I'm telling you it's not going to happen again, okay?
NERO: But we both know that's a lie, right?
JAX: So what, what you saying, man? You want out?
NERO: Yeah, I do. That's why we got into this, remember? You've got a beautiful wife, you got two healthy kids -- you need to accelerate the endgame, Jax. Get away from all the shit that's trying to kill you!
JAX: I know! I know what I have to do.
NERO: And what about the rest of them. Because if Clay set these guys in motion, brother on brother ... shit, mano, you ain't got no trust to lean on.

JAX: I'll get you the cash we owe you.
NERO: What are you going to do about Gemma?
JAX: Now that's not your concern, Nero.
NERO: Oh, you got to be kidding me with that shit, right? After all this, I think I earned a little concern. [pause] Clay lied about her being run off the road. She wanted to tell the truth, but she got caught up in all that stuff going on with Tara --
JAX: [head explodes] SHE ALMOST KILLED MY KIDS!
NERO: I'm not saying that she didn't make a mistake, but the lie, that was because she was scared.
JAX: Yeah? She should be.
NERO: Really? Well, what are you going to do, Pres? You gonna beat the shit out of your mom? Ain't that been done enough by your family?
JAX: Hey, you know what? You wanna be with Gemma? Be my guest. She's your problem now.

On the bright side, the odds of another innocent woman dying as a result of Clay's lies just went down!

Gemma is in Abel's hospital room, doting on Thomas, when Jax comes in with murder in his eyes. He manages to reign it in long enough to ask Margaret to leave the room, but Tara's present when Jax takes Thomas from Gemma and says, "I got some new information. Are you gonna tell her, or am I?" Which is how Gemma ends up admitting that she was incredibly stoned when she took the kids, and since Tara was not present for Nero's little "Hasn't Gemma been punched enough for one season?" speech, Tara has no problem using her injured hand AGAIN as she clocks Gemma. It is sort of funny how Jax shields Thomas when Mom's putting the hurt on Grandma, but there's something calculating in his expression that suggests he was aiming for exactly this outcome. Tara hisses, "You're done. You don't call, see, or come near my kids again. GET OUT!" Gemma gets. Thomas is sobbing, and Jax jostles him with one arm as Tara snuggles into the other and has a good cry on his shoulder. For a moment, stroking Tara's hair and cuddling his baby, Jax seems oddly at peace.

Frankie Diamonds has driven long enough; he's apparently meeting up with some men of a rather Italian persuasion, because if America's missed one thing on its televisions, it's members of the Mafia.

Frankie orders Chibs out of the truck at gunpoint, then orders him down on his knees in the dirt. Frankie moves to execute Chibs from behind but Chibs pulls some psy-ops action on Frankie with, "At least you could look me in the eyes before you kill me, you guinea coward." Frankie debates this, but then Johnny Contrivance or whomever the hell this mobster will be honks the horn, so Frankie merely pistol-whips Chibs before running off with the Mob. And, continuing my look at the bright side: Chibs is going to get a much-needed break from SAMCRO's hectic pace while he's out.

Jax and Bobby arrive at the clubhouse, and before they go in, Jax imparts their communication strategy: Omission! Well, they're going to omit Frankie's claims about Clay masterminding the break-ins as background to a coup, because the proof is shaky and it's better that Clay doesn't know that they know. But before they can go inside, Jax is distracted by Roosevelt pulling up. Eli asks how Jax's kids are, then says bitterly, "You know, Rita was pregnant. Seven weeks in. I don't even know if it was going to be a boy or a girl." Jax says he's very sorry. Then we get to the real meat of the scene: the DNA under Rita's fingernails was inconclusive, so the coroner can't tie Rita's death to the MC. But that doesn't mean Roosevelt's dropping it. There's some bluffing about the RICO case, then Roosevelt says, "There's somebody else [inside SAMCRO] talking to the Feds, giving them information on the cartel." Jax asks what Roosevelt wants. Simple: "I want Frankie Diamonds and anyone else responsible for killing my wife and my unborn child. I know you will find him before I will. Give him to me, and I will give you the rat at your table." Jax just stares, wondering how he's going to square the Frankie Diamonds handover without mentioning the RICO case.

Tara's putting down Thomas in his crib while Jax watches from the daybed, utterly wiped by the events of the last 24 hours. She collapses to him, and Jax snuggles for a minute before asking, "Do you ever regret coming back?" Tara says, "To Charming? No. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I never left." Jax admits he thinks about that too. (Well, for one, there would be no Abel.) He's been thinking a lot about choices, which segues into Jax telling Tara about the whole Clay-and-the-nomads development, and the upshot is, Jax needs to manipulate matters so that it's the club making the call to cut Clay out and kill him. Tara's face goes hard and merciless, and she asks, "How do we do that?" Jax says, "I have a plan. You may not like it ..."

Then he apparently zips back to the clubhouse, so he can go hang with Clay and let the old man know that he's on to Clay's lie about Gemma's accident, and as a consequence, "Tara's cut [Gemma] out. She's dead to my family." Clay is all, Well, that backfired magnificently. AS SO MANY THINGS SEEM TO DO LATELY. Jax says, "You're the only thing she has left. Clay says self-pityingly, "Well, she don't want me," as if it's a total mystery why a woman might leave after her head's been used to buff the dining room floor. Jax then baits the hook: "I'm worried about her, Clay. She's already on edge. I'm not sure what happens to her without family. She's going to need you." Jax walks out, leaving Clay to his thoughts.

By Sobell

Frankie Diamonds has driven long enough; he's apparently meeting up with some men of a rather Italian persuasion, because if America's missed one thing on its televisions, it's members of the Mafia.

By Sobell

We see that Gemma has indeed toppled over the edge and fallen into a subculture more consuming than motorcycle gangs: knitting. She's working on a baby blanket while smoking (cue my facepalm, because honestly, unless you want the baby to have the blacklung by kindergarten, there's no way you can give something soaked in second-hand smoke to a small fry) and wearing her glasses, but when Nero ushers her over to Jax a minute later, the glasses are off again. (I love Gemma's little vanities, like this or not taking heart meds because they make it too hard to get her favorite biker boots on.)

By Sobell

The two sit at opposite ends of a couch and Jax asks, "You want to fix the damage you've done?" Gemma says of course she does. Jax says, "Then you need to prove to Tara that you can be trusted." Gemma claims she's given up the demon rum and the imp marijuana, but that's not enough for her son. He says, "Clay was the one that put the nomads in motion. The home invasions, attack on me and Chibs, everything." Gemma is appropriately horrified. Jax continues, "I need proof. You're going to get it for me ... He'd do anything for you. Let him in. Get his trust." Gemma's already closing herself off, putting up her shell: "You want me to spy on him," she sneers.

"I want you to be with him. Sleep with him. Make him feel like a king. The dirty secrets will start to flow, just like they always did," Jax says. Gemma begins to shake her head, perhaps because she is full up on coerced sexual services, what with the recent nonsense with Carla and, oh yes, THE BRUTAL GANG RAPE SHE ENDURED A FEW YEARS BACK. "What if I can't do that?" she asks. "Then get used to living in a brothel, because hookers and bangers are going to be your only family," Jax says.

The episode ends with Gemma looking at her son, perhaps wondering what turned Jax into the kind of man who uses his kids as chess pieces and pimps his mom, and not realizing that's her own life's work come to fruition.

Lisa Schmeiser is an Oakland-adjacent writer/reporter/blogger. She loves to hear from y'all via Twitter. Also, for all the static she gives Juice on the show, she's got nothing but respect for Theo Rossi and how he's been reporting on post-Sandy conditions in Staten Island. Follow Theo Rossi and see what you can do to help his beloved stomping grounds.