Tag Archives: Recap

By Stacey Harrison The title of the season finale is an Irish term for “the troubles,” referring to the longstanding ethno-political conflicts that plagued the two Irelands and England through much of the latter half of the 20th century. In other words, brace yourself. This Chinese box of a wrap-up may have one too many coincidences and contrivances, but I’ll be damned if you’re not too busy picking your jaw up off the floor to get too upset. There is no cheating here — blood is frequently, shockingly, spilled — and it all ends with one of the more shocking [...]

By Stacey Harrison The penultimate episode this season is one long call to battle, with the opening musical montage consisting of the West Coast chapters of SAMCRO coming together to assemble a task force to fight Zobelle and The League, while the old ladies — yes, Tara included — stand by their men to the plaintive swoon of “Someday Never Comes.” It’s all headed toward an epic throwdown between the Sons and Weston’s faction of The League, all orchestrated by a united Jax and Clay fully in control of their dispute with the neo-Nazis for the first time. They tell [...]

By Stacey Harrison You always knew Opie would find out. But what would he do about it? Would he do what most of us believe we would do, and quit the group that sanctioned and carried out his wife’s murder? As each character in this show can attest, the ties to SAMCRO run deep, and not even Donna’s death can come between Opie and his gang. Maybe it has something to do with how he found out. Having Tig break down out of guilt — which was compounded by a near-miss sexual encounter with Gemma that really came out of [...]

By Stacey Harrison A few recaps ago, I lamented that Sons of Anarchy seemed to be resorting too often to that tired cliché of action movies, wherein a character gets shot or maimed but never killed. This allows the story to mine some cheap dramatic tension without really delivering on any sense of danger. So when Chibs narrowly escaped a van explosion, only to slowly recover in the hospital, I wondered why they didn’t just off him. Really, Chibs hasn’t been much of a factor to this point, so couldn’t we have done away with him and raised the stakes [...]