TV Review: Sons of Anarchy 7×04 – “Poor Little Lambs”

It looks like we’re finally getting to the point in this season of Sons of Anarchy where stuff is really going to start happening, and I’m guessing it’s going to start happening fast. Tonight’s episode definitely had a strong theme guiding it: Consequences. Just about every turn in this episode was full of consequences, both from actions taken in previous episodes and actions taken in this episode. Things are really starting to move in this final season and Jax is beginning to see the repercussions of the murderous rampage he started after Tara’s death. The biggest question now is: are we going to see Jax continuing on this path of rage and violence, or will we finally begin seeing the old Jax coming back?

Though there were plenty of grim moments in this episode, there was also more of the humor that we’ve been missing. Toward the beginning of ‘Poor Little Lambs’ we see that Colette Jane has returned to Charming to help with the escort service. For those who don’t remember Colette, she runs the escort agency in Stockton and was the source of some peril between Jax and Tara last season after Tara caught her in bed with Jax. Not surprisingly, in tonight’s episode Colette was looking for Jax right off the bat, but the humor didn’t come until later, after Jax saw that she was visiting. He and Gemma were in another room talking, and Gemma referred to Colette as “Mommy Fetish.” Jax then said that if it were a “Mommy fetish” he’d be looking for a “psycho dominatrix.” Though his comment was disturbingly true, it was pretty funny watching Gemma and Jax joking around about his “Mommy issues” like that. Every time I watch a scene like this between Jax and Gemma (and they’ve had numerous good moments together this season), I can’t help but think that Gemma’s time is numbered. There are only so many more good moments like this that she is going to get with her son, whether she makes it out alive at the end of all of this or not.

Another source of humor was all of the interactions between Tig and Venus. I love watching Tig when he’s talking to or about Venus.  There is a lot of hinting at some type of relationship starting between the two, and a lot of funny moments as the rest of the club jokes at the idea. It’s always great to see a trans character in a TV show like this, however sometimes I’m not sure whether SOA’s sense of humor regarding the subject is beneficial to the trans community. I like Venus’s character and I like that Tig has a crush on her, I just wish that the whole thing wasn’t used as some sort of punch line the way that it is.

With this episode, I’m beginning to wonder whether Gemma and Juice are both starting to lose it. Actually, I’m pretty positive that Juice is losing it. He’s lost everything he’s ever cared about or loved in the past few weeks and he’s been forced to hide in order to keep himself out of the eyes of the police and of SAMCRO. The only people he has left are Wendy, Unser, and Gemma; three people he’s never been particularly close to. After spending hours alone in a hotel room, we watch Juice talking to himself. Though unlike when Gemma talks to Tara, it actually seemed like he thought he was talking to someone who was really there. He spent most of this episode either talking to himself or crying to Gemma and Wendy about it. It’s really hard for me to watch Juice breaking down like this, but it isn’t surprising at all. He’s always been the most emotionally fragile and unstable of the club and now that he’s lost everything, Juice is really starting to lose himself as well. I’m just afraid of what he’s going to do now.

Gemma, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily seem to be going crazy in the same way that Juice is, but she’s definitely acting a bit insane. Every episode we watch her having these talks with Tara, talks that she never in a million years would have ever had with her when she was alive. In their talks, Gemma acts like the type of mother-in-law she always should have been to Tara. Somehow it seems that only now after her death, Gemma finally began to understand her daughter-in-law. It’s almost kind of nice watching these scenes, especially because they make me feel like Tara is still a part of this show (I miss her!). However, one thing I think that Tara never would have agreed with, was Gemma’s belief that maybe Thomas could be a Doctor like his mother, “Able is his Daddy’s son.” Sadly, it is probably true that with all that Abel is seeing at such a young impressionable age, he probably will grow up to be like his Daddy.

There was a lot of action in this episode and as I said before, a lot of the awful stuff that Jax has done this season definitely came back to haunt him. First, there was the preacher who was killed by the sons as a favor to an ally in the previous episode. August is looking for him or his wife now in order to close an important deal. Obviously Jax knows that nothing good will come of August looking for the preacher, so he decides to find the preacher’s wife for August instead. When they find the wife (and her son), however, Tig is shot and the mother and son end up driving their car into a lake as they try to escape. This was a very important scene because I felt that Jax redeemed himself a little bit as he immediately jumped into the lake to save the wife from drowning. We saw a little bit of the old Jax in this episode, and I really hope we will get to see more of that guy before the season ends.

The biggest consequences in this episode were carried out by Henry Lin’s crew. Though it isn’t clear how yet, it is clear that Lin has figured out about Jax’s betrayal. He seeks retaliation and hits the Sons of Anarchy simultaneously in three different ways.  First the ice cream shop is blown up with sheriff Jarry and many of the club members inside (though none of them were hurt, and we got a good view of Chibs protecting Jarry out of it). Then they got to the guns that were being stored in a nearby warehouse and killed the SAMCRO member who was guarding them. Finally, the biggest hit to the club came from Lin’s gang making a trip to the escort agency. Everyone, including Colette, was killed and left for them to find. As Jax walks into the room you can see the look of regret on his face. Despite his actions to the contrary, Jax doesn’t want any more people to die. He doesn’t want to lose any more of his people. He doesn’t want the violence that he started to come to Charming, but unfortunately the path that he has chosen to take the club on has led to just that.

I don’t know if the consequences that Jax met this week were dire enough to spark a change in him, but they did bring out a side of Jax that has been sorely missing this season: the side that cares. It was good to see that he can still care, and as we get further into the season I hope to see more of that, especially as things start to really get moving.