Hey everyone, I’m jumping on my recap early as I sit here nursing a sore throat with a cup of tea. So, I’m going to get right to it.
You know the drill, don’t read if you haven’t watched.
Tonight’s episode was directed by Peter Weller, who is classically known for his role in Robocop.
Clay and Jax are having a pleasant discussion about swaying the rest of the club’s vote in favor of running drugs. Clay’s creep factor goes up exponentially when he sees an opportunity to chat with Tara alone and chooses to try to sway her about his love for Jax as a son and how he loved JT. Um…yeah. She’s not buying it.
Mental note: Happy hates kitchen messes. When you make pancakes be sure to clean up. Pronto. Kozik gets baited by two neighborhood kids with the promise of quick cash over a game of basketball. At Teller-Morrow there’s some good banter happening. Chibs is in a world of hurt and Juice’s solution of a green tea and mint colonic is wince-worthy. Clay’s taking a trip back to the Wahewa and chooses a confused Bobby as a sidekick. Tig is feeling seriously left out these days.
Kozik’s friendly basketball game takes a turn for the worse. The kids thump him when he’s not looking and head off to the truck that he and Miles just piled a box of guns into.
My new favorite, Lincoln Potter (from Modesto, CA) despite barely having a team still has figured out what’s up with the Sons muling coke for the Galindo cartel. Since they have no inside man with the cartel, they need to work things from the SAMCRO angle and Plan B goes into motion. They’re going to squeeze Juice. (*groan* I couldn’t help myself.)
Bobby and Clay get to the reservation and Bobby jumps right in to a one on one. He knows that Clay’s motivation to push the club to run drugs is grab as much cash as he can before he’s out, but he’s confused about Jax’s support. Clay confides that Jax wants out clean. Clay blows smoke up Bobby’s butt by telling him if he votes Clay’s way he’ll pass the gavel off to him. “I give you my word.”
Another introspective chat between Gemma and Wayne “Confucius” Unser, this time in the hospital chapel. She snags him into being her look out while she invades Tara’s office again to find and read those letters. While waiting in the hall, Unser discovers that the new sheriff and his wife are having fertility problems. While distracted, Margaret (Tara’s boss) walks in on Gemma in Tara’s office reading “Sonoanatomy and Feasibility of Ultrasonographic Guidance in Term and Preterm Neonates.” “It’s a trilogy.” Gemma explains.
At the reservation Clay has a small pow-wow with Charlie, who’s looking for some additional monetary compensation now that he knows Clay is selling their ammo to the Mexicans. To add some punctuation, he brings Clay and Bobby to see the Russian dude from last week buried up to his shoulders in the ground being eaten by flesh eating ants (The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah…) Clay & Bobby are conveniently left alone to discuss the fact that they are indeed charging the Mexicans 50% more for the same ammo, only to realize the Russian dude is still alive and listening, until Clay snuffs him out.
Jax rips Kozik a new orifice for letting the truck with the guns get stolen. Seems he is the only one who grasps how serious the situation is. They come to the conclusion that the kids will probably try to sell the guns and since their in Happy’s neighborhood he knows where to go: Viveca’s. At Viveca’s house we see her flanked by her two sons, Luther and Vandross (can’t help but crack a smile at their names) and she is adamant that she’s the Nubian goddess of small electronics and organic veggies, but not guns. “…guns, that’s dirty business. Not my flow.” A stroke of luck would have the kids who ripped them off pull up to the house.
Cue another silly car/motorcycle chase scene set to loud music. There’s an moment that looks like the cops might get to the kids before the guys do, but Kozik lures them on a goose chase away from the situation. The kids think they’ve got away clean, but our guys catch up to them, Jax leans in the window, “License and registration please.” I am liking Charlie Hunnam’s short hair.
Charlie is not happy to find that the Russian he wanted to suffer for one to two more days is now dead. Clay insists that he’s not making any additional money from the ammo. “You got my word.” That sounds familiar to Bobby and in an instant he realizes that creepy Clay is brimming over in bullshit.
Back in the hood the teen gun thieves are getting the poop scared out of them to the point that they confess they sold the guns to Viveca.
Chibs and Juice, walking out “Clear Passages” (Chibs has a skip in his step) get rousted by the cops. “Plan B” is in the works and Juice gets picked up on a minor charge.
A quick chat between Margaret and Tara lets us know that Tara’s been shopping around for other hospitals. She tells Tara that she walked in on Gemma in her office earlier and appeared to be looking for something. Tara plays dumb, makes up some excuse. Margaret has heard that Tara & Jax are engaged and wonders if Jax knows that she’s looking to leave. Tara sheepishly says that she isn’t leaving any time soon and can’t unless he leads them out.
Pit bull brothers, Luther and Vandross, flank their mother when Jax and the gang roll up. She vehemently denies having anything to do with the guns, until Opie suggests maybe her boys have taken on some side business. (Anyone watch the show Justified? I think that Viveca and her boys remind me of an urban version of Mags Bennett and her boys.) She is super pissed, slapping her boys upside the head. A bit of hell breaks loose when her lackeys feel threatened and start shooting. Undeterred, she grabs the guns and begins scolding her boys, who despite their large size instantly become little boys who just wanted to please their mother. “We was going to get you the F350, with Super Duty.” “We know how much you love that truck, mama. We even had the red one picked out and shit.” Viveca smooths it all over, hands Jax a few bills for his trouble. “Tell Happy I’ll send his mom some tomatoes.”
Tara is shown making copies of the letters. Nothing good can come from that. Gemma’s waiting for her in her office and confronts Tara. Tara tries to act dumb but Gemma’s got her number, fills her in on the back story. There’s a bit of duality in how Gemma talks about John Teller. She loved him, but the betrayal of his affair seeps out when she talks about him. She began to fall for Clay and he was off in Ireland for months at a time leaving her alone. But she feels that ultimately Jax will be the one destroyed by those letters.
Plan B apparently means mind-f*cking Juice and breaking him down. Roosevelt reveals that Juice’s estranged father is black and if the club finds out they’ll strip him of his patch, make him scrape off the ink and if he’s lucky they’ll let him walk alive. Then he sends Juice on his way, left wondering what happens next. “I’ll be in touch, brutha.”
Gemma finds Piney downing a shot of tequila. He is unhappy and hoping that Clay will listen to Gemma. He tells her that Clay wants to run drugs for the cartel. Meanwhile, Tara is hiding copies of John Teller’s letters in boxes of old paperwork in the back of a storage unit. Gemma confronts Clay about the coke, he looks over her shoulder at Piney. This episode must be about how big of a shit bag Clay is. He promptly puts her in her place.
Opie shares a dreamy moment talking about the day that all this is behind them and they are both sitting at the table together. Jax outright lies to Opie. It’s all down hill from here.
In church the vote goes down about running the drugs. Clay: yea. Tig: yea. Chibs: no. Opie: yea. Miles: yay. Piney: nay. Juice: nay. Bobby: no. Happy: I’m sorry, no. Kozik: backing the present VP: yea. Jax: yea. The vote is 6-5, it passes. One last moment of Clay’s douchbaggery in his parting words to Piney: “if you ever try to end run me through my old lady again, I’ll slit your throat.”
Tara steps up to Gemma’s side as they watch Bobby walk away from the rest of the guys while Shooter Jennings sings “All of this should have been, all this could have been yours.”
Next week’s episode: Una Venta
SAMCRO makes a run to set up a new business venture while Gemma makes a new ally in Charming.
Be sure to read all my extensive Sons of Anarchy coverage here.
Related posts:
Rippin-Kitten visits the set of “Sons of Anarchy” (prior to season 3 airing)
Sons of Anarchy: episode 4.01 “Out”
Sons of Anarchy: episode 4.02 “Booster”