Speaking of pain, I’m glad Sutter at least gave viewers the cathartic confrontation that we have been waiting for between Jax and Opie. Seeing the two fight and, subsequently, make up, for lack of a better word, made for a powerful scene. While it set up his eventual death, one gets the feeling that no one could hurt him more than Jax had.
On the flip side, there were more than a couple verbal and physical altercations in this episode that fell flat. I’m speaking especially of those which Gemma was either a part or the cause of. Though I liked seeing the depths to which she would go to hurt Tara for shutting her out of her grandchildren’s lives, I didn’t like that it gave the writers an opportunity to rehash the same tired arguments between her and Tara and between Tara and Wendy.
Enough of the posturing between those three. Either start to bring things to a head or use that time on more pressing plot points. At this point, it’s all empty threats. If Wendy was going to make a push to insert herself back into her son’s life, what’s taking her so long? She’s not even determined enough to use the ammo Gemma gave her to go at Tara, instead sticking to the same useless tact of saying she’ll see her in court if Tara doesn’t change her mind. I feel as if she’s more likely to see her in court as a spectator, Jax bringing Tara down with her. Likewise, besides Tara morphing into Gemma, their ongoing battle has been more or less treading water as of late, feeling less like a tough fought stalemate and more like a dull shouting match.
It’s not the rehashing that bothered me the most with regards to Gemma, but rather her reaction to Clay sleeping with one of Nero’s escorts. She told Nero it made her angry and that’s the only explanation Sutter bothers to provide for what I consider an out-of-character move.
Gemma wants nothing to do with Clay, refuses to even let him touch her and apparently has divorce on the mind, yet she still treats it as if this is her “old man” that is cheating on her? The only explanation I can come up with for it inspiring such violence on her part is that this was her way of taking out her anger towards Clay. As with Opie’s actions, though, Sutter doesn’t go too far to apply reason in this case either. Hopefully this won’t be the last we hear about her lashing out and we’ll get a proper explanation sooner or later.
Lastly, there is one major plot point left that I must say something about. The plot point I’m talking about is Jax convincing Pope to let Tig walk too, allowing him to lord it over Tig and make him go along with his every word.
At the surface level, it’s what Jax says it is, the only way in which he can do what Pope is asking of him. However, I think it goes much deeper than that; Jax on some level blames Tig for Opie’s death, as well as everything that’s happened to them as of late, and he wants vengeance in some fashion. On his own terms though.
Forget having him waste away in prison, Jax wants him to go the way of his daughter. He basically says it outright, telling Pope that once they’re done, he can do to Tig what he wants,.
But that’s not the only thing Jax has in store to get retribution for Opie’s death. He also intends to return the favor to the guard who helped orchestrate it. Neither that, or using and then discarding Tig, are likely to even the scales for Jax. Although, with Clay still untouchable, that’ll have to be enough to satisfy his blood lust for the time being.
And that does it for this week’s episode of Sons of Anarchy. What did you think of the episode and the death that it brought? Let us know in the comments below.
