Sons of Anarchy: What a Piece of Work is Man

On this episode of "Sons of Anarchy," there is sadness. Real sadness, not the usual fake, forced pathos. There are also two butts and someone putting something inside a butt. We'll get to that in a little while.

This week, Jax gave into August Marks' demands, orchestrating a trade in order to get Bobby back. Marks instead double-crossed Jax, and Jax had Marks arrested, presumably to begin the endgame (for real this time). Unser and Jarry realized Juice and Gemma are lying and appear to have thwarted Juice's plan to assassinate Lin (for the time being). Also, the Indian Hills charter is filing a grievance against SAMCRO or something. I'm not sure what the employee/employer litigation situation is like in an international organized crime syndicate. Please forward your questions to Jason Wojciechowski.

Ridiculousness for the sake of ridiculousness:

- Abel continues to be a super-duper psychopath. For the majority of the episode, I got a real "oh hey he's going to end up killing everyone, isn't he?" vibe, but at the end of the episode he grabbed a snickerdoodle and appeared to hear at least part of Gemma's tearful confession/admission of wrongdoing. Still, I wouldn't be shocked if the final episode is Abel wandering through the cabin with a handgun, shooting every member of SAMCRO in the head.

- The son of the pastor's junkie wife escapes (briefly) when a random SAMCRO guy staggers into the cabin holding his head like he just bumped it on a kitchen cupboard and says, "He hit me in the head with a tire iron and took off." He hit you in the head with a tire iron, dude? You should be dead. Wait, are the Sons of Anarchy like pro wrestlers, in that they possess a constitution and fortitude completely off the charts of what we would consider to be normal human thresholds? This would explain why all the Sons can open fire on twelve dudes with submachine guns and kill every last one of them without being even lightly wounded.

- There's another chase scene in broad daylight down a rural road with half a dozen motorcycles firing guns at an SUV. Just another day in this stupid, murderous world.

- Gemma saying to Ratface, "You wanna say something or just stare at my tits?" Gemma has always been abrasive, but now she's just a complete asshole to everyone all the time. No one says anything about this, ever. You would think Nero, if no one else, would be like, "Hey, something wrong?"

- The return of #JUICEBUTT, which appears onscreen with someone shining a light on it and looking all the way up it. That must have been an interesting day on the set.

- See the banner image at the top of the article? A guard gives juice a shiv in that container, then tells him to hide it before the other guard gets back. So Juice rolls his eyes, spits on it and crams it all the way up his butthole. With extensive sound effects. Ever wonder how you can get your episodes under 90 minutes, Kurt Sutter? (lol no of course you don't) Try taking out scenes like THE SHIV RIGHT UP THE BUTT scene.

- Just cuttin up some bodies and stitchin em together. No big D. Yes, this eventually serves a purpose in allowing Jax to both give Marks what he wants AND get him arrested on suspicion of murder, but it didn't necessary need 10 minutes of SAMCRO members retching while desecrating corpses.

- Chibs has sex with Jarry in a parking garage while Quinn watches, because Jarry tells Chibs it's the only way to prove he cares about her. Neat. To his credit, this is Quinn's reaction to watching Chibs intensely thrusting away:

Also, you get to see Chibs' butt. It's been a big season for Unclothed Chibs.

Things that don't make any sense:

- Yet another person shrugs off the clearly homicidal and deeply troubled nature of Abel by saying, "he's five years old; he shouldn't be frustrated." You're all doing a great job of being about to be killed by a preschooler.

- Gemma monologues at Ratboy that just because he's in SAMCRO, he doesn't have to treat women like garbage. "Don't be a dick," she tells him. This would be a great sentiment coming from anyone but Gemma, who has spent the last six years telling Jax his old ladies are garbage.

- Jarry and Gemma have a fight in Jarry's office. This is meant to come off as depicting Gemma as more and more unhinged, but really it just comes off as "It'd be cool if the chicks had a FIGHT." Also, Gemma tries to give Jarry a line of shit for her being on the take, and that her badge is "tarnished," as though she isn't currently lifelong best friends with the former, unbelievably corrupt chief of police.

Actually good things:

- The junkie's son says to Jax, "Every time you [say to trust you], something else bad happens." This is the episode where Jax finally appears to come to terms with him being an enormous fuckup. Only several years too late, bruh.

- Jax and Marks are finally having a face-to-face and laying out all their grievances and explanations. Head of security Moses interjects to tell Marks, "We should move this along." Jax gives Moses a look of pure hatred. This is the guy who's been mutilating his friend and now he's acting like Jax isn't worth their time. For all his forced introduction and beefing up as an artificially-inflated badass, they've done a really good job establishing Moses as serious business. It's starting to feel like it's Moses, not Marks, who is the monster at the end of this book.

- Tig and Happy have a small moment during the dumb corpse-chopping-up scene, when Happy insists on doing the dirty work. Tig says he likes hanging out with Happy because "When we do [hang out], I'm the normal one." There are a lot of guys within this show that could thrive in a lighthearted spinoff. Too bad they'll all be dead in a few episodes.

- Not sure if the trouble with Indian Hills is a good thing or not yet, but again, I like that the world is big. There are a lot of potential spinoffs lurking here. I don't think any of them will happen. And if they do, I doubt anyone has the humility enough to make them be what they should be: silly, campy romps. But I can dream.

- Bobby :(

Peace out, best actor on the show. Peace out, last actor we really still care about. The show handled this really well, showing the characters having actual sadness, grief and remorse over this. Dudes they want us to think are hard as nails, weeping like hell because the best among them has been through hell and never came out the other side.

You will be missed, Bobby Elvis.