‘Sons of Anarchy’ season 6, episode 8 review: Nero’s move and the ghosts of ‘Los Fantasmas’
In the canon of “Sons of Anarchy,” any episode that features something shocking that does not include an explosion or two should be given some notice. What made “Los Fantasmas” specifically an outstanding hour of the series is that it did not try to make a million things happen at once. The stories were very small by comparison, but very emotional.
While there were times in the past where we saw the school shooting impact the characters, seeing the father of a victim attempt to seek vigilante justice for himself was the most affecting moment perhaps of the entire season. This is failure personified on all counts, whether it be failure to keep guns out of the wrong hands failure to teach kids right and wrong, and a failure by law enforcement in doing what they are actually meant to do: Enforce the law.
Law obviously has different meanings to different people, and Nero’s attempts to take the fall and confess for the crimes of many this season prove that, but Patterson, perhaps giving her best work all season this episode, saw right through what he was trying to do. She even admitted to him that she knew about Lee Toric killing the prostitute (which he was supposedly suspected of doing), and she made the risky move to leak to the press that SAMCRO was tied to the school shooting. She is bringing the fight right to their doorstep, which is going to have some complications moving forward.
But perhaps the trickiest part of this episode came via Tara, as Unser ended up playing a role in complicating all of her plans by trying to make her realize that what she has done is convince a woman into thinking that she had murdered a grandchild. It was nice to see a glimmer of Tara 1.0 in there, and to also see that Gemma’s battle with Tara and Wendy is far from over. But in the end, this took some of the shock away from last week when you think about just how flawed Tara’s plan really was in the first place. There wasn’t any way this could succeed long-term.
The best thing we can say about “Los Fantasmas” is that you really did feel the ghosts of some of the fallen children, and even the ghost of Toric to an extent. It was an emotional episode, but also not the most eventful. As many episodes do at this time in the seasons run, it helped to set the stage for an explosive journey to come. Grade: B+.
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Photo: FX