A review of the "Sons of Anarchy" season two finale coming up just as soon as I get some books on tape out of the library... "Any idea where we're headed?" -UnserYou may want to go read my interview with "Sons" creator Kurt Sutter about the finale before we get too far into the review. Not only does Kurt explain why Half-Sack died, why Zobelle lived and other plot points (including the origin of the book on tape Big Otto listens to before getting his revenge), but he says that while the third season renewal hasn't happened yet, it's essentially a matter of dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's, and will get finalized sooner or later.
"No." -Gemma
And a good thing, too. Because if "Sons of Anarchy" wasn't coming back, "Na Triobloidi"(*) would be one of the more aggravating series-ending cliffhangers of all time, with Gemma a fugitive (and framed for killing Edmond) and Abel kidnapped by Cameron Hayes as misguided vengeance for his own son. But because Kurt is confident that the show is coming back, and because he says he has a plan for how all the story bombs he dropped here are going to play out (as opposed to shows where they write the cliffhanger, go on vacation, and figure out how to solve it once they come back), I'm at peace with the insanity of the closing moments of season two.
(*) The title refers to The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
I found "Na Triobloidi" to be a much stronger episode than last week's "The Culling," but both seem of a piece. The emotional climax of the season - and the climax of the part of the show I care most about, which is the war for the heart of SAMCRO - happened in episodes 10 and 11, and these last two have mainly been about wrapping up unfinished business with Zobelle and LOAN and setting up the major story arcs of season three.
It's just that "Na Triobloidi" did a better job of taking care of the plot while still servicing the characters, where "The Culling" was pretty much wall-to-wall story. The 90-minute running time certainly helped on that score - a standard-length episode might not have had room for a moment like Clay's double-edged "You're a good son" compliment to Jax, followed by the club toasting to "Sons" - but whatever the reason, I felt like I was watching a story about these characters, as opposed to a story simply featuring these characters, if I can make that distinction.
Certainly, there's more visceral satisfaction to be had in SAMCRO's plans (mostly) working this time around, compared to the thwarted plotting of "The Culling." Jax gets to execute Weston in the tattoo shop's toilet and Piney and Happy take out Zobelle's Mayan escort by using one of Wayne Unser's shipping trucks as a Trojan horse.(**) Zobelle gets away in the end (and Kurt explains why nobody stays behind at the convenience store to deal with him), but at a very heavy cost: the daughter he used as a tool in his schemes dies over one of them, and his reputation with the white supremacists who made up his power base is lost to him.
(**) As on "The Sopranos," I think there comes a point with this show where we just have to throw up our hands and assume local law-enforcement isn't capable of doing much of anything about SAMCRO, whether they're shooting someone with a cop in the next room, or turning a highway into a shooting gallery. As the showdown on Main Street scenes made clear, this show is at its heart a Western, and sometimes you just need to hand Sutter his literary license and let his cowboys just shoot 'em up.
But while it's fun to see some ass get well and deservingly kicked, the parts of "Na Triobloidi" that I imagine will stay with me dealt more with the emotions of the people in and around the club: Tara terrified and incapable of speech(***) after Cameron stabs Half-Sack and prepares to take Abel, or Clay seeming utterly lost when Jax tells him about the abduction, Unser looking strangely pleased to be helping Gemma on her fugitive journey, and Jax despairing at the sight of Cameron getting away with his son(****).
(***) In a cast that's been superb all season, and even in this episode, Maggie Siff really rose above with that scene. Cameron killing Sack and taking Abel is so left-field and strange (and not just because the club still seems to be going to the mattresses, and therefore Tara shouldn't be anywhere near Jax's house) that the whole plot development maybe shouldn't work, but Siff sells the hell out of it. And whatever issues I had with the Margaret beat-down last week, I thought that moment - and the scene before that in the car where Tara listens to Gemma talk about God putting Polly in her path - did a nice job of showing Tara reaching the limits of her journey back into SAMCRO country. She may have come from this world originally, and she may have embraced it again after hooking up with Jax, but repeatedly in this episode she was reminded of the woman that she became when she left, rather than the woman she turned back into.
(****) Charlie Hunnam is also incredible in that moment, but what I want to add about that sequence is that I still can't figure out how Jax or one of the other club members doesn't catch up with Cameron (older, slower, and carrying an unhappy baby) before he can get his boat started and unmoored. Nor, for that matter, can I figure out how Zobelle, driving on at least one destroyed tire, outruns a bunch of SAMCRO bikes to the convenience store, and I'm still a little fuzzy about how profoundly Stahl has to screw up before someone higher-up at ATF says, "Hey, maybe you oughta take a rest for a few months while we put somebody else in charge." Which brings us to...
Well, Stahl has now created quite the pickle for everyone, huh? Gemma's on the run, in part for a murder she committed, but also for one she didn't, and Cameron stole Abel and killed Half-Sack as a result. And that's on top of the gun charges from the church raid, which Kurt confirms didn't disappear just because Zobelle left town, and the very uneasy detente between Opie and the men responsible for his wife's death.
And if I have a larger concern about what happens at the end of this episode, it's that the combined fugitive/kidnapping stories have the potential to put the club civil war even more on the backburner. How can Jax worry about the true mission of the club when he knows his son is out there somewhere, and when his mother is running from a pair of murder charges?
Like "The Shield," "Sons of Anarchy" is a show where our characters are dealing with a lot of simultaneous problems, all day, every day. Kurt insists that the inter-club tensions will still be there even as the club is trying to get Abel back and keep Gemma out of prison. Based on so much of this amazing second season, I have no reason not to trust him. But nine months (assuming FX sticks to the usual schedule) is a long time to wait to be sure suspicions are off-base.
And in the incredibly unlikely event the renewal deal falls apart? Well, then both Kurt and John Landgraf need to keep an eye out for any Unser shipping trucks that might pass them on the highway.
Some other thoughts on the finale:
• Not counting some a brief teaser prequel to "The Shield" season six, this was only Sutter's second directorial job (after the season one finale), but you wouldn't know it from the job he and director of photography Paul Maibaum did. "Na Triobloidi" was packed with memorable visuals: the glow of the Sons' headlamps overwhelming each bike to make them look like fireflies (or UFOs) and the shots of the showdown on Main Street, to name just two.
• Once more, with feeling: first the explanation for what happened to both Darby and Chuck in the Caracara fire was cut out of the end of "Fa Guan." Then Chuck turned up alive and mostly well in "The Culling," but with no explanation for where he'd been or what happened to Darby. Sutter told me (in an e-mail conversation before our interview) that, once again, they had to cut that scene for time, so the Darby issue won't be resolved until season three.
• We finally find the source of Zobelle's mysterious, intermittent accent, as we find out that he's originally from Hungary.
• Hale is, for the most part, defined by his belief in the rule of law, and here we see that he's not above using strict adherence to those rules - specifically, the matter of his jurisdiction - to punish a monster like Zobelle by leaving him alone at that store, then taunting him with the news of Polly's death.
• Lots of great music, as always, including the inevitable '60s cover (Paul Brady tackling The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter") and the appropriately apocalyptic "Freeze And Pixilate" by Monster Magnet as the club arms up to follow Zobelle and the Mayans.
• Henry Rollins has been acting regularly for 15 years now, and because of the way he looks, he tends to get typecast as angry tough guys. But over this season, he's shown that he's about more than just his look. Weston was impossible to like, for obvious reasons, but at times during the finale - staring at Zobelle in the jail, saying goodbye to his son (and telling him not to rat to the cops) - I at least understood him, you know? A very good performance in what could have very easily been a cartoonish thug role.
• I know they tried to establish it last week, but I never really bought that Polly had real feelings for Edmond. In previous episodes, it seemed like she was just using him the way she used every other man in the area who wasn't her beloved, creepy daddy. So hanging a lot of the finale plot on her need to say goodbye felt a little odd.
If you haven't by now, go read the interview, and then tell me... what did everybody else think?