Last night saw a sudden and welcome change in tone for Kurt Sutter’s show, as it shifted from weighty matters into, er, ass-biting. It also featured one of television’s best — if not the best — surprise cameo in recent memory. I’ll hold off on the cameo until the second page so as not to spoil it for anyone who inadvertently clicks ahead. If you don’t watch Sons of Anarchy and have no plans to do so, you really should check out the cameo for its pure spectacular awesomeness. (Also, don’t forget: Theo Rossi, who plays Juice, will be by this afternoon to answer questions).
Let’s get right to it.
1. Jax Is Journaling — The only particularly heavy moments of last night’s episode came with Jax’s platitude-heavy voice over narration in the beginning, narration from his journal entries to his boys. Knowing Kurt Sutter’s affinity for occasional heavy-handedness, he’s likely setting up the end of the series, when — flash forward 25 years — Jax’s kids are riding around Charming in their motorcycles as members of SAMCRO while their dead father’s voice over narration warns them of the path they’ve chosen.
2. Pink. Wet. Tastes Like Sunshine — Not. It’s not Italian ice. SAMCRO is officially in the prostitution business, as a vote at the table was unanimous. For wily reasons, I’m sure, Clay actually pushed them to vote immediately, and voted in favor. I still don’t know what Clay’s play is, but I suspect he has insidious motives.
3. A Little Irish Boxing — Speaking of Clay, he made exchange between the Irish and Galindo fairly seamless, except for the fact that Galen was not happy to see Jax — who he blames for the death of Father Kellan Ashby — as President of SAMCRO. That led to blows, but it was testosterone-y, good-natured Irish fighting. Galen, however, was not above testing his products on the SAMCRO motorcycles, however. Chibs blew a gasket, but Jax played it super cool. “Way to close a deal, brother.”
Here’s Jax removing his jacket LIKE A BRO.
4. The Home Invasions Took a Weird Turn — At the police station, Clay tried to pin the home invasions on some jailed East Dubs (who beat the crap out of a cop), but at the end of the episode — in a home invasion gone awry — the home invaders inadvertently shot Eli’s wife. That’s going to escalate things, and Eli is bound to find out that a faction of SAMCRO — likely controlled by Clay — is behind the menacing.
5. Joel McHale Watch — Week 5 — Still no Joel McHale sighting, but you know what? It didn’t matter last night, because Kurt Sutter pulled out the best guest spot I can ever remember seeing …
6. “Have you ever had your d*ck sucked by a Southern girl with a huge c*ck?” — In this day and age, when every scrap of casting news is telegraphed months ahead, it was refreshingly fantastic to find a surprise cameo, especially one from Walton Goggins, as Venus Van Damme — a nod to Goggins’ character on The Shield. Unfortunately, you still can’t control Twitter and Facebook, so my apologies to anyone time shifting the episode or in a different time zone who had the cameo spoiled by a f***stick on Twitter.
It was easily the funniest sequence of the series, and maybe the funniest scene I’ve seen on television since Ron Swanson drank the snake juice. Goggins played a transexual prostitute, Little Venus Love, the Belle who does not tell.
You cannot beat Boyd Crowder in drag.
The best part, however, may have been how turned on Tig was by Venus. It was a welcome reminder of what a fun character Tig used to be on the show. I’m going to be shipping on Tig and Venus the rest of the season.
It just goes to show you, “Never judge a book by it’s penis.”
7. SAMCRO Gets in Bed with Jacob Hale — It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Jacob Hale, but he’s the reason why Venus Van Damme needed to make an appearance. SAMCRO wants to lease some of Hale’s property, and they needed to convince Hale by blackmailing the fat guy, Allen Biancone, whose vote was needed to push through a property deal Jacob Hale wanted. Enter Van Damme, who posed for some lascivious blackmail photos. They were comically interrupted, however, by Biancone’s step-son, who was all about f**king around with Van Damme. He also acted like a little puppy around the Sons. The whole thing was brilliant.
8. Tig Loses a Chuck of His Ass — The fun didn’t end with the exit of Van Damme, either. When a naked Biancone woke up, he took a bite out of Tig’s ass. Tara would have to attempt to sew Tig’s ass back together, but — despite improvement on her hand — she still couldn’t perform the procedure.
9. Tara and Gemma Make Amends — There was a lot of relationship drama that, quite frankly, I’m just not that interested in. Tara’s inability to perform the procedure, compounded by the bonding experience Tara and Gemma had last week in kicking Dora the Whore-A’s ass, brought them back together. In fact, Tara allowed Gemma to take care of the kids while she smoked some pot because Tara is clearly going through some EMOTIONS. Meanwhile, Jax and Gemma are also having some issues because Jax is trying to keep Nero away from Gemma, which isn’t going to be easy for either of them.
10. What’s in the Box? — It took us until the final moments of the episode to find out what was in the box, but it offered another amusing juxtaposition. After Jax came home to find his wife asleep and his mom holding his son on the couch, a hole was blown in that very sweet moment when Jax opened the box to find the thumb and t*t he needed to save Ashley Tisdale’s life.
Boom! Terrific episode.
