WARNING: Spoilers Ahead!
Everyone in Charming has skeletons in their closets, and the stench has become too rotten to ignore.
The latest episode of “Sons of Anarchy,” titled “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em,” smoked out two of the club’s biggest rats, even if only one of them is readily identifiable. In one corner: Juan Carlos “Juice” Ortiz, back in SAMCRO’s clutches. In the other corner: Gemma Morrow Teller, whose horrible actions are finally too much for her to bear.
Here’s how it all went down:
Business As Usual
FX
Now that Henry Lin is behind bars, Jax and the club need to focus on what’s still in front of them: August Marks, who strongly suspects but cannot prove that SAMCRO was behind the attacks on the Triad, threatening the gun business in the process.
To that end, Jax needs to bolster alliances with the Niners and the Aryan Brotherhood, as well as make things right with the Mayans, who were linked up with the Lin Triad. He solves the problems by cutting the Mayans in on the heroin trade in Stockton, with the Aryans serving as suppliers; to get the Aryans over their problems working with “brown,” Jax serves up a van filled with Marks’ dead soldiers, appealing to their 1956 sensibilities.
Jax’s work remains cut out for him, with Lin still alive and looking to cut a deal with the DEA against SAMCRO, and with Marks still alive and after the Sons as well. But for now, Jax has friends in the right places — an especially unlikely ally where Marcus Alvarez is concerned.
Related: The 31 Most F—ed Up Moments Of Mayhem On ‘Sons of Anarchy’
Boiled Juice
FX
Jax isn’t the only Charming citizen with an eye on Alvarez. After deciding not to kill Gemma, Juice hits the road, with an eye on getting to Mexico. He seeks out Alvarez and the Mayans and offers them a combination of money, Gemma’s car, and all-access info on SAMCRO in order to get south of the border.
Alvarez all but laughs in Juice’s face, locking him away for further use. He uses Juice as a bargaining chip when Jax offers the Mayans participation in the Stockton drug trade; with that deal all approved, he forks Juice back over to SAMCRO, leaving the down-and-out brother’s fate all but sealed.
Gemma Breaks Down
FX
Luckily for Gemma, she’s alive. Unluckily, she’s forced to walk 12 miles in heels, after Juice takes off with her ride. She winds up at a diner staffed by a sweet woman named Gertie (played by Lea Michele of “Glee” fame), and eventually reconnects with Unser and Wendy.
Unser offers up a double-whammy: Lin is in prison, and Charming PD needs Gemma’s testimony that the Chinese killed Tara. Gemma doesn’t want to work with police, but Jax sees it as an opportunity to make sure Lin can’t weasel his way out of prison.
Gemma begrudgingly sings her story to Sheriff Jarry. When she returns home, she encounters a very angry Nero, who just spent the day in Mayan lock-up alongside Juice. Nero saw that Juice was in possession of Gemma’s car, and now he wants to know why Gemma was helping out someone on the outs with the club.
After weeks of talking to the ghost of Tara, including during her blueberry danish diner dinner, Gemma finally snaps. The news that SAMCRO now has their hands on Juice is too much to bear. She buries her head in Nero’s chest and sobs. “If he tells Jax what he knows…”
No amount of crying stops what’s coming next, Gem. Jax has Juice, and Juice can spill the beans about what you did to Tara. There are no secrets in Charming anymore.
What did you make of tonight’s “Sons of Anarchy”?
No Comments