Sons of Anarchy Recap: Accessories are Key

When Leo plays dumb about Frankie, Jax sighs patiently and uses his special eyebrows and condescending voice usually reserved for small children

and wayward slut mothers

and makes up a lie about Frankie taking off with $500,000 of the cartel/Irish money.  Leo buys into it, furious that Frankie would lie about how much money he had for protection and that he might bring more negative attention to the Tahoe crew.  Leo tells his guy to make a call and then warns Jax that if he’s lying, “this ain’t gonna be such a beautiful, sunshine-y day here in the splendor of the lakes”.  The line is stupid, but the delivery is sincere, and Jax makes fun of the line. 

I know, I know, I can’t believe I’m saying this either.

The whole awkwardness of it all makes me wonder if this an inside joke that I don’t get, or a bet lost by the writers and they were forced to include the line — and Jax’s reaction to it — in the episode.

At the infirmary, Nurse No-Nonsense leads Tara into the exam room, where Otto is tied down on a table.  The nurse tells Tara that Otto has a habit of sticking “things” in staff members’ ears, so that’s the reason for the restraints.

“Things” like Q-Tips, pens, penises, you know, whatever’s handy …

The nurse leaves after promising to send someone in to take Otto’s blood and CT’s and when they’re alone, Otto lets Tara know this ain’t going to be a happy tea party.  However, when she removes her secret weapon from her pocket — LuAnn’s perfume — and Otto smells it, he is dumbfounded long enough to shut up.  Tara lays it on thick about guilt, LuAnn, loyalty to the club and the things you love, and Otto disdainfully asks if she is a shrink now, too.

Yes, I just got my certificate in the mail today, actually.  How does that make you feel?

In case this scene was uncomfortable enough, Otto asks Tara to put some perfume on her wrist and let him smell it.

THIS is the situation in which you use your good hand, Tara?  Let’s hope Otto’s teeth aren’t filed to a point!

Just when it’s starting to feel like a Vampire Diaries nightmare, the tech buzzes himself in to take Otto’s blood.

At the cabin, some guard named Petey is talking on the phone on the porch.  He comes in the cabin and confronts Frankie, who’s sitting on the couch doing a crossword puzzle (tres realistic!).  Petey warns Frankie that he better be telling the truth about how much money he had because Leo’s hearing different.  Frankie tells him he gave them all the money he had:  $150,000, and that somebody is lying to Pirelli.  Petey tells Frankie that the “somebodies” are on their way to the cabin.  In a panic, Frankie gets up, elbows Petey and triple taps him with Petey’s sidearm.  In case that wasn’t effective,

I’m sure he can tie Petey up with the chains on his jeans.

 Juice and Clay drive up just then.  Frankie, trying to make a break for it, runs outside and takes a few wild shots at them but runs back in the cabin.  Clay gets a few weapons out of the truck and Juice starts dialing Jax on his phone to let him know the 411.  Clay yells at him to get off the phone and cover the back, which Juice does under protest.  Frankie frantically searches for weapons in the cabin, finds a shotgun on the wall, and looks out front to see Clay getting out of the van which he has moved to face the above-ground propane tank.  Frankie tries to run out back, but Juice has him covered and fires so Frankie runs back inside.  Dude didn’t make Escape Plan A & B as soon as he came to the cabin?  Not very good at this bad guy stuff, is he?

Clay puts a rock on the gas pedal of the van, puts it in drive, and watches it crash into the propane and the side of the building, causing an explosion that Leo’s and Jax’s convoy can see from the road, on their way to the cabin. Jax and his crew speed around Leo’s Navigator to get to the cabin more quickly.

Clay is shooting at Frankie, who survived the explosion, through the giant hole in the cabin wall he created.  Frankie goes to the back door again, where he meets Juice and his rifle.  Frankie drops his weapon, puts his hands up, and tells Juice that Clay was behind the Nomads’ crimes in Charming.

Don’t talk about my daddy like that!

Frankie also brings up that the Nomads stole the safe from Gemma’s and Clay’s house and gave Clay all the legal documents inside.  That might be the most interesting tidbit of the episode … I still haven’t figured out the significance of those darn certificates.  Have you, Gasmii!  Just then, Clay, shotgun at the ready, comes in and tells Juice to step aside. 

Deja vu of Piney and another cabin, anyone?

Before Clay can pull the trigger, Jax and the rest of SAMCRO come in.  Jax yells at Clay to put down the shotgun.  He hesitates, then complies.  Unfortunately, Leo (that Navigator must have sped up, too) walks in, sees that Petey is dead, and kills Frankie with about 126 shots before anything can be discussed.  Whoopsie!

At the Charming graveyard, Nero and Gemma are continuing the best date ever.

Where to next?  A homeless shelter?

She awkwardly hands Nero Carla’s ashes and they decide to put her in a mausoleum marked “Arrabal” on the cemetery property.  He steals flowers from one grave, she breaks in to the locked mausoleum building so he can put Carla to rest … but they hold hands the whole time so it’s heartwarming.

Stealing from the dead is an effective way to bond.

Those two just need a couple of bathtubs and a nice view and they are a Cialis commercial.

Back at the cabin, it’s clean up time.  By way of apology for killing Frankie before Jax could question him, Leo says they’ll call it even and Jax doesn’t owe him anything for the damage to the club and cabin.  Finished with that, Jax walks over to his guys and asks Quinn if he has a truck or van they can borrow to haul Frankie back to Charming, since Clay used their van as a deadly weapon.  Jax asks Clay how he knew Frankie was there; Clay tells him about the call from Cacuzza as the bikes were pulling away from the pit stop and Juice backs him up, giving the lame “we wanted to make sure it was real before bugging you” excuse.

At the prison infirmary, Tara comes back in to the exam room.

Where did she go?  To wave armpit deodorant under some other death row inmate’s nose?

Wherever she was, Tara gets down to business this time and asks Otto again to recant his sworn statement so the RICO investigation will go away.  In response, he asks her to unlock his restraint on his right hand only.  Though he promises not to hurt her, Tara wisely removes the only sharp object she has — her pen — from her pocket and places it well out of Otto’s reach before freeing his hand. 

Otto turns on his side and commands Tara to come over and to place her hand on his head while he masturbates.  Eeeewwww!  I don’t know if I’m grossed out more by Otto’s actions or Tara’s susceptibility to his pathetic pleas for an affectionate touch.  He starts crying and her weirdly misplaced maternal instincts kick in while she soothes him and strokes his hair.

Kurt Sutter’s audition for the 3rd season of American Horror Story.

Back at the garage/clubhouse, Jax thanks Quinn for the use of his truck and has a quick tete-a-tete with Bobby, during which they discuss the two-pronged problem that Frankie’s corpse creates.  First, Sheriff Eli is not going to be happy with a corpse instead of a live, scared, torture-able bad guy.  Secondly, with Frankie dead, there’s no one to corroborate their theory that Clay is behind it all.  We get a shot of Bobby looking at Clay, CFP and Juice in one of the garage bays, and I wonder ….

… will all three of them survive the season?

At. St. Thomas, Jax knocks on Tara’s office door (glad to see that he knocks, too!).  He is surprised that she is already back from Stockton and asks her how it went with Otto.  Tara wisely declines to tell him about the weird stuff

It was incredibly creepy sad, Jax.

and she tells him she thinks she got through to him.  Jax thanks her for her effort.  Maggie comes in and tells them that Abel’s being released but she needs a few signatures from Jax.  Tara tells Maggie that Otto wants to jack off to her some more Stockton needs her all week and Maggie says they should be able to work that out.  Before she leaves, Maggie says some people from Providence Hospital in Oregon, where Tara was supposed to go work last season, will be in town soon and they want Tara to give them a call.  Guess this old lady does have a Plan B.

At the clubhouse, Bobby’s counting money from the SAMCRO safe for Skeeter for Carla’s cremation and Clay walks in to confront Bobby about what he knows (extensive) and what he can prove (nada).  They discuss the possible future of the club, and how fragile it is, but Bobby can’t do anything about the situation.  Bobby hates all the tension and what the club has become.  He tells Clay he’s tired of burning friends.

I still want that pie.  I’m an emotional eater.

At Casa Teller, Jax, Tara and the boys walk in to find Gemma at the kitchen table, saying she thought she should return her key to their house.  Tara leaves Jax to handle this one and takes Abel to bed.  Jax sits down with Gemma, who tells her son that Nero is incredibly important to her and he makes her happy (then why didn’t she tell him about Jax’s ultimatum for her to get back into his good graces?).  As Tara walks back in, Gemma says that in order to abandon her future with Nero and to get back into bed with Clay — figuratively and literally — she needs TARA to promise that her grandmotherhood will be restored in its entirety if she can help Jax bring Clay down.  Tara tells her if she helps Jax, she can have her key back and the family that goes with it.

But I’m keeping the masturbating guy for myself!

Gemma leaves and a little while later, Jax tells a freshly-showered Tara that he’ll be home in a couple of hours.  I thought her hair was pretty bad when it was dry …

apparently, it can look much worse.

She gives him some lingering kisses goodbye and he tells her to hold that thought.

At Diosa Norte, Gemma walks in to tell Nero that she needs some space, but he cuts her off with “coffee’s hot”, “Do you want to go out to dinner?” and “Surprise!  I bought a pair of lovebirds for you!”  Nero, is that desperation I smell?  After his show of love, Gemma doesn’t have the heart to say “Deuces!”  so instead she gives him a line about needing to sleep in her own bed at her own house for a few days.

I could follow you home and sleep at the foot of your bed, if  you want.

Back at Casa Teller, Tara is grooming herself and then has a pity party with her lady parts and the perfume.  Creepier than the Otto scene, I tell you.  Guess Jax is on his own later tonight …

Jax meets with Roosevelt, who pats him down and removes his weapon just to be on the safe side.  When Jax shows him Frankie’s corpse, he is understandably disappointed but it becomes a wake-up call for Eli and his devolution into a lawbreaker.  Disgusted with himself, Eli refuses to tell Jax who the rat is, but Jax has already figured it out.  He thinks out loud to Eli, and points out that Juice is the only SAMCRO member who has the pliable personality and lack of intestinal fortitude that would allow him to succumb to law enforcement threats.  When Eli asks what will happen to Juice, Jax doesn’t answer, but just collects his weapon and leaves.

The doorbell rings at Clay’s bachelor pad, and he answers the door while we see Juice in Clay’s garage, tuning up Clay’s bike.  It’s Gemma at the door, with cortisone shots for Clay’s hands.  He is very happy to see her and her steroids, and tells her his hands missed her, which I find as creepy as the Otto/Tara thing.

Juice is happy to see Gemma with Clay, too, and he’s obviously still soft-headedly hoping for a happy family reunion.

Momma & Daddy, sitting in a tree …

Juice tells Clay that he’s checked the cables and Wade will have to check the rest in the morning.  He leaves and we see Jax tailing him, ominously, in Quinn’s borrowed truck.  I am not a happy camper … but I hope Juice can save himself by telling Jax about Frankie’s confession that only Juice heard.  What do you all think?  See you next week!