Ottis

I tried to watch the afterwards, twice, and I couldn't do it. It's so grating. There is a lot of haha, insider stuff ("many late nights and bottles of tequila") that are not interesting and make no sense (you needed late nights and alcohol to write scripts?), and not enough actual information about what we saw on the screen. They never got the afterwards thing right, IMO. I rewatched the last few minutes last night and everyone was driving even slower than I remembered it. And I think they made a mistake having Jax pull off the handlebars and drift into the path of the truck so far in advance. At those slow speeds (and going slower with no throttle), he would have been hurt but also could have survived. Plus, for viewers there was no shock to it. He should have been going faster and moved quickly into the lane with arms out. Just a weird sequence that undermined itself. And pretty comical. In all that time they followed Jax, and that many cops showed up behind him, not one of those cops would be coming from the other direction and be able to get *ahead* of Jax? Normal procedure in a car chase is to box in and slow down. Jax never showed any speed or attempt to get away. Why didn't they try to box him in? They were swerving into the oncoming lane enough (I laughed every time they showed the cops swerving back and forth behind him, like they really wanted to speed up but were told not to do it).

This thread would be 20 percent shorter if people would turn on close captioning. I knew truck suicide was his plan as soon as he got on JT's bike, to match his dad's death. Then he was just driving around until he found a truck headed his way. I don't think so. I think we were supposed to believe that was what happened at the beginning of the series, and perhaps even Gemma and Clay believed it, but actually JT saw it coming and offed himself (in a similar manner to Jax) as a move to save his club and go out on his terms. So Jax became what he was trying to escape. But his kids won't (not). I still don't see what Jax saved. Still lots of issues for his club and kids.

What was surprising to me was just how poorly it was done. Just a few examples: Forget the CGI ... that truck looked like it was going 10 mph (maybe even uphill), and Jax was barely going faster. There was no sense of speed or danger. And what was up with the spastic cops behind him? They would weave in and out, and one would sometimes pass the others, but to what end? And why didn't they just shoot his tires (or Jax), or get ahead of him and do a roadblock? And what sort of dumbassses (well they are MCs, I guess) would believe Jax escaped in a shoot out where just one guy got hit in the arm? And Jax-in-a-blanket, at a state building, with NO cops around (and none who show up imediately after the shots were fired), made no sense. And it seemed like it took forever for the Oregon cops to call the Samcro cops when they found Unser and Gemma ... it was well after we saw all the cops and the guy taking the photos. There was an APB out on her and he was an ex-cop, that should have happened within minutes, assuming there was any ID around (and we were given no reason to think there wasn't - shoot, Jax told Patterson that Gemma and Unser were in Oregon, her first call should have been that direction and she would have found out about the bodies being discovered). The bread and wine thing escaped me. I thought it was cake, and kept trying to figure out how "Let them eat cake" fit in. There seemed to be clear Jesus metaphors going on, but I don't know what Jax saved by sacrificing himself. The MC is still in a mess, and his oldest son appears to be headed for the same fate. And as I have posted the last several episodes, I hate that Sutter is saying that these characters had no other choices in life. That isn't true. I tried to get into it, and listen to Jax's final comments on his sad life. But all the dumb stuff kept taking me out of the show. Even with all that said, and with how bad the show had become since those initial great two seasons, I will miss these characters.

So basically we agree, based on what we were shown. My question is, what does Sutter want us to take away from his SOA creation? Because it feels like he is saying these people had no choice, but (as just noted) we don't agree with that. SOA members clearly had a number of choices, and kept making bad ones. If Sutter is saying this was in essence all destined, then that is a load of crap. And I can't figure out what else he might be saying. Chibs seemed to. And BTW, Jax actually at times looked almost relieved that his journey would soon be over.

I think that's endemic to the fact Sutter has always said SOA was based on Hamlet. Almost everyone dies. I haven't read Hamlet in forever, but I wondered if a main character had some kind of injury near the end. I've been surprised at all the talk by Katey and Sutter about her death scene, and how "calm" it was. What else could it have been? You couldn't have Jax tearing around the country in pursuit of his fleeing mother, or battling her with a fork in another kitchen. It *had* to involve acceptance on Gemma's part, because in the end, that's who she was. And Jax really didn't want to have to do it, but in order to "make whole" all the deaths that resulted from Gemma, he had to. There was no other way, and I don't know why Katey or Sutter would think anyone would assume otherwise. I've been thinking about that question of what was the point of the entire series? And I still don't know for sure. It has always been The Sopranos w/bikes, so the idea that, despite all the "normal" aspects of these characters we see, they are bad people who are hoisted by theor own petards, rings true. But unlike The Sopranos, Sutter seems to be saying that none of the SOA gang had any choice, that this life was all they had known, all they could ever have been and steered their every action (including keeping Jax from escaping even when he wanted to). And I don't agree with that.

I think this is as close to an answer as we are going to get. The hospital was a subtle madness compared to the utter craziness of the ZA outside. Done well, that would have been pretty cool. But IMO it wasn't done well, it was too vague. I kept waiting for the reveal of why the hosiptal survivors were so bad, and it never came. There were insinuations and small things (like pushing the older man to the ground), and Dawn was clearly a little nuts, but then who isn't in a ZA? And then it all ended. But I agree with this post, that the hospital was the show giving us an example of lies people tell themselves to hang onto what they need to believe before going insane. The more interesting impact of the hospital is what it will do to Rick, who is already becoing as hard as anyone we have seen during the series. Who will he ever trust? As for Beth, I liked her a lot in this ep, and the actress as well. She showed us a harder Beth, one who was standing up for her beliefs and calling people on their crap instead of running away. It is sad that her character died so randomly. Until then, I thought she was going to become more of a hardened survivor, but with some basic morals.

It felt like the Batman show from the 1960s. By the 3rd or 4th shot, I was kind of giggling. All it needed was a fist fight with the "Bam!" and "Zzzzappp!" balloons. So what did Beth "get" just before she stabbed Dawn? I didn't understand Beth's path. She clearly was working through something. I'm just not sure what. And she arrived at a conclusion. But I don't know how that tied to her stabbing Dawn.

Every time this actor talks, he sounds like a 6-pack a day smoker. Ugh.

I didn't understand this episode much. - So the Ft Smith Mormans died by smallpox ... but the ones we saw at Fort Smith didn't look like they had smallpox, and some clearly were stabbed or attacked. And one dead body appeared to be a Native American. So Indians attacked, but left a horse and livestock? And some people left but others stayed behind? None of this makes sense. - Left with no other option, Cullen decides he wants Naomi after all. So he goes to look for them, taking a month to get to Salt Lake City. Once there, he decides to halt his search (and depend on his new boss to find her) and stay a while and work on the railroad? So his need for Naomi isn't burning, because help or no, a man like Cullen wouldn't stop looking. And he didn't seem to have a desire for revenge against Durant. In fact, they parted amicably. So why now settle down and work on a railroad? To meet The Swede, of course, but that is plot wanking, not logic. - Rather than stay in a more civilized Cheyene, Eva decides to hit the road with a man who fondled her when she was weak, and his crew of women beaters? I thought Eva was trying to bring herself up in a society that disciminates against her. But she will give up on that desire and instead leave with thugs. And why does Mickie give her a gun belt? I assume that sympolized she was a partner, like the Dead Rabbitts? Couldn't she have bought a gun at any time on her own? - Does Joseph Smith know The Swede murders people in order to get Smith what he wants? Surely he suspects it. So is the show saying Smith is no better than Cullen?

Jax's spoken realization of what Gemma had done sucked. He mentioned the deaths of Bobby and West and someone else, but not a word about "all those girls." I'm not usually one to post things along gender lines, but I kept waiting for someone, anyone, to mention them, because that was a lot of deaths all laid at Gema (and Jax's) feet. I assume Nero was thinkng it, but he never said it. It would have been good to hear it voiced. In fact, everyone involved moved on pretty quickly from the thought of all those who died starting when Gemma ID'd the Chinese for Tara's murder. I would have kept saying to Jax, "Wait - your MOM killed Tera! Gemma?!" for a good, long while. That's exactly what he was referring to. We don't know his plans for Gemma, yet. I was surprised Juice told the whole truth. Kept expecting one last cover up for Gemma. I FF'd through the chase scene, as I do all car/bike chase scenes. They add little and all that matters is the end.Never heard the music. Was the lingering shot of the road sign going north a call back to Tera at one point wanting to move her and the kids north away from the club, and the irony of Gemma escaping in that same direction?

Ha, that was good. Thanks for the laugh. Daryl killing the mom and daughter wasn't necessraily for Carol. My first thought when they realized who was making the noise inside the room was that someone would have to "kill" those zombies, otherwise you would never know if a noise was them or someone sneaking up on you. Carol didn't have to do it, but someone should have. Glad Daryl did. I know the show had Carol say "thank you," and lots of viewers seem invested in the Carol/Daryl thing, but he did what he had to do. Burning them was actually dumb, because that would leave a smoke signal for others to investigate. So if that was Daryl being sensitive, well, he is smarter when he isn't.

None of it adds any meaningful info to what we knew. It's like that episode of Lost when the doc gets a tattoo and we learn how we got it. So? he has a tattoo. What's next? Details that explained events in the past that didn't need more explanation. Carol's issues have always clearly included those from her pre-ZA life. And she is still alive, so she had to have hidden somewhere. The show has shown this multiple times before, as Daryl has become less wild redneck and more "civilized." This was just the latest baby step. My earlier comment wasn't meant to mean we literally didn't learn anything new. Every show shows *something* new. The meaning was more that none of what we learned changed anything about what we already knew. People who are into relationships or certain characters might have dug this episode. People into the overall story were marking time. This season has been a slow decent from a great start. Maybe it will have a great ending?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Is there a TV rule that says you can't have steady pacing during a season? This season started off fantastic, and now we have 3 boring eps in a row. What was the point of walking us through the Daryl and Carol show only to get us back to where we were three episodes ago? Yes, Carol was abused. Yes, she and Daryl are different. Yes, Carol is taken into the hospital. And sooooooo ... now can we learn something new? Yes!

Closed captioning. I use it regularly, partly because I tend to watch DVR'd TV when everyone else in the house is asleep. But use it, it will save you eight rewinds! This show is starting to feel like Sons of Anarchy, Wild West Edition. Each week there is a death or gratuitous blood or gore. I don't understand the direction. The way they write women characters is what it is for me, I guess. But I don't know what we are supposed to be learning from the show right now. The revenge angle was lost long ago. The railroad history angle has receeded almost out of sight. The struggle between encroaching civililation and the frontier was a intriguing story line this season, and it is still there, but is being buried under the blood. Vlearly this is about Cullen, but Cullen becoming what? A beaten man whose only reason to exists is to nail in the final railroad spike?

This show chooses to focus on the oddest things at the oddest times. After weeks and weeks of little humanity, we get clubbed on the head for most of this episode about how these guys are all humans who just want love. In a vacuum that was well done. Unfortunately, it comes within a context that makes it at best awkward,a nd at worst WTF? A few eps back, did Abel overhear Gemma say she used a fork to kill Tera, or that she just killed Tera? That would make his choice of a fork interesting. Were we supposed to believe that the ambush on Marks' guys was set in motion in advance, and that the pinching of TO and Rat was anticipated and planned? That ... defies belief.

The issue with not seeing what was ahead puzzles me. Iwas watching on a 40" TV and I could tell there were a bunch of slow-moving walkers up ahead. Maybe my brain was filling in details, but what else could it be in a ZA? Only so many in the road, but they were spread out, and would all start heading to the road as soon as they heard a noise. In a balky fire truck, not sure they could have made it through the mass of zombies. After a great beginning to this season, this show has become Lostified. Characters are important, but we don't need everyone's back story.

Except ... do FBI agents always call out the names of terrorists as they approach them in public, as Lizzie did with Vokof? And then name top secret nuclear scientists undercover on an unknown phone when they call into their boss? Just stupid, Lizzie. But you do have a nice butt. Yeah, I am a week late. Took me that long to watch.

I agree that last week was better than this week. My main issue is that neither seemed very relevant. I guess since Carol showed up at the hospital, it makes that location more relevant. Otherwise it was a peek at how other survivors are handling the ZA and little else. I don't think whether a female character is at the center of it or not matters in my enjoyment. This week's episode was very slow and boring. And, clearly, confusing, as few seem to know what Abraham's flashback was about and why his wife left. The rape theory would seem to explain it, but then you would also have to fanwank that 1) the wife was raped, and maybe a kid or two was abused or saw it, 2) that Abraham wasn't able to stop it from happening but them somehow was able to overpower multiple men with a food can, 3) that when he did that, his rage so upset his wife and kids - the wife having been raped and then rescued by her husband - that they were more afraid of him than the outside world and left, and 4) that the outside world was so bad they barely made it a few hundred yards before becoming zombie chow (so his wife was more afraid of Abraham than an external threat that great?). That is a lot is wanking. To me, it makes more sense to assume Abraham and his family ran out of food during a ZA, they all went out to get more (a wank right there ... why all of them? But I digress), while out they had to fight with other survivors for food and in doing so Abraham brutally killed other survivorsin front of his family. I could see how that might be shocking. Still, given they would have been in a ZA for a while, I don't see it being so shocking that his family would flee him. So no theory so far seems to make sense. My initial reaction was that he had killed zombies in the grovery store to protect his family, and there weren't other survivors with them so people didn't just turn/get attacked, so again I don't know why his wife fled with the kids. This is becoming a dead horse, but what happened there matters to the rest of the episode. Either Abraham murdered surviors in cold blood and maybe has a temper that was apparent before the ZA so this was the culmination of a series of episodes that then set off his wife, or Abraham was a decent husband/father who was protecting his family and his wife was ... an idiot? I don't know. But for some reason, yeah, he needs a reason to live.

i'm not sure Eugene is smart. He spouts off things that any devoted forum watcher of sci-fi shows could spout off. I thought we were going to hear that his hair was that way because he was an Elvis impersonator before the ZA.

Agreed, I FF'd through it. OK, so Mickey brings in his own gang to push back against Campbell. But Campbell, as heinous as he may be at times, is a legal governor with the power to call on the military and other resources. What does Mickey hope to gain by bringing in the Dead Rabbits? It won't end well for Mickey. I was confused at the beginning of Little Ruth's flashback. I thought she was the sister to some of the boys who were killed (with their dad) and was hiding, and that the preacher found her and was going to adopt her. So she was actually his daughter? And he carried her around everywhere with his gang, and she just happened to see something this time that she had missed every other time? Seems ... unlikely. I liked vegeful Ruth, happy to hear Snow is dead. Durant was so cruel, telling Cullen he will be forgotten by history. Loved the "where do men like us end up" theme. Loved it. Because you could already see that happening as the shanty town became a real town, and the devices of government began to move in.

Wait - why was Abraham's family afraid of him? He killed some walkers in a grocery store, and his family hid and then later ran off? I don't get it. If those weren't walkers, then where was everyone else in the store? If they were walkers, why did his wife feel the need to run away? That threw me the whole episode. It was very boring.

Maybe I missed something, but how was the hosiptal any worse than most every place else we have seen in the ZA? They had a semblance of a society. The leader, a woman, seemed more or less normal with her own post-ZA perspective. Did I miss an anvil? Was it that they recued young women and made them into sex slaves for the uniformed cops, who in turn kept everyone safe? I thought it was going that way, and I kept waiting for the big reveal of why the hospital was bad, but either I missed it or it never came. The fact the existing doc killed a potential rival to protect himself in a ZA ... that was "bad" but not very unique for the circumstance, I would wager.

I didn't care for this episode, but I have liked this season better than the last few. Everyone is growing up/moving forward in their lives, sometimes against their will. I like the dynamics this creates. The one part that made no sense to me was that Luke would know who Temple Grandin was or about the hug box. Seems out of character for him. That would have been awesome.

What has happened to Prince? He has lost the funk. I miss it. It was. Some of it was that the punchlines weren't funny. They were too long developing, and when they got there, they were too sophisticated. The audience wanted broad humor, something almost absurdest. Shark Tank had a chance, but it never got there. The new logo was weak. At elast come up with something new, don't steal another company's logo.

If "Captain Cold" is going to be the honcho behind gathering a team of villains, he needs a different name. Captain Cold as a name is silly.And he is only that because he happens to own a weapon that freezes people. If a teenager gets it, is the teenager now Captain Cold? The leader needs to be someone who is intrinsically evil in a particular way, not someone who stole a weapon.