I've read the odd book about this, the purported Third -- or Fourth -- Golden Age of Television (*footnote) and it is striking how persistently Sons of Anarchy is ignored or dismissed as The Shield's dumber, louder little brother. I'm not saying that this show doesn't have 110% of its daily gore allowance and there is a definite The A-Team element in how often the series regulars get shot at with machine guns and yet never get hit.
However, beneath the showy thuggery ticks an incredibly well-planned storyline hurtling toward a tragic conclusion, and the opening sequence makes that very clear. Remember how back in season one, these bikers were the kings of Charming? They were fully part of the city, even participating in fundraising fairs. Jax swaggered and smiled, a young Prince Hal who lightly wore his future and spent a lot of time wondering who he'd be as a father. Remember in season two, when the club went to ground before delivering the hurt to Zobelle's crew, how Clay delivered a rallying speech and called Gemma his queen? How it echoed "we few, we lucky few, we band of brothers" in a way?
Contrast that now with an opening showing the Sons skulking in cars outside the Irish bar while back at the clubhouse, Gemma paces like a restive mother cat and refuses to speak to the other crow-eaters and children stretched out on couches. The swagger is gone, and so is the joyful camaraderie. It's all anger, paranoia and the horrible awareness that there are consequences barreling down far too fast for anyone to avoid.
The opening is a poignant moment because it stands in stark contrast to what the club was and what it has become under Jax, who is no longer Prince Hal and incapable of becoming King Henry.
Let's get into the rest of the episode …
Toric's Death Does Not Help Tara. In fact, because Crazy Otto carried it out, there's a distinct possibility it will look like a club-ordered hit, Lowen tells Tara. On another legal front, DA Patterson decides to lean on Tara hard, because it's one way to crack the MC, and she directs Roosevelt to find another way to get into the MC and start pushing pressure points. This means Roosevelt's a bit motivated to tie Nero to the Byz-Lats and SAMCRO, especially after the DNA results from his truck come back. Alas,
Things Get Even Tenser on the Diosa Front: Nero practices risk management, pointing out to Jax that as a responsible businessman, he does not want the Diosa businesses threatened by the club's habit of feuding with fringe group lunatics. He also points out that he's not cool with the school shooting, since it was a gun that Jax supplied which his cousin's kid then used to kill four other children.
Roosevelt and Barofsky meet up when Roosevelt's staking out The Best Little Craftsman Whorehouse in Stockton. Barofsky tries to intimidate Roosevelt, but Roosevelt has an ace in his pocket, mainly that his Give a Damn has been busted since his wife died, and he honestly seems not to care what happens to him. Barofsky goes to Jax and Nero and chews them out, and while Nero tries to appease Barofsky, the minute Jax leaves, Barofsky expresses his skepticism over Nero's choice of business partners. (Hey, they can't all be Colette.) Later in the episode, Barofsky expresses his misgivings about their business partnership at the top of his lungs.
Unser and Tara Come to an Understanding: He will help her with her exit strategy if she gives him all the details on what she's up to. Meanwhile, Gemma tries to loop Wendy back into the club life by dropping off baby photos of Abel and telling Wendy, "I love you Wendy, a lot. You were a good fix for Jax." Will Wendy give in to the temptation to get custody of Abel? She almost does, but then she makes a visit to Tara in what is my favorite scene in this episode.
Wendy says she can't keep lying to everyone and she can't do this, and Tara cajoles her into sticking the course so that Abel and Thomas can be whisked away from Gemma and Jax as Tara's hauled off to jail. Wendy agrees, but begs to see Abel soon. Tara agrees to that.
Hands up, all of you who wish that these two women would just hit the road together and start a new life up in Oregon with a family practice that provides counseling and medical care for working-class families. They could even bring Juice along as their houseboy. Only me with that fantasy?
And What are the Boys of SAMCRO Up to This Week? Elaborate Negotiations with the Irish. And by "elaborate," I mean "shoot-y, car chase-y, murder-y." Jax finally gets the phone number to the Kings back on the Auld Sod. He talks to three old men and points out that Gaalan's been working off the books with Clay for a while (this does not go over well with the Kings) and Clay will be no good to the Kings once he's dead, so why not just enact a peaceful transfer of business to August Marks' organization? The men who make their business flooding the world with lethal weaponry object to someone making their money off something that makes people super-sleepy and fond of needles, but Jax calls them racists and points out that August can triple their business. The Kings are all, "We'll get back to you" and then the camera swings around to reveal … Gaalan! Who shrugs off the Kings' concerns about shrinking distribution sites by saying, "Teller's just like his old man. Weak, lost, his loyalties in the wrong place" and reassuring the Kings that he's already made arrangements to protect his totally legit, never-done-deals-on-the-side partner Clay. Gaalan goes on to say that SAMCRO's not dumping him, he's dumping SAMCRO and "Jax Teller gets what he wants. Out of guns. And ties severed."
Clay reaches out to Gemma and via the un-tapped sanctity of the conjugal cell, he tells her that the Irish won't do business with anyone "whose skin they can't see through," and they're going to break him out in two weeks. "What then?" Gemma asks. "I go to ground, I put together a crew," Clay replies. "I go to Northern Ireland and I run the whole thing from Belfast." Gemma, who is digesting the news that her son wants out of the business her two husbands worked so hard to build up, asks what that means for SAMCRO. Short answer: Nothing good. "Ask Jax what he wants me to do," Clay says. (Anyone get the sense that he's wooing Gemma through her real love, the club?)
And then things get appalling as two perverted screws come in and smack Clay around a little while demanding that either he rape Gemma in front of them or one of them rapes her while he watches. This is … what, the third sexual assault with an audience Gemma's had on the show? Jeeeeeeeeesus. It's horrifying.
After Gemma lives through that, she and Nero head to the clubhouse. Remember, that spot where everyone in the club and their associates happen to be bunking down, on account of being at war with the Irish? After the Kings call Jax to extra-super-confirm that the entire club will be in the clubhouse awaiting their phone call at 8 p.m., Jax and Chibs assemble everyone. Then, Jax notices that there's a mystery keg of beer (that Chucky has not been able to tap) and a shamrock pen on the counter and he realizes that the reason the Irish are being so reasonable about letting the club walk away is because they're going to remove everyone's legs (and other body parts) via a monster explosion.
So the good news is, everyone in the clubhouse gets out just in time. The bad news is that Teller Morrow Motors is probably going to be attracting a lot of attention from law enforcement. And whatever customers they have left will probably be getting their car back in worse condition than when it was dropped off.
* If you go with the idea that we're in the fourth Golden Age, then the breakdown goes thusly: the first Golden Age ran in the 1950s (Playhouse 90); the second Golden Age took place in the very early 1980s with the advent of Hill St. Blues and other dramas that adopted the serial storytelling model which comic books were so good at and pushed character development beyond archetypes; the third Golden Age took place in the mid-1990s as network television's writing became more sophisticated, casually imbued the shows with social seriousness and continued adding nuance to characterization. And the Fourth Golden Age began roughly around the turn of the century and it's been pegged to cable shows which have turned into inward-looking meditations on human character or fiction-as-long-form-journalism.
Some writers like to pretend that the real renaissance in TV didn't happen until the 1980s, when there enough of a history in the medium for people to begin defying the form and conventions that had sprung up around it. Others like to contend that the 1950s weren't a golden age at all, but the 1970s were because that's when television reconfigured the basic definition of popular culture. I am still waiting for the writer who makes the case that the real impact of the 1980s didn't comes from Hill St. Blues or thirtysomething but rather from MTV.
The point is, there's a lot of people who are analyzing the history of television. If you're interested in reading any of it, the books I can personally recommend are: The Showrunners : A Season Inside The Billion-Dollar, Death-Defying, Madcap World Of Television's Real Stars by David Wild; Television's Second Golden Age by Robert J. Thompson; I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks; Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad by Brett Martin; The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever by Alan Sepinwall.
Like war -- irregular dashes of excitement that punctuate lengthy stretches of boredom -- so do we have the outlaw life. The SAMCRO crew is busy staking out the Irish crew’s usual haunt and sitting silently to a grown man in a car is really nobody’s idea of a good time. Back at the clubhouse, things are equally quiet and tense: Gemma is fussing over assorted crow eaters and their children, then goes to check on Tara, who’s resting (but not sleeping) with a child on either side of her.
Clay’s in gen-pop, by the by. I’d say something about placing your bets on the remaining length of his life, but come on.
On ticks the people-are-not-having-a-pleasant-night montage, and eventually, the bikers decide to go home. I am probably reading too much into it with Tig and Juice being in the same car, but given that Jax is casually gambling with the life of one and keeping the other on a double-super-secret probation, I think my over-analysis is justified.
When morning finally breaks, we see Gemma heading up a pancake hootenanny in the clubhouse, delivering a buck-up-little-camper speech to Chuckie (who had, you will recall, been delivered unto the club via Otto’s auspices back in season one), and generally thriving in her element.
Sidebar: Gemma is one of the great Freudian monsters on television, but I think she also represents one of the most heartbreaking characters to come along too. She is basically the walking embodiment of thwarted potential. Gemma’s own mother abandoned her when Gemma most needed her (we covered this in season three), and Gemma lives every day with the ceaseless grief of losing a small child. Those powerful maternal needs – to be mothered and to mother without fear of loss – come out in a variety of warped ways. And I think she’s also a product of her time and her socioeconomic status, and that’s why a fiercely intelligent and ambitious woman like Gemma has spent her life using men as a proxy for her own accomplishment or power. Had Gemma been born into another family, she might have gone to Berkeley in the 1970s, fallen in with the Chez Panisse crowd, and then devoted the 30 years to browbeating America’s entire food industry into organic, free-range standards by 2007. Instead, she serves pancakes to crow eaters and ignores the identity crisis that bubbles up every time she sees Tara with two little boys.
Hang on. I’m still sort of blissed out at the idea of Gemma Madock, Fierce Foodshed Warrior and occasional judge on Top Chef Masters.
Okay, back to the show. Jax and Happy have staked out an Irish warehouse, then begun collecting Irish thugs. Jax waylays one guy named Neil inside a warehouse, then uses the ol’ knife-in-the-middle-of-the-hand trick as an inducement for Neil to tell him where Galen and Connor are. (Connor, you may recall, is Galen’s number two). We learn that Galen has already fled to Belfast, but there’s still a chance of ambushing Connor at a beverage supply house in Lodi. (Oh lord, stuck in Lodi again).
Jax then heads off to deal with "this Diosa shit" in Stockton and orders Chibs to pick him up at Colette’s at 1 p.m. There’s more chatter about how to continue showing the Irish they mean business, then Juice asks, "Who’s with Tara today?" That Jax’s family has to live under armed guard -- and that he doesn’t have enough men to guarantee coverage -- shows exactly how dark and awful it is to have SAMCRO in your life these days.
Meanwhile, DA Patterson is introducing herself to Sheriff Roosevelt. She asks about the Erin Byrne murder and Roosevelt stalls, "Got some leads, nothing solid. Does it mean something to you?" Patterson says that it does, and they go into Roosevelt’s office to talk. The long story short: Roosevelt talked to Nero and let him go, and Patterson is not really down with his insistence on following due process and checking out alibis. Then the two law enforcement folks talk about the fire out at Gerber’s ranch, and Patterson notes that "CSU listed two cases of KG-9s." Roosevelt replies, "Ahhh. This is about [Nero] and the Sons." Patterson says, adding, "My special investigator believed that Ms. Byrne could tie the Byz-Lats and the Sons of Anarchy to the gun that was used in the Count of Aquino [school] shooting." Roosevelt says casually, "Lee Toric was killed two days ago by Otto Delaney in Stockton. You think it was a hit?"
Patterson points out that Otto is no longer to say anything, but Tara Knowles might on account of her new and suboptimal prospects. Patterson adds, "We need a bad guy. Some one, some crew, has got to take the blame for the murder of these four children." Roosevelt laconically says. "Yes, ma’am. But Tara Knowles isn’t the bad guy." Patterson says, "In my book, she’s bad until she does something good." So let me get this straight: This officer of the law -- who, in theory, is sworn to uphold a legal code that includes the bedrock principle that people are innocent until proven guilty -- is basically saying, screw the law because it’s bad political theatre? Of course she is. This is the show where the only people more bent than the outlaws are the establishment. I can’t speak for the rest of you viewers, but I tire of that premise.
Anyway, Roosevelt seems to have made up his mind that Patterson’s a cardboard villain, but he gamely asks what she needs. The answer: She needs him to dig into Nero’s goings-on because that will be one way to get into the motorcycle club. It’s also a way to justify Jimmy Smits’ continuing presence on the show as opposed to having these two say to one another, "Look, the Byz-Lats are incredibly small-time and it will not be hard to pick up a handful of them and bust them on other charges, then sit back and let them bargain their way into telling us everything. Occam’s Razor works in crime-fighting too."
We’re back at the clubhouse with the man of the hour himself, Nero, who has come by to ask Gemma exactly how long these lock downs last. Gemma shrugs, because it’s not like the Irish are known for getting over their grievances in a brief period. Nero says, "It can’t be good for business," and Gemma sighs, "We just tell them we’re remodeling." I enjoy how the writers are now making ample references to the neglected body shop. Jax pulls up right then, and Gemma goes out to fish for news on the Irish venture. Jax is quite close-mouthed, which is something of an annoyance to Gemma, then goes to deal with Annoying Woman No. 2, i.e. his loving wife.
Tara comes over in yet another t-shirt with a shredded back and immediately starts in with "I’ve got to get out of here, Jax. [Gemma] scares me." Jax asks, "What happened?" Tara lays the groundwork: "Nothing … yet. But she’s still convinced I’m trying to take the boys away. She doesn’t trust me. Vibes me. Don’t … don’t say anything. It’s just too much anxiety in my first trimester."
Okay, straw poll: all those who think Tara’s making up this pregnancy as a way to lull Jax and Gemma into thinking that "She can’t leave, because she’s carrying another baby,” raise your hand. All of you who think this is a terrible idea and that Tara’s lying is meant to show that she’s lost her moral compass and is actually worse than Gemma, raise your hand. All of you who are tired of being beaten about the head and shoulders with the “Jax and Tara are the new John and Gemma, because history is a dreadful series of repeating cycles!" tragic theme, put down your hands from the first two options and use them to protect your head from the Thematic Brickbat.
In any event, it’s clear that Jax and Tara have moved on from the sexy fun part of the relationship into the dreary grind of mutual, resentful obligation. Which is, of course, exactly the frame of mind you want your husband to be in before he goes to visit the no-strings hooker-cum-business partner.
As Jax and Nero drive to Colette’s, Roosevelt tails them. We shift focus to the car that Nero and Jax are driving. Nero says awkwardly, "You guys are doing a lot of … remodeling. So where you at with the Irish?" Jax gives him an appraising look before saying, "I thought you didn’t want to know about my other business." Nero gives him a "Greaseball, please" look and says, “"You’re kidding me, right? You gave my guy a gun, and his old lady’s kid used it to wipe out a whole classroom?" Jax is offended that he’s somehow linked to the school shooting that was affected with the gun he trafficked. Nero, who has that fine Catholic sense of moral responsibility, says, "I’m putting it on both of us. I’m part of your other business right now, whether I want it or not."
Jax insists that Diosa is his priority and adds, "This partnership, this is the thing that is going to end the violence." Nero points out that the Irish did kill two of his guys in retaliation for Jax trying to move into a less violent line of work. Jax warns, "It might get worse before it gets better … Look, I know it’s messy right now, but I promise: I am going to make this work. You don’t have to believe me. Just don’t bail on me. I’ll prove it." Nero is clearly not believing a word out of Jax’s mouth, which demonstrates that he has more brains and a more sharply honed survival instinct than all of SAMCRO put together.
Nero tells Jax that he’s owed some disclosure, but "You don’t have to give me no details. Just tell me when to duck." Jax says, "Fair enough. I’ll let you know. [pause] Plus I’m letting you tap my mom. That’s got to be worth something." I’d think this was a joke, but remember that Jax hasn’t hesitated to ask Gemma to work her wiles on Clay when he needs her to, so let’s just take a moment to bask in the horror of a grown man using his mom’s sexual agency as career leverage.
So, then these two pull up to the Best Little Craftsman Whorehouse in Stockton, which is being inspected by some poor schlub (short-sleeved dress shirts favor no man), and Colette is all, "Oh, just what I need, two completely suspicious-looking men to creep out a city employee!" No, really.
Roosevelt is just sort of chilling outside, and that’s when Barofsky rolls up with one of his little payola minions. Barofsky introduces himself as a retired detective and Roosevelt drawls, "It was mandatory retirement, wasn’t it, Charlie? Either that or prosecution?" "Tomato, to-mah-to," Barofsky says with a shrug. He and Roosevelt have a brief staring contest wherein Barofsky threatens to bring in some of his friends to "help" with the case Roosevelt won’t tell him about, and Roosevelt says, "You know, I’ve seen all I need." Barofsky counts this as a victory. He is wrong. I can say that because I have the advantage of remembering how Roosevelt operated through Season 4.
Barofsky comes inside Colette’s place to tattle on Roosevelt, and Jax pulls Barofsky outside to give him a little backstory: "That girl who got killed, dumped outside Charming, she was one of ours." Nero adds, "And my pre-Chino resume made me their first stop." Barofsky is not pleased by this. He’s also not pleased that Roosevelt is not on Jax’s payroll. Nero tries to defuse the situation with, "It’s my problem."
"You see where you’re standing? It’s my problem too. I maintain a very delicate balance in the neighborhood. I fund particular parties, I keep crime and profiles very low," Barofsky explains. He’s about to launch into the portion where he tells Jax and Nero what’s what when Tig pulls up and Jax is all, "Gotta jam! Don’t want this guy accidentally rage-murdering anyone else this week!”
After Jax takes off, Barofsky says to Nero, "I hope you know what you’re doing, ese." Going by the look on Nero’s face, Nero is asking himself that same question. I wonder… if he had to do it over again, would he really have picked up Gemma in that bar?
Back at T-M, Unser is playing with Abel while Tara finishes a phone call, then she comes over to fuss at him not to re-open the many giant lacerations on his torso. Tara orders Unser to sit and when he balks, she channels Gemma and barks, "Sit!" He does. Tara checks him out and after she’s done, Unser says, "That little coven I walked in on the other day … I’m not sure what was going on, but I got the impression it was very hush-hush. It was very obvious you didn’t want the queen to be privy. Exit strategy?" Tara weighs the pros and cons of answering Unser, then says, "It’s best you don’t know, Wayne." Unser gives her an infinitely compassionate look, then asks gently, "Do you need my help?" Tara is suddenly more wary: "If I said yes?" "Then I’d say I’m going to need to know all the facts. The cop in me. It’s an offer…think it over," Unser says. He heads back to play with Abel while Tara ponders whether or not the clarity of pending mortality has freed Unser from the grip Gemma has on him.
Meanwhile, Jax and his crew engage in this episode’s big, loud, bullet-riddled action sequence at the beverage distributorship in Lodi. At the end of it all, when Tig is pulling Connor out of a pile of shattered liquor bottles, Chibs cracks, "Jaysus, another fine Irishman brought down by the bottle." Jax smirks.
The scene, we learn that the guns the Irish stole from the barn in the last episode (you will remember they did this right after killing Filthy Phil and V-Lin) are in the back room. Jax decides that the guns stay – "a peace offering" -- but Connor will be taking a trip to the Wahewa reservation so he might get a chance to engage in the rich culture of an indigenous people. Or, you know, get eaten by ants.
In prison, Clay is visited by the bookmobile. An Irish inmate hands him Edgar Rice Burroughs The Mad King and says, "I think you’ll like this one. It gets real good around page 47." Clay is no dummy and he takes the book. Also, Flatland is a quick read so why not dive into a story where the antagonist is the rightful ruler of a country and the usurper prince lives happily ever after? I’m sure there’s no resonance to Clay’s life story at all. There’s a message. Clay looks troubled when he sees it.
Out at the Wahewa stake, we see that several Irishmen are tied to assorted supporting beams in a barn. Jax gets Connor’s phone and asks, "How do I call the Kings?" "I’m pretty sure the number’s not listed," Connor says, and it’s Juice who hauls off and smacks him hard. Jax is all, "The hell?" before laying a restraining hand on his shoulder, then asks again: "Me reaching out is in peace. I have every intention of putting you on a flight back to Belfast." Connor spills, and within seconds, Jax is connected to Rourke on the Auld Sod.
Before we get into any of the Irish scenes, a disclaimer: the entire Irish plot line in season three took place in the period where I a) just had my daughter, who b) needed to nurse every 45 minutes for three weeks straight, and c) I had also TiVo'ed a documentary series on the Big Apple circus, so my recall of that entire plot line is one confusing, green-filter exhaustion hallucination involving Gemma pulling guns on babies and clowns having existential crises. A second disclaimer: I am writing this while under the influence of the morphine a very nice nurse gave me in the E.R. a few hours ago, so I’m kind of flashing back to a head space filled with belligerent carnies and accidental near-incest.
So! The phone is being handled by guy named Rourke whom I take it is a bigwig in the Celtic Terrorism Tourney. He is not terribly thrilled to be talking to Jax, and his two silent pals, Brogan and Griffin, don’t seem too keen either. The three old men stick the burner phone in the middle of the table and carp at Jax about how unfair it is that a biker gang would kidnap their guys after those same guys killed two of their own. Uch, even for terrorists, this mindset is insane. Anyway, Jax says he’ll let all the kidnapped Irish men go as soon as he gets assurances from the collection of mass-murdering fossils on the other end of the line.
He continues: "I told Galen why we need out of guns. Fed heat is going to hurt all of us if we don’t cut ties. I offered him distribution in the north and new business down south." Rourke says, "And he told the council that both those things were false promises. And that you delivered that betrayal with a good dose of blasphemy." Jax rolls his eyes all, Lord save me from these hair-splitting martinets and points out, “Galen doesn’t want it to work. Galen and Clay go back more than 20 years. They’ve done deals off the books, shit that neither of our organizations know about. They’ve got secrets to protect." Brogan (who looks like he just wandered off the set The Hobbit, so epic is his mane of white hair, opines that Jax has just made a weighty accusation. Jax claims he’s only passing on "the facts," never mind that he has offered no actual imperial evidence to support these purported facts. Jax says that Galen hates how Jax is head of the club, and he’s undermining the cause over his personal beef, and that Clay’s a weak reed upon which to build a gun-running structure, numbered as his days are in Stockton.
Jax almost has the council buying what he’s selling until he mentions that his hand-picked choice for handing off the guns is August Marks, newly risen head of the Pope Industries empire, and that’s when we discover that Gallic geriatrics are not only gun-runners, they’re also enthusiastic racists. And big fat liars, because they’ve had Galen listening in the whole time. Galen smilingly asserts, "Clay Morrow’s still our connection to Northern California. Any deal I’ve made with Clay has fed this table. I’ve got no secrets from you. Our deal with Clay will be locked down by the end of the day. Our history with the Sons of Anarchy is coming to an end. [Jax] gets what he wants. Out of guns and ties severed."
Meanwhile, poor dumb Jax will be waiting for their phone call on the burner he took off Connor.
Gemma comes to visit Wendy at her work, of all places, and Wendy has to scramble to put on a scarf to cover her "bruise." When she catches sight of Unser behind Gemma, she blanches, but Unser catches her reaction and excuses himself to the car, leaving Wendy to Gemma’s idea of a social call.
Gemma’s panicking because the recent unpleasantness with the Irish is going to send Tara’s exit strategy into high gear, and she wants to know if Wendy’s heard anything. Wendy claims she has not and then asks, "What are you going to do, Gemma? About Tara?" Gemma says, "You’re going to bring me a copy of that will, and then I’m going to shoe Jax just what she’s up to." It’s all in the interest of making sure Tara doesn’t really hurt Jax, of course. Then Gemma pulls out a classic manipulative move: She hands over a stack of photos and says, "Abel’s baby pictures. I figured you probably didn’t have any." Wendy nearly falls apart as she takes them. When Gemma hits the door, Wendy calls out, "Gemma, why are you doing this? Letting me in?" Gemma says, "All this push and pull with Tara? I hate it. I just want the family to be right. I don’t know, I’ve just been thinking about how it was before she showed up. I loved you, Wendy. A lot. You’re a good fit for Jax. It should have worked. You let the junk shit all over that." Wendy nods, "I know." Gemma comes over and bestows one of her God’s Fierce Mother hugs and whispers, "You just keep doing what you’re doing." Then she takes off before anyone in the audience can says, "Wait a minute. Didn’t Gemma try to kill Wendy in the first episode of the series? If that’s how she treats people she loves ."
Back at T-M, the guys are all sitting around telling each other about everyone else’s to-do list, when Juice gets off his phone and awkwardly informs the grown-ups that he just got off the phone with Clay’s lawyer, and he’s set up a conjugal visit between Clay and Gemma. Now. This minute. And it will cost $500. Tig explains to the audience that since the state can’t wire a conjugal visit, this is Clay’s way of reaching out to tell the club something through his erstwhile old lady.
Nero wanders into Roosevelt’s office and asks, "Give me a minute?" Roosevelt swallows his surprise and says, "Yeah." Then the two get to it: Nero says, "You’re up my ass over a murder I had nothing to do with. Either charge me, so I can engage proper legal counsel, or back off." Roosevelt asks, "Now, why do you think that it was you that I was following? The San Joaquin DA knows that SAMCRO is connected to the KG-9 that was used in the [school] shooting." Nero asks, "So all this curiosity is about the MC, not about Erin’s murder?" Roosevelt says, "Well, now, that depends on the DNA results." This does not make Nero feel better.
Tara’s faring no better within the machinery of the law, as Lowen explains to her that Otto has managed to screw her from beyond the grave, on account of Toric’s murder looking awfully like a club hit against the guy who’s got a vendetta against Jax Teller’s old lady. As Tara reels, we see Wendy march down the hospital hallway and past Rat, who is chatting up a willing nurse. When Wendy bursts into the room, Tara has to pull her best Gemma ‘tude to get Rat out of there. Then she and Wendy talk, or rather, Wendy falls apart under the pressure of lying to expert manipulator Gemma plus her yearning for her son.
Tara looks more animated than she has at any other point in this season as she says, "We have to think big picture here, greater good. We have to get Abel and Thomas away from this club. Away from Gemma." Wendy says, "There has to be another way." "There’s not!" Tara yells before catching herself. She says with a rueful laugh, "I’m going to jail, Wendy, I have to face that reality, and the only way I can do that is to know that my son, your son is out of danger. I need you to take care of them." Wendy sniffles, "My son?" and Tara sits down and runs her back, "Yeah, your son. I can’t do this without you. Please." Wendy sobs, "I want to spend time with Abel. I don’t care what you have to tell him.” Tara, tell him that Mama Wendy is Mommy’s new housemate and you’re all about to move to a wonderful land called Oregon, where you’ll run a women’s health and counseling service together and employ Juice as your office manager/IT nerd.
On a more serious note, two things stand out about this scene: Tara is more engaged here than she has been at any other time, which makes me feel deep pity for her because imagine living 24/7 with the pressure of trying to lie to homicidal hotheads who happen to be really, really good at figuring out when people are not telling the truth. Second, note how expertly and Gemma-ly she got Wendy to come around to her will. Whether or not Tara will ever admit it, she’s internalized the idea that Gemma’s her surrogate mother and she learned her mother’s lessons well.
Gemma’s making her conjugal visit now -- a whopping two minutes, apparently -- and what those two minutes buys is Clay’s information that the Irish reached out to him. He fills Gemma in on Jax trying to move the club out of guns (Gemma looks honestly uncomprehending at this prospect) and says, "Galen let me know that the deal to be his distributor is still on the table. They want to spring me out of here, take down the transports bringing me to my hearing in two weeks … I go underground, I put together a crew, I go to Northern Ireland, then I run the whole thing from Belfast." Gemma asks what that means for the club, and Clay says, "It mean the Kings don’t like [Jax’s] offer. They’re setting up alternatives. They’re going to shut the MC out. This ain’t good." Clay’s pacing, and no wonder: Jax just undid his life’s work. Still, he requests, "Ask Jax what he wants me to do." Gemma whispers, "Okay."
She goes to leave and two guards come in to inform her that no, the visit is only getting started. "The money was to chat. The payment is us getting to watch [Gemma have sex with Clay]. So let’s get to it," one says. Gemma and Clay beg to differ, and the talky guard beats on Clay while explaining, "This goes down one of two ways: We watch while you tap that MILF ass or I watch while Crane does it. Either way, I get off." Crane makes a move toward Gemma and Clay steps in front of him with, "You touch her, I cut your goddamn heart out." The talky guard promptly beats Clay some more, and Gemma shouts, "Okay!" She comes over to Clay, and the guards unbuckle their pants as they begin giving directions. Clay whispers, "I’m so sorry.".
You know, I thought about this scene and what possible purpose it served for a few days. The only thing I can think -- the only reason we’ve seen Gemma raped, and nearly coerced into sex against her will by Nero’s crazy sister, and now coerced in semi-public sex against her will -- is that this is supposed to show the price paid for the power an old lady wields through her man. And Gemma would probably see it as such, the same way she accepts a Kyriarchy where crow eaters have less protection against rape and exploitation than wives and old ladies. That doesn’t make what happened to her all right.
Meanwhile, back at a place where women actually get paid for renting their bodies out, Barofsky is losing his cool over the professional baggage that Jax and Nero bring to this little deal. Jax makes the empty promise, "Let us move forward with Colette. If this DA’s case moves forward, we’ll pull out of Stockton." Colette brushes against Jax as she comes over to Barofsky and says, "Look, I need these guys, Charlie." He bitterly replies, "Yeah, I can see that." Barofsky warns Jax and Nero that this investigation better not blow in his face, and there’s an uneasy parting of the ways, with Colette clinging to Jax’s hand before taking off. This does not go unnoticed by anyone else, including Gemma (who’s sitting at the bar and steadying herself with a drink and a smoke). She asks Chibs, "Who’s the blonde?" "New whore partner,” Chibs says, perfectly illustrating the SAMCRO attitude toward women and their sexual agency.
Then the men go off to discuss business and Lyla leans across the bar to ask, "What can I make you, sweetheart?" "Three hours younger," Gemma replies.
Okay, so we go to the kitchen and Chibs has an incomprehensibly brogue-y shit fit over Jax offering August Marks as a partner, because God forbid they not respect some terrorists' racist ideals. Jax patiently takes it, and then focuses with "Do you want to tell me what Clay said?" Chibs repeats the tale: the Kings want Clay on distribution. Then he tells Jax, "You can’t run this club on your own." Jax makes excuses (August floated an offer!) and Chibs makes the entirely reasonable point, "[You did this] behind my back. I could have told you how deep this hatred runs. Do you trust me, Jackie? Do you trust any of us? 'Cause it’s not just your club." Jax can’t look at Chibs. When he goes to call the Irish again, Chibs says, "Don’t give up Clay. He may be our only way into them."
On to a phone call with Rourke, who stalls them with, "We’re very close. Still need to discuss it with a few people. It’s what, 6:00 there? We’ll give you a call at eight o’clock your time. Don’t use your phone. It’s traceable by now … We’ll give you our answer and conditions. You’ll want to vote on them right away. We’ll need to know how to move forward." Jax assures him there will be a full table voting. When he hangs up, he says, "Maybe their greed’s trumping their racism." "That will be a first, Jackie Boy," Chibs replies.
Nero comes back through the doors of Diosa Norte and Gemma says gamely, "Your new partner’s really cute." "Blondes ain’t my thing," Nero says gallantly. Then he notices that Gemma seems a little fragile (well, Gemma’s version of fragile anyway) and when she asks him to drive her back to TM, Nero’s casual little kiss of her hand causes Gemma to stop in her tracks and say, "I gotta tell you something …" There’s a few seconds where she seems to hesitate, then the scene closes out on Gemma saying, "I don’t want to keep things from you."
Did Gemma actually tell Nero, or is she concocting another story that will best serve her -- and the club’s -- interests in the long run? We’ll have to see.
And now, the scene where Roosevelt gets the results of the DNA tests from Nero’s truck and just moseys back into his office.
Back at the clubhouse, Chibs and Jax basically rug-sweep their earlier conversation and Jax sits alone at the table looking put-upon. We swing into a musical montage: Chuckie failing to get a keg of beer tapped; lots of bikers hanging out with their old ladies and/or little ones; and Tara in the bedroom that Jax uses in the clubhouse, with Abel asleep in his monkey suit (as my daughter calls her fleece footy pajamas) and Thomas fussing in her arms.
SIDEBAR: Tara had seemed so uncomfortable around the kids in episodes, I couldn’t figure out if it was because the character was having a hard time being open with her children while on guard with everyone else or if was because Maggie Siff’s uncomfortable working with children. But in this scene, she seems so affectionate and responsive to them, her demeanor when she’s around Jax and Gemma and the kids has to be part of her long con. End sidebar.
The music lowers slightly as Gemma and Nero pull into the parking lot. As they get out of the car, Gemma asks, "You gonna be okay with this?" "I’m trying," Nero says. I’m not clear whether "this" is "the coerced sex I had with my ex this afternoon" or "this insane and criminal life I love," but either way, Nero’s not entirely easy. Gemma extracts a promise that Nero won’t "take it to Jax … not now." Right then, Roosevelt pulls up.
Inside the clubhouse, Tig asks what "Sheriff Remus" is doing there -- oh, irony, in light of the Irish -- and Unser volunteers to go see. At two minutes to eight, Jax goes to stub out his cigarette and get his crew to the table for the Irish call when he notices a pen emblazoned with shamrock. He asks Chucky where the pen came from, and Chucky says, "Delivery guy’s. He left it a few hours ago." "What delivery?" Jax asks quietly. "Beer," Chuckie replies. Chibs and Jax look at each other. "Eight o’clock," says Chibs. "Full table for the vote," Jax realizes and then shouts for everyone to clear the hell out of the clubhouse that minute. Tara is holding Thomas and trying to figure out what in the world is going on, and as Jax pushes her toward the door, she shouts, "No, no, no -- Abel!" "I got him!" Jax assures her and orders Tig, "Get her out!"
Jax runs into the bedroom and scoops up his son, then runs out. Chibs is hot on his heels. There’s a ridiculous slow motion shot (it gives us time to see Nero restraining Gemma) and then the clubhouse blows up. We see Jax turning away from the blast so his body shields his son’s. We see Gemma straining over Nero to watch. We see Tig shielding Tara and Thomas with his body; in light of Tig’s early-season snuggles with the baby, that’s an oddly poignant moment. And then we see Jax holding his son and choking back tears as he watches his clubhouse engulfed in flames.
On the bright side, Jackie Boy, there’s no chance of anyone confusing you for Christian Grey anymore. So, you know, you have that going for you.
Lisa Schmeiser is an Oakland-adjacent reporter, editor and blogger. She regularly tweets here, blathers about comics here, and posts the oddball personal piece of writing here.