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S07.E03: Playing With Monsters


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I am so disappointed with the way this season is playing out. It has been written in a way that makes all of the characters uninteresting. There are only a few characters left that I consider at all compelling...and Sutter (or the writing staff) is not writing for them. Hubby says I should just let it go and ride it out. Everyone is going to die, so there is no point hoping that my characters are going to get anything to do. Sigh.

 

I really, really miss Clay, Opie, and Piney.

  • Love 10
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Gemma has lost her damn mind. 

 

Please let August be smarter than Pope and eviscerate the Sons. Like what in the hell is Jax even doing? This is complete insanity. It's as though he is burning down Charming just for the hell of it. I can't even follow all of the dirty dealings Jax is making. Is it all being jotted down in his Composition Book of Man Pain so that he keeps track?

 

Another dirty cop. Gemma in peril!!!! Dear God, this is all getting so boring. My hatewatching is starting to get too hateful. I don't know how much more of this I can take. 

  • Love 15
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This is just sickening to watch. The best part was the porn video filming, in which Frankenstein's Monster looked just like Gemma.

 

I'm hoping that the new police chief isn't as stupid as the rest of Charming, and is just gathering evidence.

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I can't even follow all of the dirty dealings Jax is making.

I don't think he can either.

 

Is it all being jotted down in his Composition Book of Man Pain so that he keeps track?

This? love.

This is just sickening to watch. The best part was the porn video filming, in which Frankenstein's Monster looked just like Gemma.

 

I'm hoping that the new police chief isn't as stupid as the rest of Charming, and is just gathering evidence.

 

That's my hope too, that she's playing them.  Otherwise, been there, done that, enough already.

  • Love 3
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I definitely got the feeling that the new police chief was playing them. I think she is trying to gain their trust to collect evidence and eventually take the gangs down. All of them ( or rather, whatever is left of them after they all kill each other).

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I enjoyed this episode but honestly don't know what the heck is going on... with all the double dealings and all. Just going along for the ride at this point.

 

Jax must be a pretty convincing guy to get all these people to take him at his word as they do. 

 

Tired of Juice and his sad sack routine.

 

The "franken" porn video was pretty funny.

Edited by Bandolero
  • Love 2
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This is just sickening to watch.

Jeez louise, at this point I'm half expecting Jax to pay his grocery bill by just gunning down everyone in the store.  It's hard to keep caring about any of this when it's just nothing but slaughter.

 

And why hasn't it occurred to any of Jax's co-conspirators that August would make a much better ally than Jax, so why not just rat Jax out?  He'll be grateful.

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Jeez louise, at this point I'm half expecting Jax to pay his grocery bill by just gunning down everyone in the store.  It's hard to keep caring about any of this when it's just nothing but slaughter.

 

And why hasn't it occurred to any of Jax's co-conspirators that August would make a much better ally than Jax, so why not just rat Jax out?  He'll be grateful.

When an exiled Juice can figure out that Jax's plan makes no damn sense, you would think that someone in the club do something more than ask Jax "do you wanna talk?" When Juice asked if they voted for mayhem, I thought it's about time someone asked what the hell is going on with Jax's grand plan.

I'm liking the idea of Jax not figuring out what Gemma's done until long after he's burned the club to the ground only because Gemma is Gertrude, Claudius, and Lady Macbeth.

  • Love 2
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Skankenstein was hilarious and the guys watching it. 

 

Not many shows can pulls off the '12 years a slave' line, Chibbs pointing it out to Jax's smirking "my bad" and get away with it being good in-character banter. But this show can.

 

I'm lost at what Jax's plan is at this point. He's having all the other gangs take each other out while nobody is their enemy. He's also now selling the heroin, since he told Tigg to move the keys. So from what I'm watching it looks like he's taking over everything, he wants the guns back and the drugs too. He just wants the rest to take each other out and the SOA will be the ones left standing to pick up it all.

 

Loved the Juice and Chibbs scene. Juice wearing his cuts and telling him that the club was his family and all he had, that he loved him. It fit his role and Chibbs not reacting until after he left and saying that he had to go because his heart in it was perfect. Juice's heart is different than all the rest and Chibbs wants him out of the life because of it.  Juice I think may end up giving his life for the club instead of the club taking it. Also liked the Gemma, Wendy, Unser meeting about Juice with deciding to save him by driving him out of town. 

 

Wendy's lecture to Rat's babysitter girlfriend (who looks like she needs a babysitter herself) showed how much smarter she is than Tara. Wendy loves Jax, but knows the life he leads means she can't be with him. Raise the kids, be there for the kids, support club issues like driving Juice out of town and kissing him bye , but don't be with Jax or change how things are.

 

Able's so much more aware of his family and surroundings than they give the child credit for. 

 

Nero is all of a sudden shooting people with machine guns in the streets? He went from Jax shooting people = bad, to doing it himself. 

 

Bobby looked uneasy after the call with Jury. I think Bobby knows that Jury knows. 

 

When the montage music started my first thought were they going to end the episode without the club going after that guy who hit Gemma in the kitchen and called the cops. I was really surprised and thought it unlike the show. Then minutes later, the guy opened the door to Gemma holding that cake and knew the guy was going to get it. All was right in SOA world.

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For a minute there, I thought Chibs and the new sheriff were going to start comparing scars ala "Lethal Weapon." She is definitely more than what she appears to be.

I love how everyone was so concerned over Abel. Please, that kid has been so traumatized at this point that a fistfight in a whorehouse is like Saturday morning cartoons to him.

Edited by AlliMo
  • Love 15
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I swear, Abel is the CREEPIEST kid.

 

 

All that child needs is a clown costume and we've got Michael Myers II. Those are the deadest eyes ever to grace a young face.

 

Seriously, Jax's only plan seems to be "burn down the world and dance on the ashes." He makes Opie look like Bob Ross in comparison. How is it that nobody is questioning the wholesale slaughter going on? Even for these guys this is a lot of murder for one week.

 

Why are the Niners being run by a twelve year old? When Jax was hugging that guy at the end you could tell he was thinking "Okay, I would actually feel bad about this, you dope, if I had a shred of soul left." Those scenes with him were like watching a cocker spaniel puppy being lured over a cliff.

 

Peter Weller continues to be RoboCop III: He Don't Give A Fuck. Surprisingly he was the only one not making horrible racist comments for once. I do wonder what that one customer in his shop made of the meet where he was writing Jax that check: "Boy, lots of very dangerous looking creepy men in here! This sounds like a conversation I might have to testify about overhearing! Well, back to the artisanal jams!" 

 

For someone who wants out of the life Nero is doing a lot of mass murdering. Loved him coming home and the babysitter (Brooke? Does she live there?) saying Gemma made cake. He's all yeah, it's weird but Gemma's cakes all taste like lies, tears and ashes so I'll just contemplate my necklace instead.

 

Wendy talking to Brooke's dumb barely legal if that ass was so sad. You could tell that she saw herself at that age, dizzy in love with the Clown Prince Jax Teller and without one thought in her head as to where all this would end up. And she saw the uselessness of warning her.

 

New Sheriff flirting with "Chips" there was adorable. I agree she's working them and just sees this as the easiest in. It's nice to have one damn character who seems to have studied the past/is not a total idiot.

 

Hey, Juice, cheer up! Yeah, you've burned the only ways back to the group that brought meaning to your horrible nihilistic existence but check it out: Cable TV!

 

Hope the last scene of the series are those crows dining on Gemma's eyes as they discuss her in crowspeak: "Wasn't it weird how she kept talking to us like we were Tara?" *BURP* "Yeah, I never did get her. Pass some of that sclera there, would ya?"

Edited by Snookums
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So, I think we saw the beginning of the end for both Chibs and Nero.   I don't think the new police chief is as dirty as she's letting on.  Chibs was probably taped bribing an officer of the law.   Nero has pretty much completed his decline into what he used to be (except for the drug use) all thanks to his lovely girlfriend Gemma and her idiot son.

 

I don't get the friggin Juice story line.  Someone up thread suggested that he's going to sacrifice himself, rather than be sacrificed.  Maybe that's it.  He's going to mope around the edges of the story until some major point, then swoop in like a mohawked emo deus ex machina and somehow save Jax or some part of the club.

 

Edited because I forgot to mention Gemma.   So, Gemma is now helping Jax by setting up beat downs?  Yes, the guy hit her and is horrible to his daughter, one of their porn actresses.  Still, kind of an odd mother-son activity.  Maybe Jax won't be all that surprised when he finds out Mom is the one who ran a meat fork through his wife's skull.   I was thinking at first that Gemma is sort of the Skankenstein of the show, but changed my mind.  She's the evil doctor who turned her idiot son into Skankenstein.  He's the monster she created and let loose on Charming.

Edited by terrymct
  • Love 6
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Just for a second, when Jax and Gemma started walking up to the house, and Jax had that smirk and put his arma around Gemma, I thought Jax was going to tell Gemma he knew she killed Tara and throw her into the house for whatever punishment awaits.

 

Gemma has lost her damn mind.

 

 

Yes she has. Confessing to birds to make her feel better (are the birds a stand in for the skull in Hamlet?), and openly plotting with Jax to beat down the girl's dad. In the past people might beat others to protect Gemma, but Gemma didn't seem so complicit. What do Jax and Gemma think that beatdown will fix, anyway? What if the dad is connected? What if he decides to stand up against the club? They have just needlessly made another potential enemy, after Nero already beat the guy.

 

How is it that nobody is questioning the wholesale slaughter going on? Even for these guys this is a lot of murder for one week.

 

 

It's every week (for viewers, anyway) now. I agree, I have no idea why someone doesn't question Jax or even leave. And why none of the people he is manipulating doesn't decide to out Jax and team up with a different crew. Because the SOA are a bunch of mostly graying, long-in-the-tooth dudes with little muscle.

Edited by Ottis
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Take-Aways from this episode

  • RatBoy and Brooke-- are they doomed to perpetuate the cycle of bad SAMCRO relationships?
  • I wonder if Gemma took the Pineapple Upside Down cake back after the beat down so as not to let it go to waste?
  • I think Jury hipped August Marks to what Jax and co. done did...
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What a cluster fuck this is.... I do not even know what the hell is going on half of the time.

 

Oh Juicy juice, why oh why do you have to be so dumb and sentimental, why can we just talk. Juicy could have said so many things at that meeting to make them at least curious and want to listen to what he has to say, soooo many things. I agree with whomever said he is going to sacrifice himself for the club but it didn't have to be like that, especially since that sacrificed will come at the very end.

 

Rat boy and underage girl I do not care about.

 

Hooker and daddy drama I do not care about, yet I am glad Gemma got slapped. Anything that gets Gemma slapped and/or hurt in anyway is good for me.

 

The Gema and Jax dinamic... it is just sooo wrong, I get such an incest vibe. I am waiting for a scene where they are in bed together.  Mommy takes care of her boy in ALL senses and her boy is a good boy that takes care of her. UGH.

 

The cop is playing them, I really really hope this is the angle. We do not have time for another dirty cop at this stage, and I do not have the energy.

 

The only remotely interesting thing is that whole mess with Jury, and we did not even get to see what's going on there.  I want to know what his relationship was to the dead dude and what he is thinking. Apparently he figured out The Sons are responsible, I want to follow that.

 

Nero, smfh.

 

It is a sad day when Wendy is the voice of reason.

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I’m here till the bitter end, but this show has gone on too long.  They should have wrapped it up a couple of seasons ago.  Kill off Clay, Tara, etc., and in the same season deal with the fall out.  At this point, none of these guys should be willing to go along with Jax’s plans.  It seems things went okay money wise, even though they had setbacks, up until Jax/Clay’s personal issues started spilling over into the club.  The more money they lost, the more members that died, and the more stupid mistakes put them at odds with other gangs, the less willing the Sons should have been to follow Jax or Clay especially when it became known that Clay had betrayed several club members over time.  The reason they burned the guy’s tattoos off in Season One was because he had abandoned Opie, Opie went to prison because of it, and the guy had been kicked out of the club.

 

Jax is on a downward spiral, and he is going to take everyone else down with him.

 

Nero, like Tara, should have gotten out when he could have.

 

I like Lady Sheriff, and I agree she is playing the Sons.

 

I’m so tired of Juice and his idiotic crying.

 

I love Chibbs rings.

Edited by TigerLynx
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They really picked a good young actor for Abel, because as others have said, those eyes of his are just dead. Gemma's telling Jax, "He really couldn't have seen anything," and Jax asking Abel, "You okay, little man?" and accepting Abel's monotone answer as if that meant Abel was okay were perfect examples of how oblivious these two are to what good parenting is. Yeah, kids who have the emotional life of zombies are doing great! 

 

Gemma had a couple of other choice moments, too. "Any excuse to bake!" to Jax as he dropped her off at Sandy's dad's door prior to the beatdown was a good one (and yes, I hope she was able to save the cake!), as was her talking to Poor Dead Sainted Tara. "Really, dear, your bloody and brutal death at the hands of your mother-in-law was meant to be!" God's in his heaven and all's right with Gemma's world. 

 

I have at last figured out Jax's master plan. It's genius, really. He's deep undercover, working with the feds to subvert all gang activity in northern California by getting them to take eliminate each other out in a grand shootout. Sure, there will be a heavy death toll, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Ideally, the show will end with Jax in the middle of a field surrounded by Sons, Niners, Lin's gang, August's crew, the Mayans, etc., all shooting at Jax. 

 

The havoc Jax is wreaking reminds me a bit of Dashiell Hammett's novel The Red Harvest, where one killing spirals into another and another. 

 

I really hope that the Sheriff was wearing a wire and making a case against the Sons. 

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Wait, I thought the guest star was Jenna Jameson!! (seriously, wasn't that her in the Skankenstein scene?) I have to go look it up now.

 

This show is absolutely painful to watch now. Maybe next week Gemma will be reading "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Murderous, Disgusting, Vanilla-Fudge-Haired Grandma" to Abel and we will have to "get" the "subtle" "message" in the title.

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Wait, I thought the guest star was Jenna Jameson!! (seriously, wasn't that her in the Skankenstein scene?) I have to go look it up now.

 

Me too!!! I mean, let's think about it. Bleached blonde hair (check). Copious tattoos (check). Looks like a meth head (check). Porn star? (CHECK!!!)

 

 

This show is absolutely painful to watch now. Maybe next week Gemma will be reading "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Murderous, Disgusting, Vanilla-Fudge-Haired Grandma" to Abel and we will have to "get" the "subtle" "message" in the title.

 

I was thinking Good Night Moon.  Instead of finding the elusive mouse?  The child has to find the missing corpse.

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I record the show, read here first, laugh and agree with all comments, then I watch. I don't know what's going on anymore either. This forum gets me through it. I'm anxious to know what Sutter has planned. I really miss Clay and although I didn't care for Tara because she was NOT a good mother, I think they should of kept her on for this season just to be a ghostly vision everywhere Gemma turns. Drive her more batshit crazy then she already is.

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I'm anxious to know what Sutter has planned. I really miss Clay and although I didn't care for Tara because she was NOT a good mother, I think they should of kept her on for this season just to be a ghostly vision everywhere Gemma turns. Drive her more batshit crazy then she already is.

 

I didn't care for Tara because she was dumb as a box of hair and stayed for Jax for some incomprehensible reason.

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I never thought I would miss Clay as much as I do.  He did some terrible things; he was a bad man.  But the operative word is "man."  Unlike his sniveling, teat-sucking, soulless, sorry specimen of a stepson.   I want him and Gemma to be set on fire in a pit, kinda like what Pope did to Tig's poor daughter.  It would be fitting if August had the pleasure.

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This is just sickening to watch. The best part was the porn video filming, in which Frankenstein's Monster looked just like Gemma.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

 

They've made it so Lyla is the only character I can root for. Maybe Chuckie too.

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Guest Accused Dingo

I am loving this season. The show has dropped all pretence that we are dealing with good people. Like the title says, we are playing with monsters.

Dirty cop alert. I actually loved the scene eith the female sheriff and Chibbs in the garage. I am hoping it is more tgen what it looks like but would be satisfied if it isn't

I am trying to figure out what Jax's endgame is or if he even has one. Is mayhem and violence what he is after? Anything to ease the pain.

As for Abel....very few very young children are good actors. They haven't learned to emote yet. The kid who plays him is probably just parroting back the lines.

Edited by Accused Dingo
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This show has become depressingly bad.  I'm here until the end, but reading the snark here and listening to podcasts about it is the only pleasure I get from it anymore.  Jax and Gemma are the worst ever.  It seems completely out of character for the others to go along with Jax's crazy plans. And I'm sick to death of Juice's whining and Unser's stupidity.  Poor dead-eyed Abel.  What was he even doing at a whore house?  Watching his crazy, evil, murderous grandma explain away her injuries was just pathetic.  Gemma's soliloquy to the birds, explaining her opinion that everything was meant to be....well, it was literally "for the birds."  There is truly no one left to root for.  I'm hoping Jury & August Marks get together and make a plan to take down every son and Gemma too.  Maybe she & "baby" Jax can die in one another's arms.  They are so creepy, bordering on incestuous.   Ugh. 

  • Love 3
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Wow, Jury is alive.  Wonder how he managed to get out and take that one guy's body with him before Lin's guys got to the place.  But why ask why?  It wouldn't be sporting to quibble over all these little improbabilities when there are so many huge improbabilities to pick over.  Anyway, it should be verrrry interesting to see how Jury reacts after that phone call from Bobby.  WWUJD - What Will Uncle Jury Do?

 

Do you see how Sutter has us chasing our tails?  Jax goes to Niners guy and says hey we want to knock August out of the box, we really need you guys to help us.  Niners guy says well, we got defectors and that problem's gotta get solved first.  Jax goes to meet with the guy who's heading up the defectors and Jax says hey, we're gonna take down everybody in the whole world and we need allies, and we'll share the spoils of war.  We, the luckless audience, are saying, oh noes, Jax is gonna screw over the Old Oringinal Niners and help the Defector Niners wipe em out.  Oh, dirty.  Then, next thing we know, Jax and the boyz are with the Defector Niners in yet another warehouse and they are ventilating the hell out of the Defector Niners.  We, the viewers with the spinning heads, are saying, oh we was wrong, Jax is playing fair with the Original Niners.  Then Jax goes back to Original Niner and says get somebody you trust to put out the word to remaining Defectors that Defector leader is having a big meeting later.  yadda yadda many more complications and all those Defectors get ventilated, too.  After all this, can we allow ourselves to think that maybe sorta Jax is being aboveboard with Original Niners?  No, we can't allow ourselves to believe one single thing about anything at this point.

 

Three episodes in and Sutter has us in his jaws and is shaking us like rag dolls.

 

In a previous post I said that the " innocent" Chinese guy who was bound, gagged and tied to the chair in Jax's kitchen, and was being tortured and having generic salt rubbed in his wounds was a metaphor for something, and I couldn't figure out what it was.  Now I believe that that guy is us, the grievously used, innocent viewers.  Sutter has us in that chair and he is torturing us and rubbing in that stupid salt.  He knows he has us, he knows we will stay on the ride.

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Whatever happened to those noble ideals of the Jax of the early seasons? This makes two straight episodes where he's wiped out a group of people who did nothing to him and were no threat to the club. Last week, I compared him to Charles Manson. I'm starting to wonder if Manson might have slightly more scruples.

  • Love 1
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Whatever happened to those noble ideals of the Jax of the early seasons? T

 

He realized it doesn't do the club or anyone any good. Just like his father's attempts of change. Trying to get out just got them more shootouts and trouble. 

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All I live for at this point is child services taking Abel and Thomas away. Take your grandsons to a whore house, check. Tell a public masturbator he is on the pick-up list at the kid's school and suggest he keep his hands out of his pants while picking up the kid, check, exposing your previously traumatized grandson to more violence, check. And shouldn't Abel and Thomas be older by know? I understand TV time works different, but they have looked the exact same ages for many seasons and I'm sure more time has passed.

 

Mr. MaddingCrowd is in law enforcement and he says every year that if one more corrupt cop comes along he is going to shoot our TV, so I hope this is something else.

 

i can't follow Jax's dealing or killings any longer and no longer try. I assume Juice will die soon and then Jax will start shooting the hookers just for some variety (not really, but wouldn't surprise me). I think Charming should be on the national news for the most killings per week, they even beat out us here in Chicago!

  • Love 3
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He realized it doesn't do the club or anyone any good. Just like his father's attempts of change. Trying to get out just got them more shootouts and trouble. 

 

JT would have been alright had he not been married to Gemma and in business with Clay.   Those two relationships did him more harm than anything else.

  • Love 3
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As someone else said earlier - I don't even know what's going on either.  I'm in though - waiting to see how it all ends.

 

One thing that grates my last nerve is why in the world does a big, bad motorcycle club president wear freaking white tennis shoes?  They look so dumb and it's very distracting! lol

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One thing that grates my last nerve is why in the world does a big, bad motorcycle club president wear freaking white tennis shoes?  They look so dumb and it's very distracting!

IIRC, when Hunnam was initially researching the Jax Teller role he was to play, some MC member told him that shiny white tennis shoes were a biker's symbol of affluence, because shoes get dirty very quickly when you're riding a motorcycle everywhere. Bright white shoes means you have the money to replace them every week or so. Edited by Sir RaiderDuck OMS
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It may just be that I'm distracted by subtitles -- but I've been deaf for years so I'm used to them.

 

Has anyone noticed in some scenes the "acting" has become very high school?  The line reading is as if they are reading us the phone book.  Particularly in Unser scenes.  It's kind of cringeworthy.  (Don't get me wrong -- the show is so gruesome that the violence is also cringeworthy.  But that's intentional.  Bad acting probably isn't intentional.)

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WWUJD - What Will Uncle Jury Do?

If I have my way Uncle Jury is going to be the catalyst for the fall of the new-and-completely-amoral-Jax Teller.  Those two guys they killed (including Jury's friend?  relative? war-buddy?  secret lover?) were completely innocent.  They were recommended to the club as hired hands by Jury -- a club member and in return for their good service the club murdered them in cold blood just to mask their own machinations to bring down Lin (who they are going after only because Gemma lied about who killed Tara.)  This show is so fucked up now.  Jax is like a rabid dog (bit by his own mother.)  I hope Jury puts them both down like old Yeller.

 

ETA:  Okay they weren't "completely innocent."  I forgot they participated in a drug theft in which people were murdered.  But in the context of this show, they were relatively innocent.  And where is the honor among thieves?

Edited by WatchrTina
  • Love 6
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I .... just love this board.  Pretty much every thought that I was *loudly* verbalizing whilst watching the show - much to Mr. Duke's annoyance - has already been voiced.  I am actually a little sad, though, that I now have to hate-watch a show and characters that I used to love. I keep thinking back to Jax's "Do you want to know how many women I've slept with" speech to Tara in season 1, and wow, it's hard to believe it is the same character.  That Jax had morals. He had depth....a soul. This Jax? Not so much. 

 

And really, this cannot be stressed enough:

 

  I swear, Abel is the CREEPIEST kid.

 

 

I think that his parents need to get him (well them, since it's twins) into some auditions for horror movies stat.  I really think that genre would suit him to a "t" (for TERROR)!

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There is not even a "thieves" code anymore. I believe, in my ignorance of all things bikers, that if one charter screwed over another in the same brotherhood-the war between charters would consume eveyone's time! Also, wouldn't other charters be called in to get involved? Sutter must be tired. Or pissed that he doesn't get to write for Gemma ANOTHER season.

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