Sons Of Anarchy Review: “Authority Vested” (Season 5, Episode 2)

Now, back to what I was saying earlier, “Authority Vested” lacked that level of immediacy. The characters were doing a lot of talking that, for a large part, went nowhere in particular. The episode as a whole felt somewhat akin to Sutter’s overlong “previously on Sons of Anarchy” recaps at the beginning of each episode. While that doesn’t go for the entire episode, there were certainly conversations, such as the one I already mentioned regarding the relationship between the Sons and the CIA, that had an “in case you missed it” feel to them.

That being said, there were more than a couple really nice scenes this week, most notably Jax’s heart-to-heart with Nero which reveals that they’re more alike than either one of them knew and that Jax might be considering getting into Nero’s business or even partnering with him, possibly.

I’ve seen others liken him to a father figure for Jax, but I think Jax sees him more as a way out, so to speak. He stays part of the club, but he also helps keep his family safe by moving the club into a much less dangerous venture. This way, the club wouldn’t just not die, it would prosper and its lifespan would be significantly elongated.

But this is Sons of Anarchy, thus everything is surely not as it seems. Nero looks too good to be true, meaning he probably is. The only question, one imagines, is when and how he’ll betray the trust of Jax, Gemma, and the rest of the Sons.

Likewise, it was obvious from the moment Jax told Tara to marry him that things would not go as planned. Either Jax wouldn’t make it back to go through with the marriage or something else would complicate matters. In this case, it was something else, with Gemma inadvertently finding out about the marriage Jax and Tara wished to keep secret.

This led, of course, to Tara and Gemma butting heads once more. Yet, for the first time in a while, Gemma conceded some ground to Tara, giving Tara her and John’s rings (adding yet another parallel between the two couples) and asking only that Tara let her stay to see her son get married.

A small step, no doubt, but the episode was filled with those. This was never meant to be an episode full of big moments or revelations. As I said earlier, Sutter was merely putting his players in position to prepare them for the fallout that’s sure to come starting in the next episode. I, for one, can’t wait to see how things play out. I just wish the buildup had been a little less perfunctory.