‘Sons of Anarchy’ season 7, episode 12 review: Unser, Juice, Gemma, and Jax face fate
“Sons of Anarchy” is a show that has thrived at times on giving us a bloodbath with purpose. Everyone dies on this show for a reason, and it is due to this that sometimes, these particular deaths are incredibly hard to take.
The reason for both Unser and Juice tonight trails back all the way to, once again, the death of Tara last season, and the subsequent cover-up that came along with it. These are two more lives that are ultimate at Gemma’s feet, at least in that she set off the chain of events. Juice had a particularly brutal end that had shades of Opie to it; meanwhile, Unser was killed in cold blood by Jax, who refused to allow him to leave Oregon with Gemma in handcuffs. He wanted to arrest her, and Jax did not want the collateral damage that would come with this.
Then, the even more unthinkable happened: Jax killed Gemma, surrounded by flowers in the garden. Kind of an ironic place for Gemma to go, wasn’t it? In the end, though, we also understand at the same time the logic of this move. She was a terrible person, but Jax still loved her. He didn’t want to kill her, but if he didn’t, someone else would. Not only that, but they would have done it with a whole lot less dignity.
Where does all of this leave Jax? He has already killed two of the most important characters on the series, but there is still an episode to go.
We imagine that there will be some who question whether or not we needed to see such a tremendous loss of life all collected into one episode; would these have been better off broken into other episodes? It’s hard to say. All we know is that Jax now is going to be clinging to almost anything that he can. Why do you think that he chose to sleep with Wendy out of all people at the end of the episode? The sad thing is how little she knew about what he had just done.
Oh, and how about guest stars? It was great to see Hal Holbrook again, and hats off to Kurt Sutter for his sly Michael Chiklis casting. This was the one actor from “The Shield” he previously vowed to never use.
With the meetings early in the episode, it feels like mayhem is the only answer for how to stop Jax Teller, and that moment is probably coming. We just have to pull ourselves off of the floor over the next week in order to see it. Grade: A.
What was your take on tonight’s new “Sons of Anarchy” episode? Share with a comment.