Sons of Anarchy: My Hands Were Over My Eyes A Lot.

“Albification”

(Due to Hulu’s posting schedule I am a week behind, but I am okay with that.)

I feel that I need to say again that this show is not for the faint-of-heart. In this first episode of Season 2 a man was shot in the jaw, then the head, then a huge A was carved into his chest (thank you so much subtitles for scrolling “flesh being carved” across the bottom of the screen at that moment), then his corpse was shot multiple times to cover that up, as well as a woman was repeatedly rapped.

My biggest question right now is, in the wake of Donna’s murder and her instigating role in it, will Agent Stahl become more or less determined to bring down SAMCRO? For the sake of the innocents and semi-innocents that can get caught in the crossfire I hope that she is at least smarter about her approach.

I understand Jax’s reasoning behind keeping his, Piney’s and Hale’s suspicions about Clay’s responsibility for Donna’s murder from Opie, but I personally felt sick to my stomach every time Clay or Tig hugged Opie or patted him on the back. How much can Jax compromise and conceal before calling Opie his “brother” will be as hollow a mockery as it is for Clay and Tig? It isn’t just that they murdered Donna, but now they have made Opie into a murderer, and a bit of a sadistic one at that. In scapegoating Opie’s revenge onto the Mayans they have destroyed his soul as utterly as they destroyed Donna’s body.

As unbelievably ridiculous as their ideology and rhetoric is, there is NOTHING funny about the Aryan Nationalists that are setting up in Charming. I cheered for Hale when he got up and left the meeting with Ethan Zobelle (Adam Arkin), refusing to trade one gang for another. His principles may not be in any way effective, but you have to be proud of someone for having some. I have a feeling his opposition to SAMCRO is going to be compromised when he realizes what a threat Zobelle and Assoc pose to Charming. Since Gemma was a crazy bitch before, I can only imagine what is going to happen in the fall-out of her abduction and rape. I don’t think anyone stands a chance in the face of her wrath. I wonder how valid Tara will see Gemma’s advice to "learn to love the club" in light of what it has now cost her?

I am rooting for Piney like me life depends on it. He is willing to say what needs to be said, even when he cannot say all this is true. His encouragement to his son to be a good father is of course qualified. The standard of good parenting is ever shifting in this landscape. As right as he is that if present Opie must be involved, Piney’s demand that Opie take up his responsibilities would carry much more weight if Piney and John Teller had had the sense as parents to not impose a world upon their sons (from the moment of their births) with rules and expectations those sons may be temperamentally unqualified for or morally opposed to. There is a good argument to be made that Opie’s children would be better off without him (as much as I love him), but it is the great tragedy of fundamentally compromised people that such clear-sighted understanding of a situation is unavailable to them. Similarly, the viewer must ask upon what grounds Unser tells Gemma that Jax will be a “good dad?” There is no doubt that Jax is in many ways a better person than Clay, but Able is just as doomed as all the others by the fact that he has been born to people who hang framed mug-shots on the wall with the pride of family portraits.

The TV Girl