Sons of Anarchy Recap: “Crucifixed”
Original Air Date (FX): Tuesday November 13, 2012
Season 5 Episode 10
Is it me, or has this season gone by insanely quickly? Well done, Kurt Sutter. Time flies when every week is filled with sheer mayhem and shenanigans.
Without further ado…
Previously on Sons of Anarchy: Opie was murdered in prison, Pope made a deal with Jax to use Tig for their benefit before they literally set him on fire, Charming Heights didn’t get the memo about the crash of the housing market, Kurt Sutter is one twisted son of a bitch, Juice needs therapy, Jax is his own mother’s pimp, and he’s also not adverse to idea of murdering anyone who crosses a line.
We start out with Jax following Juice. Juice, if you’ll recall, has basically been the most ridiculous character on this show. He nearly set up the club to get busted on a cocaine run because, that’s right, he’s freaked out they’ll find out his father was black. Honestly, I’ve never really gotten the sense that the Sons were keen on murdering people solely based on being mixed race, but apparently Juice thinks so, and so does Roosevelt, and it’s all been this massively annoying plot point where Juice murdered a man and tried to hang himself with a chain for basically no reason. Needless to say, even though we may have thought it was all over, it wasn’t. Roosevelt needed some leverage over Jax to get Frankie Diamonds delivered to him, so he could extract revenge for Rita’s murder, so he told him he’d deliver the “rat” at his table. And Jax (being the bright man he is) did nothing more than a process of elimination to figure out it was Juice. So, here we are, with Jax tracking Juice with that murder look all over his face.
But Roosevelt is obviously wise to the situation, having triggered the murder scenario to begin with, so he has a cop waiting for Juice at his house to take him in to the station. No murder this time, Jax. But I think you’ll get your shot before the end of the episode.
Meanwhile, back at the club, Gemma and Chibs are talking about Gemma’s love life. Chibs tells her Clay still loves her, and I’m wondering at what point anyone thought Clay was capable of love, but that seems beside the point. Bobby rolls up, tells Chibs about RICO and all the other things they’ve been keeping from him for an unnecessary length of time. And back at home, Tara is waking up the baby with loud toys so she can hold him. There are a few moments, here and there, where Tara seems psychologically unhinged.
Roosevelt tells Juice at the station that Jax knows everything, while trying to make some ridiculous argument about him having nothing to do with it, because all he did was tell Jax there was a rat at his table. Of course, if he had never said that at all they wouldn’t be in this position, but this storyline has blatantly defied logic at every single turn, and this is no different.
Jax, Chibs and Bobby are at the table alone, talking about RICO and Juice. Chibs is understandably upset, having just been clued into the fact that everything is a complete disaster. Also, points for Bobby’s reaction when Chibs reveals that all of this, the thing that Roosevelt was holding over Juice’s head, is because Juice is terrified they’ll find out his father is black. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bobby says. Jax then decides it might be a good idea to let the members know in the bylaws that they don’t hate black people, so others can’t use that as leverage over emotionally unstable members in the future. Good call, Jax. Bobby wants to take all of this to the table, but Jax ultimately says it’s counterproductive to their goals. For now. This seems like a Tig situation, where they’re essentially just going to string Juice along until it’s safe to get rid of him.
It’s the next morning, and Jax wakes up to find Juice in his living room with his kid. Seriously, the man can’t get into the shower in the morning without tripping over drama. Something’s gotta give, and it seems like that “something” is going to be a few of these men in body bags by the end of the season (Clay, I’m looking at you).
Juice isn’t there for coffee, he’s there to make sure Jax doesn’t kill him. They talk about Juice’s weak reasons for talking to the Feds, stealing the cocaine, and shooting Miles. Jax tells him to knock it off, Juice starts crying, and then Jax offers him a deal. He’ll give him a “pardon” and never bring his betrayal to the table if he helps him get Clay. Considering Juice is always on the side of whoever is going to protect him, he tells Jax everything he knows about Clay, and what Frankie said before he died regarding the break-in. The Nomads, after taking the safe from Clay and Gemma’s, separated all the important legal documents and gave them back to Clay. Jax decides the best way to take him down is to find those papers to prove he was behind everything. “You help me bring Clay down,” Jax says, “or you lose your patch. And I think you know what killing another member gets you.”
At the hospital, Tara and her nosey coworker take a meeting with the same medical team in Oregon who wanted her to work for them before her accident. They want her to work for them, in spite of the issues with her hand, and Tara looks nothing less than shocked and thrilled. But will she go? This does seem like the best way out for Jax and Tara, like it did before, but something always seems to get in the way. Namely, drug trafficking and murder conspiracies.
Back at the club again, Jax gets the plans for Charming Heights from the mayor, letting him know he’ll tell him who the mystery investor from Oakland (Pope) is once it’s certain, makes sure the club is set with legit work on their maintenance vehicles, and that Lyla has subsidized housing.
Tara’s back with Otto in the prison, and he’s tied to the bed. Otto, clearly up to something, thanks Tara for making him cry and then telling her he’ll make his part of RICO go away…on one condition. That she gets him a massive crucifix he gave Luann. It’s a family heirloom, he says. And it’s urgent. It needs to happen today, which is not suspicious in the slightest.
In other prisoner manipulation news, Clay meets with another Son on the inside, and gets the information about Otto and RICO. Now he not only knows the pieces of the RICO case, but he knows that Jax knows.
Gemma and Unser are talking about taking Clay down, and she asks him to help her thinking of something that will make it less necessary for her to completely whore herself out for information.
Armed with all kinds of dirty info, Clay takes a private meeting with the cartel and tells them he knows about the RICO leverage they’ve been holding over Jax. Basically, if Jax can make RICO go away (via Otto and Juice, etc) the cartel/feds no longer have any leverage over them, and Jax can kill clay because he won’t need to work with the Irish anymore, and he won’t need to work with the Irish anymore because he’ll also break all ties with the cartel. They ask him what he wants. He wants protection, for them to keep him alive, and work with him and whatever “crew” he assembles when the M/C is out of the picture. Seems as though Clay isn’t in this to take down just Jax anymore. He’s planning to go around the entire SAMCRO organization. Now that’s ambitious. The cartel, however, aren’t buying his idea of working without the M/C, so they suggest just getting rid of Jax instead, and putting him back at the head of the table. Clay feins resistance, even though that’s been his plan for the balance of this entire season.
Jax takes a meeting with Pope, trying to get him to invest in Charming Heights. Pope seems to think it’s a good idea, but isn’t going to do anything of the sort until Jax gives him an end date for Tig’s usefulness so he can take him out. Jax says once Clay is gone, he can have Tig. Soon, he said. Which Pope says is necessary, because if it doesn’t happen, he takes matters into his own hands.
The next segment is the completion of another side job the Sons take as they cross the people responsible for Opie’s death off the proverbial list. This time, it’s the man who actually did the deed, bashing Opie in the head with a pipe. With the prison guard who orchestrated the logistics already down, this is the next logical person on the hit list. The problem with this situation is that killing him breaks some important alliances with a group that has always had SAMCRO’s back. Bobby tries to reason with Jax, but, in the end, Jax puts Opie first and has Chibs shoot him in the head. “I got this,” Chibs says, right before he does in another tribute to Opie’s last words. Two down. It makes you wonder if Jax is actually thinking of crossing Pope off that list too, when all is said and done. We shall see.
Back at the club, Bobby gives Jax a hard time for making that call. Jax gets emotional about Opie’s death, and Chibs is looking more and more like a damn good candidate for the new VP.
Is it just me or does Juice look like he’s going to cry and/or vomit all the time these days? He’s rummaging through Clay’s things when Clay comes back to have a little heart-to-heart. He thanks him for being his lackey, and waxes poetic about not really wanting the pot of gold at the end of this murder colored rainbow anymore. He just needs Juice to be his friend. I’m not buying it, but Juice seems to. Gemma shows up at this point, and starts her mission. She invites Clay to come home with her.
Massive crucifix in hand, Tara returns to the prison and puts it on Otto, thinking nothing when he asks her to conceal it under his shirt because he wants it close to his heart. Naive? I’d say so. And we get to see the effects of this when Tara leaves, and Otto demands to be taken back to his cell. They unstrap him, and he proceeds to use this massive crucifix as the weapon it is, literally stabbing a woman in the neck five times with it. “Sons live, redwood bleeds, he says,” right before he begins to stab.
As Juice tries to wiggle out of nailing Clay to the wall, seeming a little too concerned about his wellbeing, Jax reminds him that someone is going to die, and it’s either going to be Clay or him. There’s no out here.
Speaking of no out, Jax comes home to find Tara, who tells him Otto made RICO go away, while making her an accessory to murder in the process (she brought him the murder weapon). Save the club, take down the President’s wife. It’s a little brilliant, but Jax is confident they’ll get through it.
Will they? How does this all end? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!
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