Sons Of Anarchy Season Premiere Review: “Straw” (Season 6, Episode 1)

The club has bigger worries than Jax’s sex life at the moment though. Clay accepted a deal from the ex-Marshal, whose name is actually Lee (Donal Logue) – but by the end of this episode you might be referring to him by any number of nicknames. I’m going to say off the bat that I don’t think Clay is actually going to flip on the club. He is a lot of things – liar, murderer, grotesque – but I just don’t buy that he’s going to become a rat. I’ll be the last person to side with Clay Morrow – his means are ruthless, his morals are non-existent, and he reeks of over-compensating – but, watching his eyes wander from Juice to Gemma (Katey Segal) was pathetic. If for no other reason than to watch him crawl out from the ashes of his shame and humiliation, I want him to suceed in screwing Lee over for messing with the mc.

Clay’s possible threat to the club was slightly (er, grandly) over-shadowed by the school shooting. You spend the entire episode wondering who this child is, and eventually what he’s going to do, until it becomes clear, and then there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. What I’m sure we’ll find out, and what previews for next week have already unveiled, is that the gun came inadvertently from the Sons of Anarchy mc.

Sons of Anarchy might be television show, but it exists within a realm of reality that parallels our own. I assume that means a strong emotional reaction to events like this. What does that mean for SAMCRO? There are a lot of ways this could go. Between the pressure Lee is putting on the Department of Justice to re-open their Rico case, and the nightmare that this tragic incident is going to bring upon the club’s reputation, things are going to get much worse before they get even remotely better. If Jax hasn’t made his opinion of their role in gun sales clear by now, this event will hopefully push them right out of business – and it’s about time.

This all goes back to Clay deciding to double-dip at the end of his term, forcing his influence on the members, and leading the club right back into the midst of the gun trade with a little bonus drug money on the side. If the Sons had gotten out when Jax urged them to – granted, the CIA did run interference on this one – they wouldn’t have had a stock to supply Nero’s (Jimmy Smits) guys with, and this would never have happened.

Unfortunately, Clay isn’t the only one that now needs to make recompense for his actions. This is clearly a club matter. The entire club voted, and the entire club backed moves that led to their current unfriendly position. Bobby might be hiding out in Indian Hills, but even he didn’t see enough of the bigger picture to connect all the dots.

This episode of Sons of Anarchy put everyone in a position to seek redemption, the only question is, where will they start?

Let us know in the comment section below how you reacted to the season 6 premiere of Sons of Anarchy.

Random Thoughts:

• All the members are now sporting a new patch on the bottom of their vests that reads “Rest in Peace, Opie.”
• Tara must think there’s a possibility she’s going to end up in prison if she needed to prove she wasn’t a pushover.
• I thought the little boy was a flash back of a younger version of Jax at the beginning.
• I laughed a little too much at the Zero Dark Thirty reference.
• When Tig started singing to himself at the end of the dock after he pushed the cage over, I started to wonder if that was the beginning of his spiral down the rabbit hole.
• My reaction to the drug-induced mirror dance: that is something I can never unsee.

Until next episode.