Smoke ’em if you got ’em indeed… because aside from a bunch of black people getting killed for arbitrary reasons (reasons Jax exploits while making some sarcastic comment about “race relations”), there isn’t a whole lot to see in this week’s episode of Sons of Anarchy, which turns in its most tepid guest star appearance of the season yet when Lea Michele manages to be more boring than Courtney Love (then again, she’s given a lot more screen time for reasons that are not clear, at least not yet).
Unfortunately, all of Sons of Anarchy‘s stunt casting dims in comparison to Marilyn Manson, easily the most entertaining sideshow this show’s had in a long time. Forget how troublesome his character is – or how pointless, if you consider how little this show needs another gang leader for Jax to screw over/masscare – Manson is enjoying the hell out of himself in the role, and it shows with his sly grins and playful on-screen banter (“I have to protect the brand, man!”), breathing life into otherwise rudimentary scenes, where characters are discussing negotiations for massive changes in power structure that feel meaningful… until one considers that they’re happening on a weekly basis at this point, as Jax continues to weasel himself into new deals, murdering more and more people along the way (this week, he takes joy in offering a cigarette to a man that he calmly orders murdered seconds later, snickering as he goes).
Manson’s single scene with Jax is the lone highlight of the episode, if only for the camp factor of the whole thing (seriously; for those hating on Manson’s casting, watch the guy in his scenes. He finds the campy seriousness I wish this show always aimed for, like it was having fun, not going through the violent paces to reach a definitively grim ending). The rest is a mess: be it Bobby basically telling Wendy how she feels (which: why would Wendy still love the guy who recently beat her and drugged her nearly to death to screw her over?), or the fact the show skips over the drama it concocted last week (Gemma might die!) and gets right to the part where everyone waits around for an entire day (seriously: nobody thought showing them traveling was more interesting than all this nonsense?), there’s not much about this episode that makes sense, or appears to have any significant impact in the present, only alluding to the possible darkness of the future (“If Juice tells Jax what he knows…”; all that scene needed was a “dun-dun-DUNN!” on top of it) and spending lots and lots (and lots and lots) of time with people explaining their way through the nonsense biker politics of the show.
At least it’s started to get that mid-season feel, where things are slowly bottle-necking towards the dramatic climax: the pieces are starting to come together for Nero, which means things are in motion for Jax to finally realize he killed about a hundred people over a lie his mother told him, one that covered up her murdering the woman of his dreams (a dead woman that Gemma now openly talks to in public). Juice may also open his mouth before he gets murdered, but I doubt Jax will believe anything a “traitor” has to say until it’s too late (seriously, though: can we kill Juice already? He’s been running for three years at this point), which means it’s going to take our fearless forward thinking leader a little while longer to figure out the obvious. Until then, it’s more long montages, longer shootouts, and even longer man-hugs; here’s hoping Jax Teller comes to his senses sooner rather than later.
[Photo via FX]
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I actually thought Gertie and Gemma scenes were more entertaining The SOA fighting with other gangs is seen every single episode. How often do we see Gemma’s guard down even for a second. I can’t even remember the connect Manson has to the sorry tbh. The Juice stuff was ok too.