‘Sons of Anarchy’ season 6, episode 10 review: Maggie Siff shines, Tara suffers in ‘Huang Wu’

Just from the perspective of performances alone, Maggie Siff is killing it these days on “Sons of Anarchy” in the Tara character. Season 6 is her most robust collection of episodes yet when it comes to her character; she is getting a ton of great stuff to do, and most importantly, it gives her an opportunity to show off every emotion in her repertoire.

But the same good news for Siff does not translate over to Tara on the show. “Huang Wu” was another opportunity for her to suffer extensively, and suffer she did. There was no worse moment for her than leaving Patterson’s office with the news that thanks to a deal that Jax made with her to turn over the head of the Irish, even she was not able to help her. Nobody could. She was completely alone now thanks to her botched (and strangely poorly-constructed plan), and Gemma’s promise that she will not get to raise the kids is going to be a walking nightmare for her.

So what comes next for Tara now? There are three different levels of heartbreak. She either stays and continues to fight (which probably will not hold much benefit for her if she continues her current behavior patterns), she tries to move away and start again (which carries with it guilt), or she takes her own life (which is still the easy way out, even for someone as desperate and miserable as she is). With Tara strangely operating her own personal rehab clinic for Wendy, it feels like there have been enough decks stacked against her to fill a casino. The only real benefit coming her way is that Jax’s deal may save her from substantial prison time.

Away from Gemma, the story this week was actually teetering the line of predictable somewhat in that we have Jax continuing to fight to get SAMCRO out of guns, and him struggling with the Irish because of it and admitting to Nero that he should have listened to him. There were some moments in here for Happy that really made us … well, happy, and the Clay story continued to press on in a way that feels a little too dragged out at this point. We really want to see the man break free and have a big episode soon. While we still don’t feel like there is any way that Clay survives this series, we want to see him go down in a way that is not nearly this sad and at times pathetic as him spending a whole season behind the wall of prison.

In the end, “Huang Wu” was probably not an episode that needed to be as long as it was, mostly because the major things to get out of it are that Gemma is winning very clearly, and that Tara has never lost more. With only three episodes left, Jax has little time to “save” the club, and Tara even less to figure out her future. Grade: B-.

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Photo: FX