Fight for Your Right To Party
'Red Widow' Gets The Axe
Review: Sons of Anarchy - Na Triobloidi (season finale)
by Danny Gallagher, posted Dec 2nd 2009 8:30AM
\(S02E13) "Any idea where we're headed?" /"No." - Chief Unser to Gemma
If you're looking for someone to yak to at the office tomorrow about the second season closer of Sons of Anarchy but don't want to open your meathole to someone who has no idea what you're talking about, there's one sure-fire way to tell without having to say a word: check their fingernails. They will be bitten right down to the bone.
The 90-minute episode was a real tension builder from beginning to end and it not only managed to solve some of the protagonists' problems in very creative and interesting ways, but it also created new ones that just made me hungrier for season three. It couldn't come soon enough if I had a time machine.
The thing was also jam packed with surprises from before the opening credits to the club's closing logo, the biggest of which was Zobelle's informant status with the FBI. It might seem like a forced surprise, but unlike Christina's connection to the Trinity Killer on Showtime's Dexter, it fits Zobelle like a latex surgical glove.
Zobelle has always been a bit laid back and aloof as if he thought he was bulletproof and almost all-knowing. At first, I thought that was just Adam Arkin's approach to the character's recklessness but it was really just his true reaction all along since he knew any illegal action would not land him in the clink.
So now that Zobelle and Weston are free since Zobelle works for the feds and the DA won't prosecute Weston since the witness who fingered him (I still can't resist using that pun) is a felon, the battle lines have been drawn once again. The episode opened with this great Sergio Leone stand-off shot of SAMCRO against the Mayans guarding Zobelle's smoke shop that tightened the tension to the force of an E-string guitar.
Unser simply being Unser tells Weston just as he's being released that Zobelle was the rat in the hopes that they will "tear each other apart." But before he leaves, Hale sets up a meeting with his kids who are in CPS custody and Unser tips off the club so they can intercept him and do what they do best. Instead, Weston steals his kid out of custody and takes him to a tattoo shop.
Jax and company have to do a little navigating to keep the cops and his kid out of the line of fire, but Weston finally gets what's coming to him: a face full of gunfire in a dirty bathroom. It might sound cruel, but anyone with an "I Kill N******" tattoo sprawled across his torso deserves nothing less.
Even Gemma gets a chance to exact her revenge on the League for her rape. She spots Zobelle's daughter preparing to flee with her father and en route to Edmund's house to say goodbye. She seems torn about drawing blood for her own twisted purposes, but her new found religious influence kicks in...and convinces her it's God's will.
It was a nice surprise since a character finding religion usually mellows them out, but in Gemma's case, it validates her instinct to rain fire down on her enemies and smite them. On the other hand, I guess she hasn't gotten to the part about "Thou shalt not kill" yet.
Unfortunately, those are the only loose ends that the club can tie together. Gemma is caught shooting Zobelle's daughter as Agent Stahl hides from her after accidentally killing Edmund who has been working with her but ordered by his father Cameron to kill Stahl. Stahl not only weasels her way out of accidentally shooting Edmund but pins both kills on Gemma after giving her a head start to flee the scene. Instead of visiting her family, she goes on the lamb with Unser.
Then Cameron overhears his son's murder on a police scanner and gets back at the club by murdering Half-Sack and kidnapping Jax's infant son, Abel, in probably the tensest scene I've seen on TV all year. Babies usually aren't collateral damage in TV dramas, but if it were to happen on any show, Sons of Anarchy would be it and that fact alone grabbed me by the face and drew me closer to my set.
Since Abel's kidnapping is just about the perfect distraction for Jax and Clay, Zobelle manages to escape after holing himself up in a convenience store loaded with little kids. He manages to flee the country without a scratch on him, except, of course, for the permanent one on his soul left by the death of his daughter. Something tells me his travels abroad won't be permanent.
But the most powerful scene goes to the one at the very end as Jax watches Cameron drive off into the sunset in a powerboat with his infant son. The coolest and most calculating character, sometimes even more so than Zobelle, is reduced to a blubbering mass of sorrow and man screams as Clay cradles him in his arms. It was an awesome ending for a show that increased its awesome quotient all season and, best of all, ensures them for a promising setup for a third season.
[Watch clips and episodes of Sons of Anarchy on SlashControl.]
31 Comments