Note that I have not yet finished the series so depending on how certain story lines play out I may actually get to put this at 10 stars but for me this is 2 nitpicks short of the perfect SOA episode. Thrilling action, brilliant suspense, a gut wrenching twist in the form of Donna's death at the hands of Tig. What this episode gets right, it gets very right. My 2 nitpicks though are that Ajax and Wendy should not have gotten back together, from a critical perspective. Jax's relationship with Tara didn't need that artificial tension and I don't buy that Gemma would hate Tara more than Wendy. I think their relationship struggle should stay between the 3 of them without outsiders getting directly involved as Jax's involvement in SAMCRO will create enough natural conflict for the two. This nitpick is more minor but I think they just missed the mark with Hale. He was a pretty average character to begin and something about his development in this episode just felt off to me; it was a tiny bit rushed. I think if we got one interaction of Hale and Opie where Opie was kind to Hale before this episode Hale defending Opie would make more sense. As it is I just barely don't buy that he would have broken his duty as an officer to try and save Opie. That's enough griping though, onto the beautiful stuff. This episode is absolutely tragic, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In one fell swoop SAMCRO has ruined their relationship with the 9ers and the Mayans, betrayed a member who was innocent, accidentally killed that innocent member's even more innocent wife, destroyed Tig's morale and absolutely all of it is Clay's fault because he didn't clue Jax in. Absolutely brilliant stuff.
3 out of 3 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
