It’s amazing that even in a slower episode like “Some Strange Eruption,” Sons of Anarchy can still manage to rack up a body count of five or six. “Eruption” was a transitional episode of SoA‘s bloody, bloody seventh season, and while those are a necessary evil, this was still frustrating because it seemed as though Kurt Sutter was trying everything he could think of to keep characters alive. Speaking characters, that is; extras of any ethnicity are just there to hold bullets.
Charming is rightfully aghast at the massacre at Diosa, and “Eruption” was all about the fallout. The Sons are worried about their extended family, and eveyrone is holed up at Red Woody, including Abel, the worst child actor since Dexter‘s Harrison. He delivers all his lines like Damien, and sounds really creepy when he asks Jax, “Are people going to die?” Well, shit, now they are.
Lin is on the warpath, ready to kick this war into overdrive. He tells Nero that if he doesn’t deliver Jax, Nero’s a dead man, and so is his kid. Nero’s rightfully pissed about this, and slugs Jax the minute he sees him (hilariously, Jax doesn’t even question this, he just goes right into fighting mode). Jax tells Nero that the Chinese killed Tara, which Gemma confirms. Every time Gemma lies about the Chinese – and she does so with increasing ease – I hate her more.
Anyway, Jax’s master plan is to use Nero to lure Lin to the Stockton Port, where Barasky’s dirty cop friends can arrest all the Chinese, leaving Lin free to get murdered by Jax. Not a bad plan, except that when Unser tipped off Jarry that the Chinese were headed to the Port, he didn’t count on her sending actual cops. Rookie mistake, Unser, thinking that everyone is as bad a cop as you are. So Jax has to book it, leaving Lin tragically un-murdered. This bugged me, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Meanwhile in the B-plot, Juice is losing his bearings more and more. This had to come to a head, and I’m glad it finally did, because while I always enjoy Theo Rossi, I want more from him than just bug-eyed desperation. He kills the motel manager, mistaking him for a hitman sent by Lin, because Sons of Anarchy‘s seventh season has a lot of weird racial issues. Gemma resolves that its time to get him out of there once and for all, but rather than than take him to Oregon, she’s driving to the middle of nowhere.
She spins some cockamamie story about getting him to a coyote who will take him across the Mexican border, but Juice sees the gun in her bag and puts two and two together. Long story short, the episode ends with Juice pointing the gun at Gemma’s head while she begs for her life.
So will Gemma die? Of course not! Killing her would be smart, not only for Juice, but for the show. Same goes for killing Lin, Kenneth Choi’s admittedly great work notwithstanding. So it’s frustrating that Sutter is willing to jump through hoop after hoop to keep Gemma alive, even though if Juice killed her it would be just as cathartic and deserved as if Jax did. (Remember a few seasons back, when Jax needed everything short of a signed confession to order Clay’s death?) It’s a narrative cop-out; Juice has no reason to keep Gemma alive, but you know he’s going to let her live, and sometime next episode Gemma will set the club loose on him. Gemma or Juice needs to die; the only reason for one to live is so someone can come clean to the club about Tara’s death. Otherwise, it’s just fan fiction.
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