jrlr

Very interesting observation about the implants and the possibility of a compromised autoimmune system - I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the case. As for having had friends like Tori, when I was younger I did, too. They are simply awful, and until you realize what exactly is going on, you DO get sucked in - they are emotional vampires. I already thought that Tori was a narcissist - and given her background, it's no surprise. But after watching this season, I've amended my unprofessional diagnosis to malignant narcissist.

He doesn't look perfect to me. I think Noah is a hypocrite and a fraud, and - unlike a lot of you here - I think his confession to Helen was incredibly selfish, done just to make himself feel better. Exactly what Max had warned him not to do.

I want to know what was in the note from Noah to Alison that Cherry burned. Personally, I wish Alison had gone all Sons of Anarchy on that bitch and stuck a fork in her head. I HATE that character - one day she's telling Alison how Alison was the one who got them all through the tragedy of Gabriel's death and giving her her wedding ring, now she's telling her how ungrateful she is for all the help they've given her. Ugh. If I had to guess, I think the note would have been some half-assed apology for the way he acted when Alison dropped the kid off. Given Noah's character, I'm sure that would - in his mind - be enough to get Alison to forgive him, and then he could find a way to jump into bed with her again.

Showtime is running a marathon this weekend - Homeland on Saturday and The Affair on Sunday.

No, you are not the only one - I think Dominic West is incredibly hot, too. And I haven't had a bit of trouble accepting that these two people are truly drawn to each other (I won't use "in love" because I don't even know what it means in this context). But even though Noah asked Alison to run away with him, I don't get the feeling that he was ever really planning for his marriage to end; I think this was a summer fling for him at just the right time in his life, and he has found a perfect way (the drug dealing) to "honorably" (in his mind) end it. But Alison, in love or not, really thinks she is - and she is the one who really envisioned a whole new life with him and took the idea of running away seriously. And we already know that Noah's second book is about an affair that takes place in Montauk, so it makes sense to me that the detective would comb through it for unintentional clues.

I think there is a lot of good acting in this show, but Ruth Wilson is just mesmerizing as Alison - she conveys quiet pain better than anyone I've ever seen. A couple of smaller points: In Noah's version, we see Noah and Helen after the hospital as they get home and Helen is NOT wearing the apron she wears at her store. In Alison's version, Helen IS wearing it when the group hug and pulling the drapes happens. And who is Leon? After his confession to Helen and while they are arguing, he brings up "Leon" and Helen says that nothing happened. Has she already had an affair?

Helen can be icy,but I totally believed that she knew about the affair when Alison - in one of the stupidest, high-school-ish scenes EVAH - walked into the shop. I saw almost a gauntlet thrown down between the two women, and I think Alison's frozen reaction was from guilt and shock at seeing Helen as anything other than a spoiled rich woman who is used to getting her own way. But I think she still loves Noah (God knows why) and really wants to keep the family intact. Alison IS in love with Noah (again, God knows why), but the entire Brooklyn sequence made me think that Alison is really waking up to the truth of her stifled Lockhart existence - her reaction when she emerged from the subway onto the street was full of wonder and the tantailzing appeal of a completely different world than Montauk. Everyone here seems to dislike Helen for different reasons. I actually don't dislike her, but I cannot forgive or forget that incredibly nasty dig at Noah when she was trying to get him to stay home with the kids for a semester and almost as an aside mentioned that maybe that way he could finish a book more than once every ten years. THAT was a completely emasculating, put-your-spouse-in-his-place remark, and I wonder if Noah can actually bury that memory somewhere in his mind and not think about it. At this point it seems like Alison will get pregnant with Cole and they will move to the city, as she wishes to. Cole is a Montauk boy through and through, but even he seems to be getting pretty sick of the hold the ranch and Ma Lockhart has over him. As for Noah, it wouldn't have bothered me at all if he'd had a heart attack instead of a panic attack (shades of The War of the Roses and Tony Soprano). His confession to Helen was decent - in a way - but he's still lying to her when it comes to his emotions. I want to think that he really loves Alison, but he has treated her like shit. Come to think of it, he loves Helen, but he's treated her like shit, too. Not liking Noah at the moment.

I immediately thought of Whitney, too. I loved the offstage fight that Helen's parents had, with the rest of the family creeping around trying to hear what was being said. I love the fact that this is so character driven, and that the characters have so much to reveal. At this point, Alison still breaks my heart the most of any of the characters;- but so does Cole after this episode. I did think the Broooklyn scene with Alison and Cole kind of slipped off the subtlety rails when Cole said he hates the city and Alison said she kind of likes it. Noah continues to be an asshole, but I guess he redeemed himself somewhat by telling Helen about the affair; and Helen won some sympathy for the scene in which Noah accuses her of always waiting for him to become someone and she replies that that's what she thought he wanted. And I'd cross the street if I saw Ma Lockhart coming in my direction - she's a master manipulator and she's dead serious about her position of matriarch of this testosterone-loaded brood. Kind of Ma Barker, but with a lot of expensive land and all her teeth.

What was anybody's take on Gemma's expression as she headed north? I was puzzled by it because I thought she almost looked smug, pleased with herself - in stark contrast to the fear she had been feeling earlier.

It was the moment during the ordering-food process. Alison put her hand on his shoulder and said "Welcome to the end of the world." Now that's not portentous, is it?

I had a slightly different reaction to Helen's snide "You can do better than that" comment to Max. I think that somewhere in Helen's psyche she suspects Noah of infidelity and she has honed in on Allison as being involved. Yes, Helen is an upper class snob, but she's also bright and complex, and to me, that scene played like a lot was being said between the lines. I thought that comment was a sly slap in Noah's face, a reminder that he has completely thrown his lot in with her family, and that a mere waitress (who Helen doesn't know happens to be a pediatric nurse and could have gone to medical school) simply doesn't measure up. And Noah's treatment of Allison in the break-up scene seems to underscore that same attitude. There was almost a sense of "whew! I found a way out" in his words and expressions.

Do we think that Ma Lockhart knows what her boys are doing?

This is a tricky structure to work with, and I think the writers are very deliberate about their choices. I thought it was interesting that Allison looked harder in this episode, at least up until Noah shut the door in her face. I'm becoming more sympathetic to Allison and less to Noah as the season progresses. Allison seems genuinely trapped in her situation while Noah's feeling of entrapment is there, but his trap too cushy to give up so easily. I wasn't even sure if he was really dumping Allison for the drug dealing or if he just used it as a very convenient excuse.

I'm waiting for a tie-in between the pills Allison stole from the hospital and the Lockhart drug ring. Both of those kids should be in therapy, and they might as well start the younger ones right away and get the jump on things.

It's always been a soap opera - let's face it: Sutter is no Shakespeare - but now it seems like a cross between a video game and a cartoon to me. I'm SO glad that Jax has finally been clued in about Tara's murder, this is the part I've been waiting for all season as we all slogged through the bloodbaths and the plot holes.

Abel heard Gemma say that killing mommy was an accident, but there was no mention of a fork in that scene. That's why I LOVED Abel using a fork to hurt himself. What I want to know is if Gemma knows that it was a fork. If I were Gemma, that would be so freaky that it would send my right over the cliff into breakdown or confession. Of course, since it's Gemma we're talking about, neither of those things will happen. Poor Nero. Speaking of Unser dying from the beginning of the series, so has Juice. I recently watched the pilot episode again to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating, and that the show really HAD been better earlier. Anyway, in that opener, Juice accidentally takes an overdose (he thought he was taking speed but it turned out to be some form of oxy elephant tranquilizer). And it's been pretty much downhill for him since then. Who thought Marilyn Manson could act? Wrong. I had a different response to the Tig-Venus scene. While I can believe that Venus would know how to talk about emotions and her feelings for Tig, I thought Tig's speech back to her (pretty and moving as it was) sounded like he was channeling someone else with with a brain, morals and an education, and it took me right out of the scene. Jax has to have had one of the worst character arcs evah! In seven seasons (I think) he's gone from being a brooding but thinking guy who was not at all happy when he had to be involved with violence to being a trigger-happy kill-em-all-and-sort-it-out-later (or not) psychopath. The dude never seems to stop and think about anything before he does it - from mass murder to telling Abel about Wendy. I'm still thinking - even with the finale last night - that Nero will figure out that Gemma killed Tara before anyone else does.

I thought it was Scotty who was heading upstairs with Whitney at the Butler's party (where Allison was a server). Allison saw them and asked what he was doing and then Noah came on the scene and asked what was going on, right?

This was the first time I've thought that Noah and Allison might have ended up together, but why would either of them be a suspect in Scotty's death? There have been some intense looks exchanged between Allison and Scotty, and to me that hints at some underlying problem or secret between them. I think it's really interesting that Noah is the one who is cracking under the pressure of his double life, while Allison seems to handle it more easily (or maybe she just acts like she does, since Allison obviously has layers and layers that are being revealed). It seems really odd to me that Noah, an educated liberal, would have refused to let Helen get therapy for Whitney, who is either just a spoiled entitled brat or verging on some kind of mental illness. Helen's parents are a living nightmare, and while Noah has obviously been chafing about their control for years, it seems like it's the affair that's the catalyst to letting all his resentment show. But I'm confused about what the hell Oscar is doing - and I was kind of hoping that he was the victim. Is Allison a nurse? When she was talking to Noah about having wanted to go to med school, she didn't mention that she's a nurse, did she? And what were the meds she stole from the hospital when she went there seemingly to get her old job back?

Me for Nero being the first to realize that Gemma was the killer; I don't think Unser is too far behind him, but Wendy? I get the impression that she purposely ignores a lot of what goes on and won't let herself think much about it. Anybody notice how (qualified) pretty Wendy looked last night? Softer hair and makeup, nicer clothes? Now the only question is will it be Jax or Nero she hooks up with? I'd vote for Nero if he survives, well, if anyone manages to survive. I'd love to see Unser as the last man standing, since everyone's been expecting him to die at any moment from the cancer for seven seasons!

On a completely different note, what the hell was Corey Stoll (Sandy) doing in a bit part in the first episode? Obviously Carrie is going to make her season's mission to find out who Sandy's contacts were and who - if anyone - Sandy was feeding information to. But really, after a brilliant multi-episode stint on House of Cards and the other work he's done, Corey Stoll seems like a VERY unlikely actor to put in such a dinky role (well, aside from the pulled-from-the-car-and-beaten-to-death). Okay, back to babies, mental illness and not wanting to parent her child. Carrie simply does not have any maternal instinct and when she's feeling pressured into being a mom, she crumbles under the weight of it and nearly kills the Brody-ette baby. The best thing in the world for that poor kid would be to put her up for adoption IMMEDIATELY.

I thought the letters were hidden in some trailer that Jax and Tara were using for storage - but that was so many season ago that I'm not sure. I think Gemma has morphed from Gertrude to Lady Macbeth, but LM killed herself too. And Abel? Wow! So young to be so psychotic!

Wow, I wish I'd found this forum before - no one I know watches Sons! I think Jax will find out that Gemma killed Tara, but not until just about everyone in Charming is dead. Whether or not Jax grows a conscience again (although it seems unlikely he will), the revelation will make him return to his (or Tara's) fixation about the boys never becoming part of SAMCRO. . . ever. Jax will will take the boys home, lock the doors and turn on the gas. Maybe the three of them can be playing on the floor in the kitchen where Tara died when the house blows up, killing all three of them while Gemma watches what she has wrought. She's already going bonkers, having conversations with Tara's ghost; losing "her boys" should drive her completely mad. Maybe that's when she can turn into the mysterious muttering bag lady who was around in the earlier seasons. I still can't believe Nero's devotion to Gemma at all, nor do I buy the Althea-Chibs attraction - but that may be because Annabeth Gish is so plain and sexless in this role. Finally. . . Courtney Love as a pre-school teacher? Now THAT made me laugh.