After racing out of the gate with a couple of action-packed episodes, the last two weeks have been a bit of a slow burn in terms of major plot revelations, but at least they’ve still been entertaining. Tonight’s show found the club headed down to Arizona to meet up with the local charter, SAMTAZ, which has been put in charge of providing protection to the cartel during the transportation of the guns across the border. Now, SAMCRO may not exactly be the cleanest MC around, but they look like saints compared to these Tucson guys, who are involved in all sorts of nasty stuff, including dealing crystal meth.
Clay is shocked that such a vote would even pass, but as the club’s president is quick to remind him, muling cocaine and dealing crank isn’t all that different. When SAMCRO looks deeper into the matter, however, they discover a shady plot by two of SAMTAZ’s officers that involved the murder of one of their members and the blackmailing of another in order to push the vote through. Though the decision is left up to the charter president to deal with the situation how he sees fit, he doesn’t really have much of a choice other than to kick them out, and even bemoans the fact that he’s essentially lost a third of his members as a result. He didn’t look very happy about SAMCRO poking their nose into his club’s business, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the last we’ve seen of SAMTAZ. Because now that they’ve decided to continue dealing, if anyone is going to cause a problem for SAMCRO down the road, it’ll almost certainly be them.
Meanwhile, back in Charming, Gemma is trying to keep herself busy while Clay is away on business, so she decides to visit the new floral shop in town about some dying flowers in her greenhouse. Lo and behold, the owner of the store just so happens to be Sheriff Roosevelt’s wife, who perhaps unsurprisingly is Gemma’s match in just about every way. I don’t know what kind of game Gemma is playing by making friends with the woman (not that she’s buying it), but you can be sure that there’s some hidden agenda behind her donation to the Save the Garden committee that Mrs. Roosevelt serves on. There’s always some selfish reason for anything Gemma does, and the fact that she’s using Tara’s name as the main benefactor suggests that she has ulterior motives.
If only Tara knew what Gemma was doing behind her back, but of course, she’s far too busy between work, taking care of the kids, and guarding her knowledge of Maureen’s letters to keep an eye on her future mother-in-law. Though Tara attempts to confide in Piney about the mystery of JT’s death, their conversation is interrupted by Gemma, who warns Piney to stop digging into the past before it kills him. I’m not sure if that was meant as a threat, but it certainly sounded like one, and it’s the second time that Piney has been warned in as many episodes. What do you think the odds are of him kicking the bucket before the season ends? One of the Sons seems destined to die before this is all over, and between Piney butting heads with the wrong people and Bobby voicing his disapproval every chance he gets, I have a bad feeling it’s going to be one of them.
Other thoughts from the episode:
* Gemma might think she’s pretty cunning, but Lincoln practically had her eating out of his hand within seconds of meeting her. She had absolutely no clue that she was being played, and now that she knows about Jacob Hale potentially losing the Charming Heights property, you can bet that she’s going to share that news with Clay the minute he gets back. And that’s exactly what Lincoln wants her to do, because he’s betting on the fact that the Sons will make a stupid move and he’ll be able to catch them in the act.
* Lincoln definitely isn’t wasting any time in bringing them down. Along with having Roosevelt rattle Juice’s cage last week, he visited Otto in prison in an attempt to get him to turn against SAMCRO as well. We already know that Bobby didn’t kill Luanne (Tom Arnold’s sleazy porn producer did), and Otto has always been very loyal, but if there’s one thing that could make him snap, it’s the discovery that Luanne was being unfaithful.
