S4E6: Previously on Sons of Anarchy, Gemma confronted Tara about the letters from Maureen Ashby and Juice killed an innocent man to cover his own ass. Tonight’s show begins with a repentant Juice, praying to the almighty for forgiveness.
“You don’t have a normal life, baby. You have this one.” – Gemma
Gemma finds the death threat that Unser left for Tara at the end of last week’s show and shows it to Tara. The doc wants to call the police, but Gemma convinces her otherwise. She believes that it would just bring more heat on the club.
“That’s embracing the stereotype.”–Tig
Mayan President, Alvarez takes the Sons on a tour of their coke-producing operation, complete with product being hidden inside of tortillas. The tour gets gets cut short by Tara’s phone call to Jax and a shootout by the entrance, which leaves Alvarez wounded. Jax grabs his bike and rides after the shooter while the rest of the MC head to meet Tara and Gemma. Jax’s high-speed chase through the streets of Charming stops abruptly near a tanker, where the Sons’ vice president and the shooters engage in an old school western shootout, which leaves a man down. The rest of crew head back in the car and drive off, with Jax in hot pursuit. At the end of the line, Jax sees a big bag being hauled out of the car and calls for backup. As fate would have it, the MC finds out that the house they barged into is filled with women and babies and the bag was filled with diapers. After getting the babies out of the room, the club tries to question the driver, which ends badly; a woman gets shot, and the driver proclaims to the Sons that he and his sister are from Honduras, they’re not illegals and “they” said that they would kill their family if they didn’t do it.
“Targeting families is what drug cartels do.”–Juice
The club grabs Gemma and Tara and head to the clubhouse, where Tara can work on the Maya pres. While there Gemma tells Unser to find out more about the threat on Tara’s life and asks Clay if he knows anything, which he claims ignorance. Alvarez claims that he heard a rival cartel is trying to move in on the Galingo cartel. Because last week, Unser informed Sheriff Roosevelt about the possible threat on Tara, the good cop shows up at Teller-Morrow to offer his help to Tara, and she declines. Roosevelt takes the opportunity to speak with Juice under the guise that his Parole Officer wants a drug test. At the station house, Juice tells the sheriff that he wants to see Roosevelt’s friend, the cop that can offer Juice a deal.
“The club is why everything is happening to me, to my family”–Tara
After patching up Alvarez, Tara confronts Gemma about the cartel that the club’s doing business with. Gemma tries to feed Tara a line that the club’s only dealing guns, but the doc’s smarter than that and realizes that there’s drugs involved too. Tara wants to know if the cartel is who threatened her, but her future mother–in–law isn’t sure. Jax returns to the clubhouse and his mom lets her know that Tara knows about the drugs and the cartel. Jax tells his fiancé that he didn’t know the drugs were going to part of the guns. “The deal we had to make is complicated.” Tara reinforces her belief that Clay is only looking out for himself and that this whole deal is only two weeks in (in show time not real time, of course).
“It’s an outlaw with a couple of grams of blow getting pulled over by a sheriff.”–Potter
Lincoln Potter has been a steely eyed Assistant U.S. Attorney in the background, slowly but surely making his case and using Sheriff Roosevelt as an errand boy. Roosevelt tells Potter Juice’s wish to speak with him, but Potter claims he can’t risk exposure and asks that Sheriff Eli bust the biker on a possession charge. Roosevelt refuses to become a dirty cop to expedite the AUSA’s agenda. Unfortunately, Potter still needs the Sheriff and threatens him with a call to his superior’s office. It only took over half of a season, but we’ve finally seen more of Attorney Potter and just like ATF Agent Stahl, he’s willing to do whatever it takes in the name of bringing the Sons down. Roosevelt tells Juice to meet him at their usual spot and bring the sample.
Roosevelt does exactly what Potter wanted and arrests Juice for possession. If Juice still won’t cooperate, Potter plans to get the word out to the underworld that he’s working with the feds and that he stole from his own club. Roosevelt knows that it means sending Juice back to prison as an unprotected rat. Juice walks away still unwilling to cooperate and heads back to the clubhouse where Clay has a heart to heart with the guy. He’s proud of Juice and all he’s done, but now it has be put behind him so he can concentrate on the job. Thanks to his murderous actions, he’s earned himself a “Men of Mayhem” patch to add to his vest. Way to make a guilty man feel even worse, Clay.
“You think this is some kind of game?”–Clay
Clay tells Alvarez that they got the shooter. Alvarez found out that the note left for Jax’s old lady wasn’t written by a rival cartel, because it would have been written in his kid’s blood. The two presidents thank one another. It’s a little odd to see the Mayans working so closely with the Sons and the partnership the clubs have fostered, considering there has been a constant war brewing between the clubs for decades now. I suppose when there’s a lot of money to be made, even outlaw biker clubs can leave their baggage at the door. Now certain that the “threat” on Tara had nothing to do with anything (not to mention Clay’s own plot to take her out), he confronts Unser and tells him to stay out of his way, something he’s been doing a lot this season. Unser doesn’t listen though. He speaks with Tara’s boss at the end of the episode.
“Your leadership is compromising this club.”–Bobby
The club is informed that Armando (a SAMTAZ) member is currently M.I.A. At the Sons’ meeting, Clay says not to worry, it could be anything. Jax informs the club that Kozzik is heading down with the guns next week and he’s been warned to be careful. Bobby feels that they need to do more than just watch their backs. If a rival cartel can find the Mayans, that means the Sons are next. Clay wants him to stop complaining, but instead Bobby calls for a vote of no confidence (officer challenge). Bobby wants a new president, which Clay angrily seconds and demands that they vote tonight. I guess Bobby’s taking the big sleep at some point this season, no way he can challenge leadership and live. Opie presumably tries to call his dad, who is loading up a shotgun, readying for war. Chibs tried to get in touch with Juice, but the new mayhem man already made his decision: hanging from a tree in the woods in one of the series’ most shocking endings.
So much show, so many stories, and never enough time to cover any of it. Heck even the scenes from next week’s show make no mention of Juice’s suicide (or suicide attempt, we never actually saw his feet stop moving or his hear neck snap, did we?). That’s the beauty of a good drama. While this episode wasn’t that great, it still provided enough fodder to keep me interested and with next week’s challenge vote and this episode’s shocking ending, I’m still pumped up for next week. If he’s dead (and I think he is, since his storyline was kind of going nowhere), Juice was a great character who never had much to do except provide comic relief. This storyline found a way for viewers to invest more in an already likeable character, congratulations to Theo Rossi on an excellent portrayal. I doubt the Emmys or the Golden Globes will recognize his efforts, but I sure do.
