Like the sheriff, Unser’s focus is on finding the culprit, all the others be damned, Gemma especially. However, his coldness towards Gemma goes deeper than just having tunnel vision. In a short diatribe, Unser tears down Gemma for leading him on with last season’s kiss, which I’d forgotten happened, and for being a pariah and destructive force that everyone surrounding her is learning to avoid.
It smacked of the writers using his character as a mouthpiece for what needed to be said to get Gemma into that bar to meet Warren, played by the always charming Joel McHale (Community). As I said, the matter that brought these feelings out concerned a kiss that didn’t even make the “previously on Sons of Anarchy” bit at the beginning, which is notorious for its ridiculously transparent foreshadowing. Honestly, you could map out what’s going to take place in any given episode, more or less, based solely on the “previously on” bit.
I understand there was more to it, that it only served as a trigger for the release feelings that had probably been brewing for longer than we know, but it struck me as odd that they brought that back up when I can’t even recall it being touched upon pretty much since it happened. But, I digress.
Long SAMCRO’s personal assistant, Unser may finally be distancing himself from the club like he already should have ages ago. With this sudden change of heart relating to Gemma, and Clay’s bestial transformation, there’s not really anything left tying him to them. He’s free to follow the sheriff’s example and take down the club if that’s what his personal investigation leads to.
That being said, one has to imagine he’s not long for the world one way or another. Either his cancer shockingly comes back and kills him, and I say shockingly because it’s almost as if the writers forgot entirely about it, or he gets too close to outing Clay and Clay does to him what he did to Piney. With him disappearing for entire episodes here and there, such as last week, that could take a little longer than one might think, but it seems inevitable at this point.
Returning again to the overarching subject of the lies in “Small World,” there’s not a better example of what I mean than that last exchange between Jax and Tara. Viewers may remember Jax stressing honesty in their relationship, yet Jax appears to have forgotten, or at least temporarily disregarded that. When asked about his day, one involving two murders, a semi-splintering of the club as a result of a decision he made, and a run-in with the sheriff, he tells the second biggest lie of the episode by calling it “quiet.”
Then, no stranger to lying herself, Tara makes up that her meeting with Otto never happened but that she’d be back to try again soon. One wonders if this is simply her being unable to bring herself to tell Jax what really took place, Otto’s steadfast refusal to do what he wants of him, or a sign of her dogged determination to do the job she was sent to do. Otto told her no more visits, but could she get around that and onto her knees to do for him what he asked her to?
A better question is has a character on Sons of Anarchy ever been written out in as abrupt and random a fashion as Carla? She had served her purpose, so it made sense taking her out of the equation, but boy did she go out a big ball of crazy. Nero’s mention of her going off her meds after she put a bullet through her brain came across as a too easy “bitch be crazy” explanation for actions on her part that, up until that point, hadn’t made much sense.
On top of that, I got the feeling the writers wanted an excuse to revisit the situation between Nero, Gemma, and Clay and this facilitated that so they went with it. Nero and Gemma get to bond, so to speak, over Carla’s death and Clay gets a second chance to confront Nero about things between him and Gemma. “I don’t know,” Nero responds when asked about where it’s going with Gemma, seemingly yet another lie as Jax made it perfectly clear that he was to have nothing to do with her.
Surely, though, we haven’t seen the end of that pairing, nor are we done unpacking what Clay’s plan means for him and the club. Outside of going at Jax indirectly through it, a possibility Pope suggests to Jax himself, what else is Clay up to? With only seven episodes left in this season of Sons of Anarchy, we’re sure to find out soon, and I’m rather anticipating it.
