['Sons of Anarchy' - 'Call of Duty']

Last week's 'Sons of Anarchy' was an intense and often gripping hour, and there's no way this week's episode could have matched it. Given that many final showdowns are no doubt being saved for the last couple of episodes of the season, the number of confrontations was certainly way down this week.

This episode offered a variety of amplifications and diversions, some of them superfluous. 'Call of Duty' wasn't better than last week's hour, I imagine we can all agree on that.

But it sure was longer.

"Pull the trigger man. That's the only way this leather is coming off my back." - Jax to Alvarez, the head of the Mayans who orders him to give up his club jacket

Jax is supposed to be the hero of this little modern day Shakesperian epic, but he's starting to look more and more like the enemy in each episode.

I don't mean that he'll be the one in the end who has been scheming the whole time behind SAMCRO's back with the white power. This is a well-crafted, slow paced, high caliber drama, not a badly written Schwarzenegger movie with a thrown together twist ending (cough, Total Recall, cough).

Jax is more of an enemy of himself. He might have good intentions at heart, but his moves are nowhere near his brain. Maybe his loyalty to his family runs deeper than he ever imagined. Logic and family hardly make a decent cocktail. Anyone with a brother-in-law can tell you that.

(S02E04) - "If you come across something that don't make you miserable, enjoy it." - Chief Unser to Tara

Was I the only human being on the planet who was completely snowed by the BS claim that SAMCRO was headed out of town to do a charity blood drive for Charming? The thought of any shady dealings never crossed my mind for a second. I probably wouldn't even have any doubts if they devised a charity scheme that's more their speed like a "Ride Joust for Diabetes" or a "100-Yard Coke Line Snort for Macular Degeneration."

It's not a sign of my stupidity. Believe me, I've got much more convincing signs of that. For instance, I drive a Pontiac, a brand new Pontiac ... with a 30,000 mile warranty.

It's a sign that the characters are becoming more endearing and real and they play on your emotions more than if they were just flat images on a high definition television screen. They are flesh and blood and bone, and all the little synapses and thoughts that make them human beings are connecting. They have made the audience, or at least the audience that sits in my living room each week, part of their family.

(S01E02) "I will not look the other way Jax." - Hale

I'm still on board with Sons of Anarchy, but there are just too many things that are rubbing me the wrong way. Much like my minor complaint on this season of The Shield, Jax's father's manuscript has reached the point of becoming über-important just like Cruz Pezuela's blackmail box (the one Mackey stole) without any solid explanation. One gets the feeling that without that manuscript, the story would just crumble.

If this thing is so important, then why didn't Gemma or Clay have it destroyed years ago? Did they even know it existed? It was just lying out in the open in the family storage unit. While I appreciate the tension that builds as Jax slowly reads one page at a time, I'm still unconvinced that when he gets to, I dunno, "page 86," that we're going to be that shocked when the inevitable bomb is dropped. Why else would Gemma want it so bad if there wasn't some horrible family secret buried in it?

Today, April 1st, is General Hospital's anniversary -- 45 years on the air. The ABC soap has been very successful through most of that time, although it hasn't really followed the path that many daytime dramas take. In the late 1980's, GH changed from a romance-based, hospital drama to more of a crime/spy/action-oriented soap. It's continued that style, and I can tell you six things that keep me tuning in daily to General Hospital (or checking it out on SoapNet).

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