Sons of Anarchy: Wedding Bells and Bullet Holes

(4.01 “Out”)

The boys are out of prison, Jax with some fun new scars.  Otto’s still inside, and happens to find a razor blade in his boiled egg (I’m not sure how that works, but ok), which he turns on his wrist, but he’s found by a guard.  Charming changed in the time they were away.  Opie is getting married.  Jacob Hale is building a fancy new sub-division, the type of McMansion development that Charming has been so lacking in. Tara had her baby!!!  (Thomas, named after Jax’s deceased brother.)   And there is literally a new Sheriff in town.  Riding through town on their way to the welcome home party at the garage, the Sons are stopped by Sheriff Eli Roosevelt (Rockmond Dunbar), instated during the time of incarceration, and unwilling to see any cuts on the newly paroled riders.  After the happy reunions at Teller-Morrow (where Gemma gives Jax a paper bag containing “the one he picked out”) it’s back to business.  Even with tidy profits, it’s time to renegotiate SAMCRO’s place in the deal between them, the Irish, and the Russians.  Since they have a tail, everyone rolls out: Clay, Jax and Opie to the meeting with everyone else providing a distraction for the all too easily manipulated cops.  While his employees are being played, the new Sheriff is attending a super secret meeting with an odd looking man whose renting the top floor of his building: ASUDA Potter.  He explains to Roosevelt the design of the governments RICO case involving SAMCRO, the Irish and the Russians, which is progressing nicely due to a highly placed FBI agent within the Russians, and asks for Roosevelt’s cooperation, as Charming will most likely be the site of the showdown.  All cop, Roosevelt accepts.  At the meet with the Russians, the FBI agent observes Jax agreeing to the “it’s all just business” apology offered for his shiving in prison (hence the new scars), a new deal is struck and Opie invites them all to the wedding, a lovely pretext for sneaking off to look at guns.  Back to Charming for um, reunion time.  Pillow-talk topics include: (for Gemma and Clay) Unser’s declining health, Clay’s declining health, and retirement; (for Jax and Tara) getting married, how to raise their boys, that John Teller was a coward not to take his sons out of the life, and how Jax just needs to bide his time and save some money so that the can leave SAMCRO and never look back.  Now in the infirmary, Otto is handed a scalpel as another prisoner is wheeled in next to him.  (This can’t possibly end well.)  Also on the list of things that are most likely HUGE mistakes, time for Opie and Lyla’s wedding.  All the gangs are there (on reservation land, so cuts allowed), and Lyla emerges looking much more like the bachelor party entertainment than the bride, but after a few (thankfully) short and awkward vows, Opie and Lyla are pronounced man and wife.  During the reception Chibs and Juice sneak off with some of the Russians (including an un-miked FBI agent) to look at the guns. Otto unhooks the cuff on his bed.  Clay and Jax take Putlova off to fire off a few from a particularly lethal looking handgun. In the warehouse, they test the merchandise on the Russians who brought them their, killing them all.  Otto shoves the scalpel through the ear and into the brain of the man strapped in the next bed, saying, “this is for Jax Teller.”  And out in the woods Clay shoots Putlova’s bodyguards before the others hold him down so Jax can stab him repeatedly in the chest, which is just business after all.  The now dead FBI agent is the last body to be dumped onto the new Hale development sight.

Well wasn’t that just a hi-we’re-back bitchslap?

I mean that as a compliment.

I admit that I find the details of who-has-a-deal-with-who-and-for-what-and-why rather hard to follow on this show: it’s always very intricate and usually changes in the time it takes to flip the safety off.  Therefore it was rather helpful to introduce two new law enforcement characters to explain to each other where the criminal enterprises of the Sons stand.  Without seeming forced or condescending, we got a quick update to bridge us from the previous seasons, and part of the organic presentation was the initial strength of our new lawmen.  Potter, a smoking, paranoid, motorcycle-riding wisp of a dude, is a bit odd, but in now way quirky or cutesy.  He’s like the anti-Stahl: patient observation and quiet cunning instead of furious proclamations and half-baked ideas.  He admits he needs Roosevelt’s help because his team has no credibility in gang warfare, while Roosevelt has vast experience.  He doesn’t strong-arm what he needs, but there’s no doubt (to him or to us) that he is going to get it.  One look at his extensive walls of photos and relationships is enough to make clear that this man won’t be taken in by any Jax Teller triple/ quadruple/ whatever –crosses.  And Roosevelt, what a welcome addition to Charming.  He’s the savvy, upright, committed Sheriff that the town (and the club, because without the law, there’s no such thing as outlaws) so desperately needs in the void left behind by David Hale’s untimely death.  But as a transplant, and therefore without Hale’s hometown attachment to Charming, Roosevelt stands a better chance of protecting the town because of his emotional distance. 

But there is another new character, even if he won’t have any lines.  Emily the Roommate can tell you I was genuinely distressed over whether or not Tara was going to have an abortion.  (I missed the video that would have put me out of my misery sooner.)  It’s not just that I’m Pro-Life, but also that it would have been out of character for Tara.  And it would have just upset me to no end to see Tara have a similar look to the one on Lyla’s face when Opie mentioned expanding their family.  Welcome Thomas Teller, I’m so happy to meet you.  Now please make yourself useful and help you dad propose to your mom.

Seriously, Jax’s proposal to Tara was so frakking prefect I wanted to die inside.  Not some over-the-top declaration of adoration everlasting, but rather a humble acknowledgment of the family that they already are, Jax unreservedly opened himself up to Tara’s rejection by letting it show in his eager expression and halting sentence just how important her answer is.  And as much as he avows that Tara is his savior, brought to him to take him out of the violence of his life, he came to her having thought out her needs, demonstrating to her that he’s asking her to marry him so that he can be her husband, not with the expectation that she will simply be his wife.  Perfect.

And it was nice to have that perfection for half an episode, because at the end we had to question if it had all been a lie.  Where exactly does Jax think he can go where the repercussions of this won’t follow him?  The merits of eye-for-an-eye justice are debatable.  Putlova tried to kill Jax, so within the context of their criminal world, Jax killing Putlova makes sense, and could possibly be something that everyone could move past.  Slaughtering all the Russians is more of the scorched-earth approach, and given that one of those Russians was an undercover FBI agent, the landscape surrounding SAMCRO now looks to be as salted as Carthage after Cato finally got his way in the Roman Senate. 

Sons of Anarchy, how I have missed you.

The TV Girl

Top 5: Shows I Watch Alone

On the opposite side of the spectrum from when last we spoke, there are some shows that don't lend themselves well to happy fun let's-get-together-and-watch-that-show parties.  It's not that I want to keep certain shows to myself (I do not get the pseudo-hipster attitude of NOT telling people about awesome things) but rather that some shows, usually the ones that I am particularly engaged in or attached to, are not ones that I want to watch with other people.  At least the first time that I see an episode.  Some shows I have to let be mine first.

Sons of Anarchy
KP visited a couple of weeks ago and we were trying to figure out a show to watch while we were hanging out.  There was a quick mutual agreement that SoA, though a favorite of us both, just wasn't something you watched with someone else.  Part of the brilliance of SoA is that it reaches inside of you and claws at all the things that make you human.  It's visceral, terrifying, and I wouldn't give it up for a second.  But, well, it's just a private experience.

Fringe
The truth is that when I started watching this show no one I knew watched it also.  Therefore I watched it on my own and by the time other people I knew started watching I was too far ahead to invite them over for new episodes on a Friday night.  Now, the idea that there would be other people around when new information trickles in about Peter, or Olivia absorbs her next in a never ending parade of blows, or Walter makes his latest food request just seems too strange to me.

Game of Thrones
I'm too fucking involved in GoT to watch it with anyone else.  I rejoice, I cry, I yell, I bite my nails, I stop breathing, sometimes I even get to laugh.  I exclaim my love and hate at the screen.  I panic for what has happened, what is happening, for what is yet to happen, for everything.  I can't say that it is a pretty sight.  It would annoy the living bejesus out of someone to be watching this with me, and it would annoy me to try and tone down my reactions.  I was once told that a sign of maturity is to recognize and live within your limitations.  I consider it the hight of maturity for me to watch GoT alone.

Dexter
Dexter is all about honesty: are we telling the truth or are we lying?  Because so much of the show is about exposing the truth you end up as a viewer feeling a bit exposed yourself, and in that it is a little uncomfortable to glance over and see a loved one.  Dexter leaves you feeling raw, edgy, kinda giddy and very much in the mood for a bit of solitude to mull over the state of your being.

Legend of the Seeker
I'm fairly sure that if anyone saw just how unabashedly I love this silly little defunct fantasy show that they would disown me in a heartbeat.  (Actually, LilBro might have watched a few minutes with me before deciding I was a lunatic and he had better things to do.)  They might be right to do so.  But, to save both myself and them from the pain of separation, I'll just keep LotS for rainy days when family and friends are out having real lives.

The TV Girl

Sons of Anarchy: S4 Trailer

No joke, can it please be September already?

The TV Girl

Top 5: Character Deaths I Rejoiced Over

I guess I've got death on the brain right now.  Oh well.  On we roll!

Not every character that bites the dust is a cause for tears and consternation.  Sometimes human beings, me specifically, are just vindictive bitches and we like to see a shit character get what he/she deserves.  And other times a character is so insufferable that being spared their presence makes for a much better, or at least less annoying, show.  Fictional worlds are better off without some people, that's just the way of it.

Coover, Justified
I'm sorry his mother smashed his hand with a hammer, that was sad, but Coover was frakking awful and I clapped in triumph when Raylan shot him and he fell into the mine shaft.  Coover wasn't just loud, vicious, useless, and a potential serial killer.  He was, jointly with his brother, responsible for Loretta being kidnapped by a pedophile, which caused her father to call the cops, an act of betrayal that Mags killed him for.  And then he tried to kill Loretta.  Done.  Coover had to go.  More than a necessary act of self-defense and defense of others, Coover's end was all the justice a little girl was going to get.

Ruby, Supernatural
Back in S4, when SPN wasn't a shameful disaster, there was a demon, a seal, and Sam.  But the real demon was Ruby, the seal was Lilith, and Sam was a pawn used to release Lucifer from his prison.  So even though it wouldn't change the outcome of events, Dean stabbed the crap out of Ruby, for the pure fact that she was an evil bitch, and it was perfect.  There was much shouting in my kitchen as the lights (literally) went out in Ruby's eyes.  It was nice to see Dean vindicated in his 2-season-long campaign espousing Ruby's evilness, it was canonical within the show (because a) if you have sex with Sam you're either going to die or you're evil and b) if you're an actress on the show who happens to be dating Jared Padalecki in real life your character will be killed), and honestly, another season of the rather grating Genevieve Padalecki (I believe it was Cortez at the time) wasn't what anyone needed.   Those were the days.

Trinity, Dexter
Since Dex is a vigilante, tracking down and methodically killing the vile people who escape the law, almost every episode of Dexter has a little thrill of seeing a bad person punished.  But, Dexter dispatching the Trinity killer was especially gratifying.  A season-long game of cat-and-mouse between Dexter and Trinity, perpetuated in equal parts by Trinity's "ordinary" facade and Dexter's reactionary existential crisis, culminated in both Trinity's release from his torment and Dexter's reclamation of his life's purpose.  It really was the world set to right, and who could help but be overjoyed by that?  Everything was glorious!  (Expect for that pesky fact that, unbeknownst to Dex, Trinity had brutally murdered Rita.  Depending on your perspective, this was a double win for Dexter.  I don't see it that way, but some people do.  Poor Rita.)

Marissa, The O.C.
Marissa dying in a car crash when her crazy-pants ex-boyfriend drove her car off the road was sad.  She was a whinny dumb-ass with very little personality and even less dignity, but Ryan loved her and you just wanted the kid to be happy, so as an audience we paused respectfully for Marissa's untimely demise.  Until S4, and it became clear just what a drain on the show she was and how fun things could be without her.  Freed from Marissa's endless self-pity and univocally bad life choices, the way was clear for the hilarious scheming of her younger sister Caitlin, the surprising heartwarming pairing of Ryan and Taylor, and Summer's transformation from vapid party girl to ideological crusader.  I wonder if the show runners had known just what an improvement Marissa's exit would be whether they would have killed her off sooner?

Jimmy, Sons of Anarchy
So many happy deaths to choose from I'm almost overwhelmed.  But for me, seeing Jimmy get got was magical.  Jimmy was a double-crossing little toad, without loyalty to either cause or kin, and everyone from the muckity-mucks of the true IRA to the Russian gun dealers wanted, and in some cases needed, him dead.  What made Jimmy's termination so fulfilling was that Chibs got to do the deed.  For Chibs it was a personal act of retribution against the man who stole his wife and a preemptive strike to prevent his daughter being raped.  No way around it, Jimmy had to die, but because Chibs hastened him to the afterlife there was a sense of cosmic balance to it that left this viewer in awe.

The TV Girl

Texting with LilBro

I had to share this because it's still making me laugh.  This is part of a text conversation between me and my little brother.

The TV Girl

Sons of Anarchy: I Don't Know What to Say

(Season 3, Episode 1, "SO")

I'm not joking.  I really have no idea what to say.

I have been thinking all weekend about last week’s premier, about what happened, what didn't happen, and what this season will be like, and I have no more of an idea than I did days ago.  But let me give it a try.

In short, Gemma is stuck in a motel in Oregon until her legal situation clears up, and in trying to get away she stabs a guy in the crotch, so to avoid her doing any more damage Tig takes her where she wants to go: to her senile father for a visit.  Drunk and grieving Jax is pretty much in a waking coma, tries to break-up with Tara, but she convinces him that is a mistake, and then after a wake-up conversation with first Piney and then Clay, he pretty much beats to death a guy who fell out of the van of shooters that drove up to Half-Sac's wake and opened fire, hitting some bystanders and then running over Hale.  Able is in Ireland.

That might be the worst plot summary ever, and part of the reason is that this episode wasn't really so much about individual events, (up until the end) and much more about the untenable silence that follows great tragedy and the seething asphyxiation when we are trapped by our own choices.  I felt lightheaded by the end of this episode, because I was holding my breath along with all the characters.

One thing that made the overwhelming tension easier to endure before it exploded in a tidal wave of bullets is the reunion of Opie and Jax!  I know they worked their shit out last season, but the small ways that they care for each other are really amazing moments.  Opie literally picked Jax up when he couldn’t walk on his own power, and Jax untangled Opie from the barbed wire that would damage him and that separated him from his brothers.  These two actions were so flawlessly executed (the former in the background of the scene when it takes place) as natural expressions, not obnoxious metaphor, making the loyalty that they represent much more vivid.  

On a less depressing note, Kurt Sutter promised on Twitter that since female viewership increased with this season’s premier that we will get more naked Charlie Hunnam, so that is a win!

I’m trying to look on the bright side, because this is going to get dark. er.

The TV Girl

If I Ruled the World: The Golden Globe for Best Drama Would Go To…

Sons of Anarchy.

The critics can have Mad Men. They are welcome to drool over the perfectly coifed sexcapades of Don Draper and Co. Admittedly, Mad Men has quite a bit to recommend it, but I know the truth. I know that the best drama on TV currently is Sons of Anarchy.

It’s not Lost either. And it has never been Grey’s Anatomy. It was Battlestar Galactica, but sadly, that’s over with now. (And I am not entirely sure the time parameters for awards; so since the show ended in March would any of the last season be eligible for nomination?) I would be willing to make the argument for Friday Night Lights.

But really, there is nothing else like this gun-running Greek tragedy: action show about the give and take between outlaws, their rivals, and the law; family drama about the blessings and burdens of paternal inheritance; existential exploration of the consequences of violence and the fumbling for redemption; black comedy about the conflicts of normality and misanthropy; love poem to bygone ideas of autonomy. All of these elements, themes, and principles are circumscribed by one simple truth: choice is ALWAYS contingent on knowledge.

Expertly written and perfectly performed, the show moves with the inexorable pull of inevitable destruction, and yet each moment is startling and fresh; though you always feel deep in your gut that something bad is going to happen, you never know when or to whom. The smallest looks, comments, even interpretations of tone of voice, become the catalysts of sequences that tiptoe on the edge of doom, and sometimes, fall over that edge. There is no room in this created universe for a smug sense of triumph or obnoxious self-reference to one’s own cleverness. This is a stark light shown upon the human soul, exposing its unending intricacy. The self-satisfied need not apply.

The final moment of Season 2 is the most representative image of the show: Jax’s shattering scream of despair as he watches the boat containing his infant son flee out into the ocean, observed by the men who are at once both the cause and the solution to such ruin.

Right now Hulu is re-airing Season 2 in batches of episodes, and you can rent Season 1 on DVD. But if this all sounds like too much for you, stick with office politics and social-frustrated desire.

The TV Girl

Sons of Anarchy: Who Will Crack First?

“Small Tears”

How is Tara possibly going to keep Gemma’s abduction a secret? Gemma’s reasoning to not tell Jax or Clay is fairly solid, since it was an attack on the club and therefore any form of retaliation, which her family would (and will) inevitably engage in, would in some way be giving the League the upper hand. But if there is ever a time to have a violent-prone family, this would be the time! And Gemma is enough of a tough bitch that she will hold onto her information, but Tara isn’t as calculating or battle-weary. She might be okay patching bullet wounds, but since she insisted that Jax be honest with her, her resolve will crumble soon.

But what will Jax resolve to do about Clay? In deciding to blame the Niners for Opie killing one of the Mayans, Jax has inadvertently created conflict between the two, and the League is exploiting this conflict. Jax couldn’t have possibly foreseen that consequence, but now he has put himself in a position where solidarity with Clay is necessary. And considering that Opie walked out into open gunfire, his “revenge” hasn’t really done any good. The good-of-the-one vs the-good-of-the-many might turn into the good-of-none.

Was that Tom Arnold as an icky porn guy? And did Jax make a Sopranos reference? Now, backing Luann will give the club a legitimate business, aiding Jax in his moves away from gunrunning, but I have to think that there may be some unforeseen problems involved in the “adult entertainment” industry.

Just a question, because there were no subtitles and I therefore am hoping I heard incorrectly, but did Tig say that he threw pregnant girlfriend out of a moving car and she was hit by oncoming traffic? I can only hope that I misunderstood.

What is impossible to misunderstand is how frakking cute baby Able is. Adorable.

The TV Girl

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