Sons of Anarchy Recap: “Small World”

The following contains spoilers for Sons of Anarchy

Sons of Anarchy Recap: “Small World”
Original Air Date (FX): Tuesday October 16, 2012
Season 5 Episode 6

Wow.  I’ve been sitting here, trying to think of a way to describe this episode of Sons of Anarchy, and it’s not happening.  “Wow” is all I have.  Brace yourselves for one of the most bloody, brutal, heart-wrenching, surprising (and unsurprising) episodes in the history of this show.  And hardcore fans will definitely appreciate a (brief) cameo from creator and showrunner Kurt Sutter as Otto, currently waiting for his lethal injection on Death Row.  But enough of this, let’s get right to the action.

Previously on Sons: Jax makes a deal with Damon Pope, Opie gets killed in prison, Jax vows to kill the prison guard responsible, the home invasion team shoots the Sheriff’s (pregnant) wife Rita, the club needs to get to Otto in prison so he’ll recount his testimony against Bobby, and Gemma manipulates Tara into beating Nero’s secretary Carla with her cast.  Based on these clips, I think you can tell what kind of show we’re in for.

It’s another sunny morning in the fictional city of Charming, California and we open with Gemma and Tara in the kitchen.  They note how, even though Jax put them all to bed the night before, he’s already gone.  Out to Oakland for some “club business”, Tara says.  Gemma then finds the newspaper and sees the article about Rita getting shot.  After Tara tells her Rita’s currently in intensive care, Gemma looks floored. “Who the hell is doing this to us?” she says.  Who indeed, Gemma.  Who indeed.

It’s back to business in Oakland, with Jax and Damon Pope taking a meeting in one of Pope’s cars, while Bobby and Chibs wait outside.  Pope’s looking at the same article on Rita that Gemma was looking at, and the two discuss the severe problem involving the fact that the Sheriff thinks SAMCRO is the cause of all the violence.  Pope assures Jax, once again, that he has nothing to do with it, and agrees to help Jax figure out who it is.  Jax turns over some drug money, which then gives Pope the opportunity to make him an offer.  Just in case you didn’t think the Sons were in deep enough when it came to drug trafficking, just wait.  Pope’s offer gets them in even deeper.  As in double the amount of drugs, while allowing Pope’s men to sell half of it in Reno.  And just in case the offer wasn’t good enough, he then says he’ll give Jax 2% of his take home, under the table.  “Gentleman’s Agreement”, of course.

Next, we see Unser and Deputy Sheriff Roosevelt in the hospital.  Roosevelt is still waiting for his wife to come out of the ICU, and isn’t at all distracted from his goal of making SAMCRO pay for what happened.  He blames them due to the pattern of the break-ins/attacks.  All the hits, so far, have been connected to the club, with him being the most removed — but not quite removed enough.  And even though we’ve seen Chuck Zito and the former Nomads going through Clay and Gemma’s safe a few episodes back, making the identity of the culprits less a mystery to us than it seems to be to everyone else, we still don’t know if there’s a mastermind to these attacks.  Could there be?  Now, who do you think would benefit from the club failing right now?  Who would want Jax to go under?  These are all questions you should ask yourself, right about now.

Meanwhile, Rita has just died.  And a bad situation just got immeasurably worse.

Clay’s back on the mend, as confirmed by the doctor who tells him he no longer needs to wear the oxygen tank.  And that’s a good thing because there really wasn’t enough drama in Charming.  Let’s get Clay Morrow back on the streets.  Juice, like the lackey he’s been lately, is waiting for Clay outside his appointment.  He asks him how it went.  And what does Clay do?  Does he tell him the good news, that he’s recovered well and doesn’t need the oxygen anymore?  No, of course not.  Clay’s clearly up to something, so he tells Juice it wasn’t good news, and straps the oxygen on again.  If you all were looking for a new leaf in this situation, you can stop looking right now.  Clay is Clay, and you better get used to that fact.

Unser tells Clay that Rita didn’t make it, and they proceed to speculate (yet again) about who’s responsible for the attacks.  Clay thinks it was Pope, of course, and Unser isn’t buying it.  “Attacking a cop’s wife?” he says, “That ain’t smart.”  And we all know exactly how smart Damon Pope is.  Clay asks if Unser has any theories.  Unser lets him know it “feels local”, and looks like someone with a “personal beef”.  He then gives Clay this look and says it seems like someone is trying to “tear shit up from the inside”.  Of course, Clay’s response to that is to ask if he has proof.  Which he doesn’t, yet, so on we go.

The following sequence of events, and the one after that, are what I was talking about when I said this was a brutal episode.

Just when you thought lighting Tig’s daughter on fire or watching Opie get his head bashed in was about as far as the show could go, you were wrong.  This time, we have a series of scenes between Gemma, Nero and Nero’s former disgruntled secretary Carla.  Remember her?  That right, she’s the one who Tara beat to a pulp with her cast.  Oh, and she’s in love with Nero.  You knew that already?  Try this one on for size: she’s also his half sister.  But I’m getting way ahead of myself here, because what she really came by Gemma’s house to do this afternoon is hold her at gunpoint while forcing Gemma to have sex with Nero in front of her.  It’s all kinds of twisted, as you can imagine, and Nero isn’t having it.  He tells her no, and that she might as well shoot him.  But that wasn’t the plan.  “I’m sorry,” she says “I just wanted to go out watching you do your thing.”  And then she shoots herself in the head.  In Gemma’s bedroom.  And you’d think calling the police might be a good idea at this point, but no.  These two decide to hide the body and get on with the business of being criminals.  Nero leaves, and Gemma calls Clay to come take care of it.  Can this situation get any more complicated?  I don’t think it can.  Well played, Mr. Sutter.  It’s especially nice in the end when Nero comes by to make sure everything was taken care of, and Clay asks him if he’s serious about Gemma.

For those of you who have been waiting for Jax to make good on his promise to kill that security guard for what happened to Opie, your wait is over.

As an act of good faith, Pope has one of his men deliver Jax to the private residence of the guard, on a day when his wife is supposed to be at work until the evening.  And what Kurt Sutter said in a previous interview about the death of Opie coloring everything Jax does from this point forward rings true here.  Jax doesn’t hesitate as he makes the plans and goes into this man’s house to kill him for Opie.  What they didn’t count on is a woman (his wife?) coming out of the bedroom with a shotgun.

These are the kinds of shenanigans fans of The Sopranos will remember fondly, like that scene where Christopher and Paulie lost the man they were supposed to hit in the woods.  Fortunately (or unfortunately) this situation doesn’t take quite as long to sort out.  Tig, Jax, Bobby and Chibs get it under control.  Both the guard and the woman are quickly tied up and gagged.

Tig, as it turns out, was itching to murder someone this week, because when they say the woman needs to shut up, he takes care of it with a bullet to her head.  “Collateral damage”, Jax says.  What follows then is an emotional kind of retribution, watching Jax beat the guard to death (and then some) with a snow globe.  “I got this,” Jax says right before he begins, which were the last words Opie ever said.  And with that, they take the bodies away from the scene of the crime and decide to bury them somewhere deep.  Retribution over, but did it help Jax?  We’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, as all of this is going on, Tara is volunteering over at the prison so she can get to Otto (Kurt Sutter), and ask him to change his testimony, effectively making the RICO case against the Sons disappear.  Once again, Kurt Sutter reminds us why we love him so much on this show.  You’ll have to see this scene for yourself, but the bottom line is driven home when he asks Tara to get on her knees in exchange for his modified statement.  She says she can’t do that.  His response?  “Neither can I.”  Brilliantly done.  But bad news for SAMCRO.

To tie this all up, the deal is done with Pope, voted in (barely) by the Sons at the last table meeting.  Additionally, Gemma and Unser have a bizarre (but predictable) little scene where he gets upset about being used without any kind of physical or emotional payoff.  Gemma’s been stringing the man along for years, and when he finally gets his chance, she’s not having it.  I’m honestly interested to see what, exactly, an Unser who doesn’t care so much about Gemma’s approval can do.

Finally, after Sheriff Roosevelt runs Bobby off the road in an attempt to confront the Sons for their part in the death of his wife, and Jax tells him it’s not their fault, subsequently deciding to go on vacation with Tara, we find Gemma in a bar with Joel McHale.  This has absolutely been the season of the most unexpected (strange?) cameos.  However, I’m looking forward to seeing where this one goes.  Joel McHale is a fantastic comedic actor, and will no doubt add a few interesting layers to this show.

And that ends another episode of…  wait.  That’s not the end.  The end comes when Juice drops Clay off at his house.  After Juice drives away, Clay rips off his oxygen walks in the door, and punches one of the ex-Nomads in the face as he tries to apologize to Clay for shooting Rita.  Final words from Clay?  “Idiots!  You weren’t supposed to kill her!”

That’s right, folks.  It’s been Clay the entire time.  Surprised?  You shouldn’t be.  Inadvertently getting his lackeys to kill other men’s wives is kind of his thing.