Sons Of Anarchy Review – Stolen Huffy (Season 5, Episode 4)

October 3, 2012 Travis Smith 4 Comments

Sons Of Anarchy Season 5 Episode 4 Stolen Huffy 2 Sons Of Anarchy Review Stolen Huffy (Season 5, Episode 4)

Emma Jean, thought to be the culprit behind them being turned in, might not be quite as lucky though. Nero’s men want a “thumb and a tit,” and while the Sons have the necessary ties to get both without harming her, knowing the man who runs the crematorium, it’s doubtful her impact on the show ends there. If I had to predict, I’d say they find out about Nero sending her off alive and get revenge by going after one of his new girls, on loan from Jax. Even if Emma doesn’t come back into play, those men are bound to.

Well, if someone’s going to bring them back into the fold, it’s Carla, the real reason for things going south with the whole Emma Jean situation. She was the first to lay blame on her as well as the one who sent Nero’s men after her. Up until this point, she’d been relegated to giving Nero disapproving looks about Gemma, so her finally acting on her disapproval was a welcome change. Plus, it gave Tara an outlet for all that anger that’d been building up inside of her as of late. Rather than letting Tara take it out on herself or Wendy, who is sadly the only person she could rely upon to bail her out from jail earlier, Gemma unleashed Tara on Cara by relaying to her that she’d almost gotten Jax killed.

Hopefully this will serve as an act of catharsis on Tara’s part and help her further bury the hatchet with both Gemma and Wendy. She’d already given in to Wendy, trying to sway Jax into telling Abel about his real mother. It felt a tad anti-climactic and sudden for her to give up the fight now, but it was still a welcome sight because it appeared, at least at first, to signal an end to their seemingly endless bickering.

Then Jax denied her efforts and it looked like she’d been brought right back to square one in yet another odd turn of events. However, with her conceding ground to Wendy, and finding someone to take her frustrations out on, I hope things between the two of them are, at the very least, winding down. If Sutter simply returns to the status quo in next week’s episode, then that’s it for me. My tenuous interest in that particular storyline is over with.

Despite the work being done to lead certain long-running storylines to some sort of end, Sutter still saw fit to introduce another thread. If it wasn’t Emma Jean brought the cops swarming down on Nero’s place of business, who was it then? Could Cara have been behind it, as well? Maybe this was a play by her to convince Nero that Gemma was someone he didn’t need in his life. All I know is that Sutter better not just string viewers along with this particular mystery like he’s done with the home invasions, the passing mention of which felt like a weak attempt to keep them fresh in viewers’ minds.

We’ll see in next week’s episode of Sons of Anarchy whether or not things stay on track or if this episode was just yet another in a long string of teases.

Bob Kelly

Apprently Mr. Smith is a true American. He thinks a story should be told like a McDonalds hamburger is cooked. Some good things take time to develop. Which means you have to pay attention and remember whats going on.
- Travis Smith
  
  Breaking Bad is my favorite currently running show, a show known for taking its time, so I’m all for a slow burn if done effectively. But when it doesn’t seem natural, when the show seems to be spinning its wheels, trotting out the more or less the same rehashed arguments time and time again, as Sutter has done with Tara’s interactions with both Gemma and Wendy, that’s when I take issue. There should be a never-ending push towards an end-game, but with Sons of Anarchy it seems the characters sometimes just bicker back and forth accomplishing nothing much. Tara and Wendy’s interactions are the best example of this as all each of them did was stick to the same arguments and give no ground one way or the other. It was like two boulders of equal size bashing together, and the only way it could stop is for one of them to finally break under the pressure of the repeated impacts. If that were to be played out in a slightly more short-term manner, or if it wasn’t as much of a focus as it’s been made to be, that could be compelling and leave the viewer wondering who it will be that finally gives. In this case, though, it was me, the viewer, whose will was the first to give way because I’d grown tired of seeing them get nowhere fast, for so long, and on such a regular basis. Even when Tara concedes ground to Wendy, trying to convince Jax to tell Abel about her, it’s apparently short-lived as she’s right back to acting as if Wendy is still nothing more than Queen Bitch when Gemma brings up that she’d come by the clubhouse. I’ve been patient, but my patience only goes so far, and if the two of them are back to business-as-usual next week, my patience, and my interest in their storyline, is done. I think that’s fair enough.
  
  I also think it’s fair to say that the continuation of the storyline between Jax and Clay felt at least a tad contrived. I understand his reluctance to get rid of Clay, as his character is one of the show’s strongest, his conflicts with Jax the backbone of the show, and Ron Perlman is brilliant in the role. However, as I’ve said before, if you do not plan to go through with a death, don’t build up to it as if it’s inevitable and then wimp out at the last moment, let alone with a deus ex machina the likes of this whole CIA situation. Prior to last season, I had no problem at all with him delaying what fans knew would come eventually, which is Jax finding out what kind of man Clay really is and going after him. “Some good things take time to develop,” as you put it. But then he ramped things up, accelerating the process, only to bring it right back to a standstill in a rather disappointing fashion, by using a plot contrivance to make Clay’s continued existence a necessity. Now all that tension that was rising between the two of them seems to have, in large part, evaporated. Jax doesn’t like the current situation, and is actively looking for a way out of it, but Clay barely factors in. Early on in the premier, Jax’s underlying hatred for the man was palpable in his conversations with Clay. Now, however, it’s taken a backseat to everything else Sutter has in play when it should be the focus, no matter how much is going on. We get constant confrontations between Tara, Gemma, and Wendy, but next to none between Jax and Clay. Despite my noted displeasure with how last season ended, I looked forward to seeing how things would play out with Jax and Opie being forced to not just not kill Clay, but to keep him alive. Except now Opie’s dead, Jax’s attention is on avenging his death (and using it to make things better), and Clay is (apparently) busy planning home invasions, playing head games with Gemma, and waiting for a vote concerning his murdering Piney that looks to have been put off indefinitely at this point.
  
  Believe it or not, I watch this show for the characters. If there wasn’t a single shootout or the like the whole season, or if there was no big bad, I would be more than happy so long as the relationships they have with one another were handled well enough. Yet, as the season wears on, there seems to be less and less of these characters, the ones we’ve grown to know and (to some extent) love having real interactions. When we do get it, it oftentimes comes in the form of what I talked about, all too familiar arguments that go pretty much nowhere, for all intents and purposes. Occasionally, there is a moment when that’s not the case, where you get a strong and compelling interaction between characters, such as Jax’s last real conversation with Opie, but I wish there were more of them. Again, isn’t that not fair?
  
  Sons of Anarchy is at its best when it’s allowed to be what it is, or at least was, at its core: a character drama. Everything else is, or should be, for show. When the plot ramps up, taking the characters out of their element, out of Charming, out of their personal dramas, it loses more than a little of its luster, at least in my opinion. Hopefully that made sense and you can see where it is I’m coming from.
- Travis Smith
  
  P.S. I also feel I should mention that my interest in this whole storyline involving Wendy trying to insert herself back into Abel’s life was limited to begin with. I just don’t like her as a character because all she’s been so far is that woman who shows up frequently to the immense displeasure of Tara, Gemma, and Jax. Though she says she’s reformed herself, and at one point argues that the courts would find her a more fit mother of Abel than Tara, we’ve seen little to reaffirm that notion thus far. Plus, what makes her arguments with Tara especially infuriating is that she keeps threatening to take her to court, just lording it over her the whole time as if Tara should somehow be afraid, and yet she never actually does anything. Clearly, they’re empty threats, and if that’s the route they want to go then I’m okay with that. But have someone call her out on her complete inaction, at least. Tara seemed to do this to a certain extent in this week’s episode, daring her to go through with it, but she should have realized there was nothing to what Wendy was saying long ago and said so to her face.
- Travis Jarrod Smith
  
  Breaking Bad is my favorite currently running show, a show known for taking its time, so I’m all for a slow burn if done effectively. But when it doesn’t seem natural, when the show seems to be spinning its wheels, trotting out the more or less the same rehashed arguments time and time again, as Sutter has done with Tara’s interactions with both Gemma and Wendy, that’s when I take issue. There should be a never-ending push towards an end-game, but with Sons of Anarchy it seems the characters sometimes just bicker back and forth accomplishing nothing much. Tara and Wendy’s interactions are the best example of this as all each of them did was stick to the same arguments and give no ground one way or the other. It was like two boulders of equal size bashing together, and the only way it could stop is for one of them to finally break under the pressure of the repeated impacts. If that were to be played out in a slightly more short-term manner, or if it wasn’t as much of a focus as it’s been made to be, that could be compelling and leave the viewer wondering who it will be that finally gives. In this case, though, it was me, the viewer, whose will was the first to give way because I’d grown tired of seeing them get nowhere fast, for so long, and on such a regular basis. Even when Tara concedes ground to Wendy, trying to convince Jax to tell Abel about her, it’s apparently short-lived as she’s right back to acting as if Wendy is still nothing more than Queen Bitch when Gemma brings up that she’d come by the clubhouse. I’ve been patient, but my patience only goes so far, and if the two of them are back to business-as-usual next week, my patience, and my interest in their storyline, is done. I think that’s fair enough.
  
  I also think it’s fair to say that the continuation of the storyline between Jax and Clay felt at least a tad contrived. I understand his reluctance to get rid of Clay, as his character is one of the show’s strongest, his conflicts with Jax the backbone of the show, and Ron Perlman is brilliant in the role. However, as I’ve said before, if you do not plan to go through with a death, don’t build up to it as if it’s inevitable and then wimp out at the last moment, let alone with a deus ex machina the likes of this whole CIA situation. Prior to last season, I had no problem at all with him delaying what fans knew would come eventually, which is Jax finding out what kind of man Clay really is and going after him. “Some good things take time to develop,” as you put it. But then he ramped things up, accelerating the process, only to bring it right back to a standstill in a rather disappointing fashion, by using a plot contrivance to make Clay’s continued existence a necessity. Now all that tension that was rising between the two of them seems to have, in large part, evaporated. Jax doesn’t like the current situation, and is actively looking for a way out of it, but Clay barely factors in. Early on in the premier, Jax’s underlying hatred for the man was palpable in his conversations with Clay. Now, however, it’s taken a backseat to everything else Sutter has in play when it should be the focus, no matter how much is going on. We get constant confrontations between Tara, Gemma, and Wendy, but next to none between Jax and Clay. Despite my noted displeasure with how last season ended, I looked forward to seeing how things would play out with Jax and Opie being forced to not just not kill Clay, but to keep him alive. Except now Opie’s dead, Jax’s attention is on avenging his death (and using it to make things better), and Clay is (apparently) busy planning home invasions, playing head games with Gemma, and waiting for a vote concerning his murdering Piney that looks to have been put off indefinitely at this point.
  
  Believe it or not, I watch this show for the characters. If there wasn’t a single shootout or the like the whole season, or if there was no big bad, I would be more than happy so long as the relationships they have with one another were handled well enough. Yet, as the season wears on, there seems to be less and less of these characters, the ones we’ve grown to know and (to some extent) love having real interactions. When we do get it, it oftentimes comes in the form of what I talked about, all too familiar arguments that go pretty much nowhere, for all intents and purposes. Occasionally, there is a moment when that’s not the case, where you get a strong and compelling interaction between characters, such as Jax’s last real conversation with Opie, but I wish there were more of them. Again, isn’t that not fair?
  
  Sons of Anarchy is at its best when it’s allowed to be what it is, or at least was, at its core: a character drama. Everything else is, or should be, for show. When the plot ramps up, taking the characters out of their element, out of Charming, out of their personal dramas, it loses more than a little of its luster, at least in my opinion. Hopefully that made sense and you can see where it is I’m coming from.
  
  P.S. I also feel I should mention that my interest in this whole storyline involving Wendy trying to insert herself back into Abel’s life was limited to begin with. I just don’t like her as a character because all she’s been so far is that woman who shows up frequently to the immense displeasure of Tara, Gemma, and Jax. Though she says she’s reformed herself, and at one point argues that the court would find her a more fit mother of Abel than Tara, we’ve seen little to reaffirm that notion thus far.
  
  Plus, what makes her arguments with Tara especially infuriating is that she keeps threatening to take her to court, just lording it over her the whole time as if Tara should be somehow afraid, and yet she never actually does anything. Clearly, they’re empty threats, and if that’s the route they want to go then I’m okay with that. But have someone call her out on her complete inaction, at least. Tara seemed to do this to a certain extent in this week’s episode, daring her to go through with it, but she should have realized there was nothing to what Wendy was saying long ago and said so to her face directly.