For an episode that begins with the show’s main character carving a swastika into a guy’s chest (before forcibly extracting two teeth), “Black Widower” was very, very talky. Sons of Anarchy really doubled down on the exposition tonight, which admittedly is kind of a necessary evil as the plot grows more and more Byzantine. Honestly most of the time I’m not sure why Gangbanger A is mad at Dirty Cop B, I just take it for granted that it’s happening and it’s important – and then I hope to God that Kurt Sutter has an endgame in mind.
So, back to swastika-carving. Jax does this to impress Ron Tully, a higher-up in the Aryan Brotherhood. Tully is played by Marilyn Manson, and although he’s not on screen very long, he still makes an impression. His conversation with Jax is businesslike but also incredibly menacing, and I’d love to see more of him – which is anything but guaranteed, since Jax gets released from prison almost immediately following their tete-a-tete. Turns out DA Patterson has nothing to tie him to the murders of Tara or Sheriff Roosevelt, so off he goes (he was in prison for about ten days, which mean he got to chest-carving and tooth-pulling, like, right away). It’s nice to see Patterson knocked off her high horse, but I might be biased because I am decidedly not a fan of CCH Pounder. She always looks like she’s smirking, even when she’s not.
Outside of prison, Jax…talks more. Seriously, the first thing he does is head to Scoops to have a sit-down with the club. It’s great to see all these guys back in the same room, because the chemistry between them is undeniable and makes every scene fun and interesting to watch, even if I have no idea who the new patches are. (Speaking of new patches, Rat Boy, aka Niko Nicotera, made the opening credits!) They’re all present and accounted for except for Juice, who’s hiding out at Wendy’s because Jax wants him dead for telling Nero that Jax had him kill that woman last year. (Darla? I don’t know.) (Edit: Darvany, not Darla.)
Theo Rossi does bug-eyed desperation really well, and he genuinely seems to be at the end of his rope when Gemma tells him it’d be best if he escaped to Idaho or Montana. Keep in mind, Juice tried to kill himself in season four, so I don’t predict a happy ending for him, sadly. He’s always been one of the easiest club members to relate to, and it’ll be a bummer when he’s gone. But, much like Opie, Sutter has run out of things for Juice to do. At this point he really has no agency, and Jax’s search for him is more about Jax than it is about Juice.
Jax is fully committed to the club, and to some sweet vengeance. Gemma, who in one episode has become one of the most despicable characters on TV, blames Tara’s murder on an unnamed member of Lin’s gang, who Jax tortures and kills in a montage set to the strangest version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” I’ve ever heard. Jax is going to wage full-on war against Lin and the Chinese, all because his mother won’t cop to murdering her daughter-in-law. Gemma has gone off the deep end with her delusional narcissism, and when she tells Juice, “I’m the only thing keeping this family together,” she really seems to mean it, which is far worse than if she was lying.
So, at the end of the episode, Juice has a nosy Unser tied up in Wendy’s apartment (see what I mean about the end of his rope?), Jax has just murdered an innocent man (and judging by the pliers, screwdriver, and salt he had out, it wasn’t quick), and war is brewing with the Chinese. There was also some business with the Grim Bastards, but honestly Kurt Sutter packed so much shit into “Black Widower” that if I recapped everything this review would be about 2,000 words long.
I’ll see you next week for more of this madness.
A Few Thoughts
- Nero’s cardigan game is on point
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Alvarez’s new buddy was played by Ivo Nandi, the late Joe Masseria on Boardwalk Empire
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Marilyn Manson wasn’t the weirdest guest star tonight: the leader of the Grim Bastards (I think his name was Tito) was played by Malcolm Jamal-Warner, aka Theo Huxtable from The Cosby Show. Edit: the character’s name was T.O.
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All of Gemma’s scheming has to backfire. And when it does, it is going to be stupendously violent
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Sutter is far from a subtle writer, but Charlie Hunnam does a great job of selling his long monologues
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I can’t understand a goddamn word Chibs is saying anymore
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