Sons of Anarchy Season 4 Episode 5 Recap

Previously on Sons of Anarchy,  Roosevelt reminded Juice that the Sons would kick him out if they found out he was black,  Big Otto was talked to by Lincoln, Tara is carrying around her secret about JT, the guys are running coke.

Gemma, in prison, stares at Otto.   She’s devastated at what he calls “a means to an end”.  Also, why is he in a wheelchair?  Anyway, Otto needs to ask about the fact that Bobby’s semen was found on Luann. Gemma’s startled, and tries to shrug it off a little bit, but as Otto says, “Last guy tappin’ a bitch is usually the one who killed her”. Gemma holds his hands as Otto says Clay should ask what it would be like to lose the one he loved the most, and Otto is not asking, he’s telling the club they need to find who killed Luann.  As you might guess, Gemma looks horrified.

The sons meet up with the Mayans in a dirt road, where apparently the stuff won’t be ready until tomorrow. Clay’s unimpressed with the ‘babysitting’ and more unimpressed that the Mayans are leaving a babysitter behind.  Clay tells everyone to get some sleep, so I imagine these industrious Sons are up early?

Juice and Roosevelt are meeting up.   Roosevelt is doing his best to intimidate Juice by saying they can protect each other’s secrets, but you gotta see that Juice is truly terrified if he’s going for this deal. Anyway, Roosevelt drops the word ‘cartel’, and Juice scoffs.  A ‘sherriff’ doesn’t have the reach for any of this. But Roosevelt doesn’t mind –  he’s got Juice right where he wants him.

Jax comes home and finds Tara playing with the boys on the floor. She’s still in scrubs which – hey scrubs-wearers, do you not take them off right away?  In any event, Jax says he brought her a present from the motorcycle show, and now I understand that this episode is happening right after the last episode so they’ve been riding all night. Jax pulls out two GIANT bricks of cash, and tells Tara he’s putting it in the bank and that it’s going to be their escape route. Jax tells Tara to ask Gemma how it’s done, and I really hope Gemma is at the florist, because how much fun was that last week?  I do wonder about Tara, you guys. She spends so much time biting her lip and saying OK, I don’t know what it would be like if she actually let her emotions get away…is it possible?

Clay is discussing the “cum in her panties” where Luann is concerned.  Please excuse my classlessness.  (Lainey: you cannot imagine how much it would have tortured Duana to write that down.) They discuss how  since the semen was matched (but they got no name) it has to be a guy in the system.  As you might guess,  Bobby Elvis looks nauseous.   Anyway, they think it was Caruso, and Clay wants them to get on it immediately. They hope Lila will help them find him.  

Everyone else leaves church, but Clay and Piney stay for a tete-a-tete. Opening salvo was “JT would’ve never touched drugs”. Clay says he would’ve but Piney starts discussing how Clay was the one who wouldn’t let JT get out of the gunrunning business.  He lays his cards on the table, and he’s fiercer than I’ve ever seen him, saying the letters “paint a vivid picture of who did it”.    There’s plausible deniability about what was wrong with his bike and then Clay gets fed up and strides right over.  Piney wants the drug running to stop and says Clay only has until the end of the week. Oh, and if Clay’s going to off him in the meantime, he’s got ‘contingencies’ in place.

Bobby is freaking out to Jax who agrees that yes,  they do know it was Bobby’s spunk in Luann and they didn’t tell everyone, but that they’re trying to protect him. Jax assures him he knows he didn’t kill Luann and that Otto’s agitating to try to see whether the sherriff is going to pull Bobby in on something.   

Clay interrupts them both, saying he needs to move some stuff around NOW. Not in five minutes.   And then strides into Gemma’s office where he announces that Piney says he’s going to out him to the club.  And then Clay zeroes in on the fact that Tara has the letters, and that she’s the one who can ruin them. Gemma pedals hard trying to protect Tara, and nearly makes an inroad but Clay rightly points out that it doesn’t matter why he killed JT, he did it and Jax will lose his mind if he finds out.   Lady MacBeth comes out , and calms Clay down. Why don’t they get the letters, and see what’s in them before they freak the hell out?  She really does run him when she wants, huh?  She demands that Clay not hurt either Piney or Tara so…I’m not feeling good about their chances.

Unser, on a bike.  He’s so delighted with the job Clay did, and tries to pay, but Clay won’t have any of it.  Then Clay, who has previously been a pretty tight safe, tells Unser about the letters, too.   He needs him to grab them and Clay’s gonna take it from there. Unser dances around whether or not Clay’s going to let Tara live if she knows things  and before they can get into it, Gemma arrives.  Oh, man, this is where I start to get the spine shivers.  Because they are trying to end-around one another while swearing up and down that they aren’t…this is something.  Anyway, as you might guess, Clay leaves, and Gemma wastes no time telling Uncer to grab the letters and bring them to her. Not Clay, but her. Not Unser’s day…

Jax and Opie and Bobby with Lila, whose orange…body-stocking she’s wearing before going on set is pretty something. Opie stays behind when they go to talk to her director, because of obvious reasons, and idly searches in Tara’s things, and finds her birth control pills.

Oh my God, you guys, David Hasselhoff as a porn director is kind of the best thing I’ve ever seen.  This is amazing.  He explains that this guy George who they’re talking about contacted him because he wanted to make a doll line based on one of the director’s best films.  You know exactly what kind of dolls I’m talking about but watching David Hasselhoff explain it is pretty fantastic. Also his ‘acting’ when he discovers this is about Luann. Then he says the words “douchebag” and ‘big cock’, which I almost need to make into a macro. The relevant part here is that he wants Georgie dead, and they get into it.

Unser messes around in Tara’s office and finds copies of the letters. Not so good. He takes them and heads out…

Lincoln and Roosevelt scenes in his war room always feel a bit like psychology to me, but let’s buckle up, I guess. Lincoln wants Juice, Roosevelt says they need to sweeten the deal for him.   Lincoln wants Juice to pull a sample from the load and that’ll prove his commitment – because if he’s sure that Juice will do it, that proves getting outed for race is worse than double-timing with the police.  Roosevelt says it’s too dangerous – for him as well as for Juice. Lincoln’s too busy to worry about these trivial details, and the brainf-ck comes close to a  close as he says he’ll strike him from the record. Oh, and a staffer says they can’t do that  but not ‘til Roosevelt’s left the room.

Unser.  Reads the letters and then, when he sees Clay coming, tosses them in the fire. But Clay rips them back out.  Unser is furious at his role in JT’s death.  He thought JT was far, far more  dangerous than he was, and thus did Clay’s bidding.  Clay blusters that John Teller was delusional, but neither of them is buying it.  Unser asks about Gemma, but then Clay gets the last word in, implying not-so-subtly that Unser’s crush on Gemma is what’s fueling everything he does…

Porn set.   Hasselhoff has brought in Georgie who swears when he sees Jax. Georgie’s blonde piece starts waving her gun around, and what should have been routine turns into a gun-waving chase-and-takedown.  Bobby almost kills him before the Sons pull him off…

Clay burns the letters, laments the real ones which are still out there. Then gets up and, ominously, says he’s going to protect them both…

Juice answering texts, and makes up a lie to escape the porn set (where Georgie is tied up in his underwear….)

Now Gemma visits Unser.  Why did he burn the letters?  Unser says it’s because they were too painful for Gemma to read… clearly, he’s chosen his side.  But Gemma doesn’t know, thinks they’re the ones and holds Wayne’s hand.  And he doesn’t shrug her off.  

Interrogation room.  Roosevelt lays it out for Juice.  A sample will tell them where the drugs are coming from, simple as that.  Juice says there’s no coke, and  Roosevelt just blows right past him, saying if they do it right, they can leave SAMCRO out of everything altogether.  But of course, if Juice says no,  if he doesn’t help – it’s lose-lose. You guys, I never thought a hardened biker/criminal could look so vulnerable…

Clay shows up on the porn set.  Now he talks to Georgie who swears he didn’t kill Luann.   Jax jumps in with a ball-gag he’s using as a garotte and Bobby holds a gun to Georgie’s head but his last-minute babblings about how rich he is get Clay’s attention.  The Japanese investors he has – then, because Clay is Clay, he says they can use the cash because Charming Heights is missing capital.   They can dupe Hale into thinking the investors are in and then pull out and cut Georgie’s heart out.    Hasselhoff is annoyingly entertaining as the guy left out of the cool crowd. They’re keeping him alive.  

Juice pulls up and tells the kid who’s watching he just needs to do ‘a walkthrough’.   You can’t even tell that his heart’s beating out of his chest, can you?   Juice doesn’t waste any time grabbing himself a brick and he would just take a sample, but the kid out front comes back, wanting to hang out because, and I sh-t you not, he’s lonely…and Juice has to shove a whole brick down his pants.   Insert your own brick-sh-tting joke here…

In the woods, he takes it out, trying to breathe…

Morning. Juice is awake, brick beside him.  He’s panicky.

Morning at Gemma and Clay’s. It sounds all for the world like there’s Hall and Oates playing at their house while they have coffee.  Gemma wonders why Clay was so late, then drops some ash in front of Clay.  Oh, but poor Lady MacBeth has been played!  She tells him she burned the letters because they were painful but he knows exactly how much she’s lying to him.  Oh, this is bad.   He doesn’t let on, but her insistence that Piney is full of it and nobody can hurt them is just so hollow. I wonder if she feels satisfaction?

Juice, near the truck of goods, sees the dudes talking. Then decides – why would you decide this? That the best thing to do is to bury the brick?  I am wincing for him as we speak…

Opie and Jax talk at the club – until a blonde bimbo comes out. The level of scorn that Jax has for Opie is unbelievable.  I mean, this is some moral high ground.  Anyway, Opie explains it’s because Lila is taking birth control, and he’s just…done.

Unser watches from his truck as Tara loads the kids into the car.   Oh, Christ.  Please not with the kids in the car. Anyway, he pulls out and follows her down the road…

Jail.  Otto and Bobby.  Bobby winces, breathes in and shudderingly admits he slept with Luann.   Otto, of course, wants to know ‘how long’, and whether Bobby loved her. Bobby says no – and that she was the only one who mattered to Otto.  Bobby tells Otto about Georgie, and whether he killed Georgie.   And Bobby opens his mouth and straight-up lies.  

We’re at the stash.  The club counts the bricks and – wouldn’t you know it, they’re one brick short.  29 instead of 30.   Everyone looks at one another and I wonder how many other hearts are beating as fast as Juice’s?  

Attached - Maggie Siff in Beverly Hills earlier this week.