Season 4, Episode 8
Well, that was
different…
“Why do I believe him when he
says it’ll get better?”
-Tara
“We pull through, and we stick it out.
That’s what family does.”
-Gemma
Huh. So Juice is still alive. Not long after the repeat airing
of last week’s episode, the internet (okay, mostly just Twitter) began blowing
up with those who were convinced that Juice had in fact survived. I was not one
of those people. I found Juice’s death to be a strong, dramatic turn in what
had been a somewhat rudderless season, and I looked forward the fallout from
his death; something needed to kick the action into gear, and this seemed like
a good way to go. I’ll admit that part of me is happy that he did survive – Theo Rossi has really
kicked in up the last couple of weeks, and the whole “survivors guilt” thing
could be interesting motivation for him going forward. Nor do I find his
survival a cheat; though I may have missed the cracking branch sounds last
week, they were clearly there, so it’s not like the show was being shitty about
the whole thing.
And yet, as okay as I am with this reversal, I still miss
the action that I thought was coming down the pipe.
Now, I had a similar problem going into “Family Recipe”
as I did with the Community episode “Remedial Chaos Theory”: I suffered at the
advanced praise from those who had screeners. I heard some faint rumblings of
critical praise – albeit only from one (incredibly trusted) source – and considering how strong I found last week’s episode to be, and the path that I thought the ending scene
was sending us on, I figured that we were in for a bombastic hour of television
that would harken back to the helicon days of season two. But advanced praise is a
funny thing; though it kept be from being completely wowed at the latest
episode of Community by getting my
expectations a bit too high, I still enjoyed and admired the episode immensely,
if not as much as I would have going into it cold. I was hoping that I would
only suffer a similar effect tonight; unfortunately I was wrong.
Instead of that bombastic offering I was expecting, we
were treated to an hour that was much quieter than I was expecting, and I
believe quieter than anything the show has ever done before. There’s nothing inherently
wrong with this move, and Sons of Anarchy
has the requisite bits of DNA that it could conceivably function as the sort of
drama that handles these kind of episode, but here, on this show, when I
thought the shit was starting to go down, was a weird place for the show to
apply the brakes. From a logistical standpoint, I can understand why Sutter did
this: if the shit had started to go down in the way that I imagined it would
last week, it’s quite possible that the show would have run out of narrative
before hitting the 13th episode, and thus would have spent a good
portion of the season spinning its wheels. I get that Sutter wants to build up
the emotional side of this conflict just as much as the concrete side, but that
doesn’t stop this episode’s pace from feeling a bit awkward.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t
think that this episode was good; in fact, there were a number of great moments
in the episode. Jax’s confrontation with Piney and his conversation with Tara
were both well-written and well-acted scenes, and together they gave a
convincing explanation of why Jax dropped his crusade to shake up the club like
his father wanted. The scene with the Galindo cartel, as well as those at the community
garden benefit both nicely set up the outside influences in way that you could
feel the pressure they will soon place on the club. And Chibs discovery of
Juice’s failed suicide attempt and Clay’s murder of Piney both serve as direct actions
that should hopefully act as the kick-in-the-pants that I thought Juice’s
suicide was last week.
But all that good stuff doesn’t forgive the episode’s
sins. As much as is it may have bugged me, those stopgap measures put into
place here to keep the story from moving too far forward – the shootout of the
clubhouse right as the club was making a vote, Piney dying before he could give
the letters to Jax – seem to be necessary to slow the story down as Sutter sees
fit, so we’re just going to have to deal with them.
No, what really bugged me is the fact that Piney had to
die instead of Juice. It’s not that I prefer one character to the other and
wanted Piney to live so that I could hear more of his old-manisms. In fact, if
I was hard pressed, I’d have to say that I actually prefer Juice more, given
his recent arc. But we had such a solid, surprising moment in Juice’s suicide
last week, that to trade one death for another really shows just how manipulated
the story is by the writers in order to slow things down. And even though I get
that Clay blaming Piney’s death on the Lobos Sontaras is a good way forward for
the show, both in what it means for the show and for Clay, and I’m interested
in seeing that, I’m not sure why the other death couldn’t have reaped its own
rewards. Juice’s near-death was sudden and shocking, a natural way to move the story
forward. Piney’s death was telegraphed and predictable, a manufacture means to
an end. That tells me all I need to know.
I’m left with one final question, one which I won’t
really get the answer to until the season reaches the finale: “Can the fourth
season of Sons of Anarchy function in
much the same way that the fourth season of Breaking
Bad did?” I don’t bring this up to be force a predetermined argument; everybody knows that BB is a much better show than SOA, and I don’t say that to insult the
latter; it’s just a statement of fact. But the way “Family Recipe” stuck with
the quiet moments for much of its running time reminded of the loop I was thrown for when Breaking Bad did a
bunch of quiet episodes in a row a couple of months back. I tend not to think
of SOA as a character drama in the way
that we do BB; I believe it could
be that kind of show, but it hasn’t really stretched those muscles before, so I’ll
allow some growing pains in that department.
But even if Breaking
Bad had us all reeling at its change in direction, it still all came to
head in such a way that the season was still able to deliver big on the kind of
tense, “holy shit” moment that the show is known for, proof the long game was
all worth it. I have yet to see evidence that Sons of Anarchy can pull those same
moves with the same degree of success, and I’m worried that season four may be just
another failed experiment similar to (but not on the same level as) season
three.
Quotes, Etc:
In case you missed it, the show has been renewed for a fifth season. So, yay?
I enjoyed the small touch during Clay’s speech of having
him read off of a piece of paper. No matter how good of a person he tries to
pretend to be, he just can’t naturally spin positive vibes off of the top of
his head.
I love that Tig is such a badass that he can just pick up
Gemma’s purse, throw it over his shoulder, and think nothing of it.
Okay, that “head chili” subplot was pretty funny.
“Handled? They
dumped a bag of heads.”
“Armenians. Very unstable people.”
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