So all of Jax Teller’s highfalutin speechifying about getting away from guns and drugs – and the club itself – appears to have been for naught as Sons of Anarchy enters endgame. Jax is firmly on the warpath, but to the show’s credit, it doesn’t try to glorify his behavior (except maybe to the frat bros who probably rooted for Heisenberg right up until Breaking Bad‘s bitter end). There’s no sense of catharsis or wish-fulfillment in Jax’s rampage, only a nihilistic sense of futility. Doubly futile, as the war he’s starting with the Chinese is all thanks to his sociopathic mother.
Luckily, “Toil and Till” manages to inject some comedy into the proceedings, which is a good thing, as SoA gets more Shakespearean by the minute. I’m speaking of course about the opening scene with Tig and Rat Boy, the latter of whom has connected as a patch in a way not seen since Half Sac. (He’s several steps up from Filthy Phil; new patches like Quinn and Montez are nonentities.) Tig and Rat are lying in wait for the Chinese, who they plan on following to a gun buy, which of course will lead to a massacre. Meanwhile, Unser, having been released by Juice, meets with the new Sheriff Jarry (Annabeth Gish, late of The Bridge) and accepts a position as a “consulting investigator.” He asks for the files on Tara’s murder, but whether he plans on misdirecting the police to protect the club and their mission of vigilante justice, or if he intends to be a cop for the first time since season one remains to be seen. (Let’s not forget that Unser is the German word for “our.”) It’s worth noting that during his conversation with Jarry, Unser lies about knowing Juice’s whereabouts, so that’s an inauspicious start to a working relationship.
So the massacre happens, and it’s bloody and actually pretty exciting. Remember when killing someone on a TV show used to be a big deal? (Not to keep going back to this well, but I’m thinking of Walter White killing Krazy 8.) Jax has killed like four people in these last two episodes, and tortured two others.
Jax lays out his plan to the grandfatherly leader of the SoA Indian Hills Charter (whose name I didn’t get; it’s Jerry or Jury or Drury or some fuckin thing). Basically, it boils down to waging a secret war against Lin and his Triads, then coming out to support Lin, gaining his trust, then betraying him. Naturally, this will be followed by Jax executing everyone close to Lin, letting the man live for a while, then taking him out as well. It’s almost too simple.
I can’t stress this enough: Gemma just started a gang war over nothing. Unser visits her to let her know that he knows about Juice (not everything, though; he doesn’t know who killed Tara), and he leaps into action by falling asleep in his RV and leaving his police files out where Gemma can see them. Gemma is back to her season one ways as well – remember how every scene was her snooping around Tara’s office or some shit like that? It gets old. Also, at one point Gemma refers to Wendy as “the junkie,” which, WHOA, that’s pretty harsh. It really stuck out to me; it’s just so unnecessarily mean, and for all Gemma’s faults she has a pretty deep well of love and loyalty – unless you tried and failed to fuck her over at one point? I don’t know, maybe I’m in the minority here, because I know Wendy gets under the skin of a lot of SoA watchers, but I think Drea de Matteo does a fine job with somewhat limited material. Her conversation with Nero in the car, for instance, featured the two of them bonding over rehab stories, and a scene like this could have been very rote and predictable, but de Matteo and Jimmy Smits do such a good job with their characters that a scene like this is downright necessary, to prove why we should care about these people who will probably be dead before the season’s end.
A Few Thoughts
- Those poor Selma townies were done for the moment Jax asked for their address. Although I’ve been to Selma and honestly Jax probably did them a favor. That said, “Toil and Till” ended on a pretty chilling shot, of the Indian Hills Prez weeping and clutching the shotgun. Is Jax about to pin the murder on another chapter of SoA? I don’t know. I don’t know half of what goes on in this show anymore. Maybe the guy just recognizes the shotgun, which will result in some SoA civil war?
-
We finally found someone harder to understand than Chibs: Abel Teller
-
Always nice to see Peter Weller back, even if he’s stuck acting across Ivo Nandi’s Oscar Ramos, who so far is pretty one-note. This sticks out when you have scenes with an actor like Weller, who’s so expressive
-
“Who should we say we are?” “The nanny and the gardener?” “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t even hear that.”
-
Best exchange of the season so far, between Tig and Rat Boy: “How bout we go to your house and I rape your mother?” “What if she’s on top of your father, jamming a big black dildo in his ass while he screams my name?” “Nice touch.”
-
Chucky: worst character on TV? That guy is the Jar Jar Binks of this show
-
Unser’s cancer was mentioned twice tonight. Will he finally succumb to a terminal disease that he’s had for seven seasons? I hope not, because it’s become one of my favorite running jokes
About Author
