Since it is evident that Kurt Sutter is going to expend as much bloodshed as possible throughout the rest of the season of Sons of Anarchy, going ahead I thought we’d frame these recaps around the body count, since that is clearly what is driving the narrative forward. So let’s break this down by body.
Most of the episode dealt with the fallout from last week’s bloodbath at Diosa. Jax, because he’s Jax and Jax doesn’t really understand what escalation of violence means, thought the best way to handle one bloodbath was to run another bloodbath. Most of last night’s episode involved Jax and SAMCRO plotting their revenge against Henry Lin and the Chinese, which I understand. But man, they just blew right past the whole fact that a lot of the people they had regard for, in addition to a club member (West), had been brutally murdered. There was no time for grieving. Just revenge. I mean, look at these people, smiling and having a good time during a musical montage, only hours after 17 of their friends and business partners were gunned down.
Before they could execute their revenge, however, Nero got involved, after Lin threatened to kill his kid unless he brought Jax to him. Jax and Nero fought, Jax explained to Nero that Lin was behind Tara’s murder, and Nero confronted Gemma about it, and Gemma was like, “Yeah, babe. Bummer about all those dead people. But whaddya gonna do? Some rando Asian guy killed Tara. I could really use a smoke.”
The long and short of Jax’s plan was to use Nero to get all of Lin’s men in one place, then use Barosky’s corrupt pals on the police force to arrest them all, except for Lin, who was going to be left for Jax to murder. Unfortunately for Jax, Unser gave Sheriff Jarry the heads up, and she sent real police over to Stockton to deal with the situation, which means that Jax is now apparently going to have to have Lin killed in prison.
Don’t worry, though. Before the episode ended, SAMCRO did take out a four of Lin’s men, played by these incredibly bad actors.
Barosky also took out a colleague he didn’t like.
Meanwhile, over on the B-plot, Juice’s fate continued to hang in the balance. Out getting the newspaper, he spotted an Asian guy, assumed he was one of Lin’s men and later, when the Asian man entered his motel room, Juice shot and killed him. Turned out, that guy just worked at the motel. That minus two points for Juice, who is now both racist AND late in paying for his motel room. Dude.
With that, the episode’s body count was 6.
Could it be seven? It certainly looked like it for a moment. Gemma was driving Juice out into the middle of nowhere, she was packing a heat in her purse, and had every intention of popping him and leaving him in the desert. But Juice SOMEHOW figured it out (Brainiac saw the gun in her handbag) and turned the tables on Gemma. The episode ended with Juice holding a gun to Gemma’s head and Gemma begging for her life.
Will he kill her? Of course not! He’s Juice. He only kills people when killing them would be a dumb move. Killing Gemma would be the smartest thing he ever did, and Juice doesn’t do smart things. He’ll probably make some deal with her. “I’ll let you live, if you tell Jax the truth. Tell him EVERYTHING.” “Oh sure, honey,” Gemma will say, while taking a drag of her cigarette. “Whatever you say. Let me just hold that gun for you, OK? You just hand it over to Momma. There you go, There you … BLAM.” Juice is dead.
Finally, the C-plot — which had no body count — saw Chibs and Sheriff Jarry forming an uneasy alliance IN THE BEDROOM. The town sheriff sleeping with one of the men who keeps mowing down other men? That just MIGHT cause a conflict in their romantic relationship.
That said, they really are well matched.
Chibs also delivered the best line of the episode:
Jarry: “Do you know why I take the money?”
Chibs: “Because it’s money.”
Ladies and gentlemen, that from the man with a dollar bill tattoo on his chest!
My second favorite line:
Unser: “Any idea, uh, what happened?”
Raboy: “Someone gunned down all our whores.”
That’s compassion!
Also, has anyone else noticed that Jax no longer flares his nostrils? Six seasons of nostril flares, and he decides to quit during the final one. WTF?
Final Body Count: 6.
