lazylou

I found this episode disappointing, except for the scenes related to Deran, Adrian, and the guy who ended up dead on the floor of the bar. Maybe the flashbacks are intended to somehow explain how Smurf became Smurf, and who Pope and Julia's father was, but I, like most everyone else, find them a distraction from the plot threads that really interest me. About the only good thing I can say about this episode is that, while I expected this season to see J vs Smurf, instead it seems the boys are coming together while, because of the cancer, one imagines a change in the attitude of the boys towards Smurf when they learn she is ill. Even J seems to be reassessing his plans once he finds out. We see Pope helping and J confiding in Deran; Craig stepping up and trying to make things right with the bros after the disastrous job with Frankie, and Pope being tormented by not being able to tell his brothers about Smurf's cancer. Mia seems to have disappeared, at least temporarily from J's life, a good thing; Deran expresses his love for Deran even when he realizes Deran is betraying the family, and Craig seems interested in being a father to Renn's baby. Even in the flashback, Colin and Janine appear to genuinely care about one another, and not just be using each other. Meanwhile, we have Pope for the first time this season NOT being self destructive, probably because of Angela's influence (while J and Smurf clearly want her gone,) and the knowledge that Deran may have to take out Adrian himself rather than see J, Smurf, or Pope do it. So we do have some pretty complex relationships in play here. But all this seems a little the stuff of soap operas...not exactly the action drama we have come to expect.

I am glad someone else thought the million dollar watch questionable. And I did not realize they stole the motor cycle. The rich guy could certainly have reported the thefts to the cops, so I wonder where Craig managed to fence both so quickly. Seems a violation of what Smurf does. And what happened to his two security guys?

So far, I am really enjoying this show. Kevin Bacon is clearly a not so good cop still enjoying a past success, in need of a new one.

This is just a screw up, a typical bureaucratic screw up. There would have been no HIPAA then, as you observed. Today the typical medical office problem is the opposite.

Does anyone besides me think Renn is a really bad influence on Craig? He is already snorting coke the morning after her arrival.

Jephte and Shawniece have no experience of a functional nuclear family. Jephte was wrong to cheat on Shawniece, for sure, but their relationship has always been ... strained. Sometimes they really seem to care about each other...others it seems More like Sadie chasing Lil Abner.

I suspect that was the show runner trying to make Danielle seem unreasonable. She has not ruled out going back to work after th baby is born and she always said he she did not see herself as a stay at home mom.

I don’t blame Danielle for wanting to move if she plans to continue working. Driving 90 minutes each way is a big burden for a new mom. That would be a total of three hours on the road every day. But on the show she is ...I think ...pretending that she may quit work and stay home with the baby. She may in fact do that when she finds out how hard it all is, but at this point I suspect she really plans to go back to work.If she just said that, the need for a home in a different area would be clear, and her prioritizing “area” would make more sense.

Potter’s demand that Angel and EZ kill their cousin will change everything....Angel has been working with Adelita secretly anyway and now maybe EX becomes a double agent. The whole plot line has become dreadfully complex.

So far, so good. Wonder if these motorcycle gangs are reality (still) in Cali? Or if Kurt Sutter has developed these trappings...the jackets, the table with a crest in the center, the hierarchy, the extended networks of clubs. The Hell's Angels have (had) national presence, but are there many of these groups?

This is the silliest Western ever...and that is saying something! We don't have to chose between the cowboys and the Indians. Both sides are conniving, greedy, and too clever for their own good....or at lest their leaders are. (Except for Monica and her grandfather.) If you want to see a good film about politics in modern day Montana, go see the documentary "Dark Money."

At the end of the first season, the final shot is of J fingering his new Beretta and glaring at all the family members gathered around the pool. So definitely he has been nurturing feelings of hatred for a long, long time, all related probably to his desperate childhood. In that case, why did he not rat the family out to the cops in Season One? Maybe because this will not get him what he actually wants...the family money and lifestyle. Sending them to jail just lands him in foster care... The reason he called Smurf in the first place was because he knew they were wealthy and because his only other option was foster care...only, maybe in California 17 is too old for that? He told Smurf in the final episode that he thought she had kept a roof over their heads...but this season has made clear that at times they were actually homeless and hungry. So Smurf apparently provided a minimum. Also: the teacher warned him not to tell the cops about anything that would implicate him. He had been involved in the two major crimes he might have been able to tell them about first hand...the watch heist where he had helped steal a car and the Pendleton heist he had helped set up by setting the fire in the building. So he really has nothing to give them. He did tell them about the things he has heard the boys talking about, but the cops were not satisfied with that info. Next: in Season Two, he seems to warm to Smurf and tries hard to worm his way into her heart, for instance by instigating the hold up of the diner in Arizona. (But note the underlying threat when he promises her to end her life before she dies as Manny did.) But when Baz asks him what he is going to do with the "free money"($20,000) she gave each of them after the home invasion, J said, "nothing is free." Then, when working to steal Smurf's storage unit, Baz suddenly gives him fatherly advice about Smurf..."Don't want you to make my mistakes..." Oddly that all plays out in the last season. As noted before, in the latest season, Smurf mishandles J. She takes him for granted and orders him to use his own money (and if he paid the lawyers from his own stash as well as the protection money, he would have exhausted his savings.) She ought to have directed him to sell the land in Carlsbad he later sold secretly. Then she orders him to confront the very people in the desert who had nearly killed him in the pool. She orders him to go see Lucy but forbids his use of the body armor. He sees that having POA is a terrible burden (unless he does what he did!) and the Smurf is using him just as Baz had warned him she would. He kills Morgan in a desperate effort to cover his sale of the properties. Why does Smurf not kill him when she finds out? Maybe because a) he has just saved her life, and b) she sees he is very smart and thinks she can get him back in line and use him further. So she nullifies his actions by giving everyone property. Earlier, she tried to break up his relationship with Mia, I suppose to cut off associations outside the family. But, if she heard J's whisper in her ear, a war is about to unfold in Season 4. Pope still has his DIY murder kit. At the end, he and J seem to be declaring war with each other. So... which side are you on, bro, which side are you on? Smurf took out Lucy because she knew that if Pope did not kill her (Smurf) for killing Baz, Lucy would. Some people do not seem to remember all the people we know Smurf has killed or had killed: Javi's father, the guy in season one who had abandoned her mom and her, Catherine, Catherine's parents, Javi, Baz, and who knows who else. J expected her to take him out if he could not shift the blame to Morgan for the theft of the properties. She had also, for the most part, abandoned her own daughter and grandson. Pope has not killed anyone (new) yet. He intends to kill Smurf for killing Baz, but she seems to have forestalled this with all her gaslighting.

Why does J hate Smurf? In addition to the way she treated his mother, Smurf has mishandled J badly throughout the season. First, she suspects J got to her stuff before Pete could, but there is no reason to think J had any idea where it was hidden. Next, when he realizes there is not enough available cash to pay the bills, she insists he use his own stash. This would be a big deal to a kid who grew up with nothing. And he can't have all that much anyway...just the money he got when he helped Pope steal the payroll from the gardening firm in S1, whatever he was given for his part in the heist from Camp Pendleton, his cash share and what he helped himself to from the boat heist, and the money from the church robbery. Baz gave him some money which he evidently used for the truck, and Smurf gave him cash to live on just before she went to jail. This seems like a lot until you realize that the lawyer's bills were like $80,000 a pop. Next, she ordered him to track Javi's crew down, risking his life; made him go without body armor to meet Lucy and, alone among the boys, was stuck at the warehouse shootout with no gun or vest. Meanwhile, none of the others even go to see her in jail, resist having to contribute to a heist to pay for the bills on their buildings. He is sure if Smurf finds out he has sold the buildings she will kill him as she had Baz killed. Also, he suspects Mia began following him on Smurf's orders. it seemed during the first couple of seasons that J had wormed his way into her affections, but she turns on him almost immediately when Baz takes her stuff, suspecting J was more than a patsy. He saves her life in the garage. Maybe that is why he is allowed to live when she finds out he sold three properties. She probably thinks he now has a million plus in cash, but of course he used the money to buy the bowling alley. (Etc) So I guess she won this round...but did she?

Eerie that, at the very end, J virtually repeated what Baz said in Season Two about taking everything and everyone Smurf cared about. Note that Smurf started telling J he was Baz's son in the very first episode of the season...as though from the moment she learned the stash was gone from the house in S 3, episode 1 she began suspecting J and deciding he was definitely Baz's kid. J seems to be her only ally in Season Two, but this entire season she has treated him as expendable, ordering him to use his own relatively small stash to pay her lawyers and protection and then expecting him to sacrifice his life on her command. She is good at manipulating everyone but J... But very good following the trail of what he has done. Had he not taken her properties, hard to imagine she would have given any of the boys anything. But because she divvied up the properties, seems as though J has killed Morgan and alienated Smurf for no reason. J seemed annoyed with Mia's nagging at the beginning of the finale. Maybe he will not care about the boyfriend.

By the way... Grizzlies are off the endangered list. So I don't think the Feds will be as irate as suggested by the Mt Fish and Eildkife guy.