Sons of Anarchy
throttled into high gear as the final season premiered Tuesday night. BTW ... SPOILER ALERT!!
I’m worried about Wayne Unser. Nobody ever said Wendy was
the sharpest knife (or carving fork) in the drawer, but did she seriously not
consider the danger of bringing Wayne into her apartment? Did she not for a
minute think about how hard it would be to hide from the former sheriff the
fact that Juice had taken refuge in her home? It never registered with her that
Wayne would wonder why she bought groceries—and then let them sit on the
counter—if she was going to stay with Gemma for a while. He may like his weed,
but Unser’s a shrewd guy. We knew—didn’t we?—that his radar was running full
blast while he was in that apartment.
As soon as he turned his back to the room and opened that
closet door, I knew he was in trouble. Didn’t you? Juice couldn’t afford to
stay hidden, once he knew that Unser had seen his pack—and his cut. So what
now, Mr. Sutter? Who wins this stalemate? Will Juice put Unser out of his
cancer-ridden misery before Gemma shows up again? If Juice simply holds Wayne
until Gemma’s next visit, I think (I hope, to be honest) he will find that his
investment with Gemma might be miscalculated. I think if Gemma has to choose
between the two of them, I think (again, I hope) she’ll save Wayne and not
Juice.
And what about Mommy Dearest? If you didn’t watch Anarchy Afterword (and if you didn’t,
you missed the eye roll of the century—loved that look, Katey!), then you might
have thought, as my husband and I did, that Gemma told Juice, “I’m a
psychopath,” when he asked her how she was able to look at Jax, to talk to him
about Tara. In fact, Gemma said, “I’m not
a psychopath,” which made more sense. I just didn’t hear the “not” when I
watched the episode.
As Katey explained on Anarchy
Afterword, Gemma’s not a psychopath. A psychopath, she said, wouldn’t feel
any pain for killing Tara. A psychopath wouldn’t have trouble talking to Jax
about Tara. It was hard for Gemma. So, yes, there are many things we can call
Gemma, but I think psychopath isn’t
one. (Although, I’m willing to revisit that argument if my psychology-majoring
daughter wants to discuss it.)
Gemma says she’s the only thing holding the family together.
She says that if Jax were to find out what happened, he’d lose everything—he’d
lose his mother. It’s a very arrogant statement, that she’s the single thread
stringing them all together, but it’s also true. Jax trusts her—to the point
that he killed an “innocent” member of Lin’s gang because Gemma said he had
killed Tara. (What a tangled web of lies …) Jax counts on her. Loves her. What
would happen if he found out the depth of her deception? (I really hope we get
the answer to that question before the club rides off into the bleeding
sunset.)
Which brings us to the prince. Jax. The wearer of the
bright, white shoes. (That was explained on AA
also, thank God. It’s always bothered me. Evidently, it’s what bikers wear in
SoCal.)
Jax is on a brutal trajectory. Gone is his desire to get on
the right side of the law. Gone is his desire to get out of guns. Gone is his
desire to be good. He doesn’t care anymore. He loves his club. Period. With Tara
gone, Jax is grabbing the gavel with both hands, and he’s embracing the outlaw
life once again.
Charlie Hunnam talked about this, along with Kurt Sutter, on
AA, and I really liked what they
said. Charlie said that Tara was Jax’s moral compass, that she was the one who
made him want to be good, to be better, to be different from Clay. Now that she’s
gone, he can stop fighting the natural flow of his life—his outlaw life—and he
can embrace it and fulfill his destiny. My husband asked, “I wonder what Clay
would think of this reversal?” Indeed. What would he think?
With Tara removed as Jax’s moral compass, is there anyone
left who can be that for him? Yes, there are two of them. Abel and Thomas. And
this goes back to my Season 7 Preview post. If Jax embraces the outlaw life and
flows with the current of the life he was born and raised into instead of
swimming against it, then Abel and Thomas are destined to live the same life.
The cycle will never end. Last season, before Tara died, Jax didn’t want that
life for his boys. He wanted her to get them out and away from it. Has that
changed?
Jax refused to see his sons at all during that first
episode. I think he knows the effect they will have on him. I think he knows
they could become that moral compass that Tara was. And right now, that’s not
what he wants. So what will Jax decide? Will he shun his children so that he
can live this life he seems to be choosing? Are Abel and Thomas already lost?
(Grammy Gemma is there, but who would call that a consolation?)
When will Jax see his boys? How will he treat them? What
will he say to them? It just dawned on me … he didn’t even visit Tara’s grave.
Wayne did. But Jax didn’t. Did he need his vengeance first? And now that he
thinks he got his vengeance, which we all know he didn’t get TRUE vengeance,
will he be able to let go of any of his anger?
“Truth” is a major theme in this show. But it’s always a
relative truth. Like Gemma said to Juice, the two of them did the best thing
they could (killing Tara and Roosevelt) based on “the truth we had.” Now, Gemma
has to keep the truth from her son so that she can continue to have a
relationship with him.
What happens to a relationship that isn’t based on truth? As
we’ve seen in six prior seasons, it gets bloody, because the truth always finds
its way through the smoke and the fog.
Will the truth destroy Jax, or will it set him—finally—free?
Sons of Anarchy
will be back Tuesday at 10 p.m. on FX. I’ll be there.
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