“Sons of Anarchy” Recap The Separation of Crows: No Son is Safe

In the latest “Sons of Anarchy” recap, Jax finally tracks down the person he believes is responsible for ratting the club out to the Chinese, Juice makes a deal and the threat levied from August Marks is graver than first expected….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

When it comes to tragedy and loss in the world of Sons of Anarchy there’s no time for reflection or tears. Only pain, suffering and the need for vengeance. Because in the world of Sons of Anarchy rarely is old age or illness the cause of death. It’s bullets. It’s the sharp end of a blade. It’s going 120 miles per hour down the highway. It’s fast. It’s unrelenting. And it’s cruel.

Bobby Munson isn’t dead yet and if he does die, it’s probably going to be very slow and very painful. But the moment he was captured by August Marks’ crew, his eye plucked out it’s socket like someone was digging the pulp out of a grapefruit and a threat was levied against his club, the path of vengeance was already plotted but Jax Teller isn’t sure how to get there.

He’s a lost man right now.

Chibs may sit to his left, Happy as his sword, but Bobby was always his right hand. When Jax needed guidance, Bobby was there. When Jax needed patience, Bobby was there. When Jax needed someone he could trust, Bobby was there. And when Jax needed help, Bobby was always there.

His absence has Jax questioning everything at the start of this week’s episode titled “A Separation of Crows”. Jax now knows for certain that he’s walking into a war armed with BB guns and his opponent has Uzi’s. August is smarter, stronger, more capable and has nothing to lose. If 20 of August’s soldiers get killed he’ll just go find 20 more. If Jax’s soldiers die, he loses a friend, a brother and a best friend. August doesn’t have a wife or kids to put on the line. Jax already lost the love of his life and the only thing he has left in this world truly special are his two boys. It’s almost game over until Chibs reminds Jax why all of this started.

It’s happening because the Chinese killed Tara (so he believes). This was all set in motion because August refused to allow him to get payback and avenge the death of his wife. Now August has crossed a line and once that happens there’s no going back. There’s no reprieve. There’s no remorse. But to get to the end result where August is laying on the ground, eyes and mouth filled with blood, the Sons of Anarchy are going to need Jax to get them there.

“The Sons of Anarchy have a duty, brother. A mission. And we need our goddamn leader”
~ Chibs

Terms of Engagement

Tyler finally shows up at Red Woody this week, which means he didn’t turn on the club and help August orchestrate this entire disaster. He doesn’t have much good news, however, as he tells Jax that either he gives up where the pastor’s body is buried plus his wife and stepson or for every 24-hours he hesitates, another piece of Bobby Munson get lopped off. To make matters worse, Tyler tells the club that the new guy running his security — Moses Cartwright — is ex-military, special ops, trained by Blackwater. In other words, he’s a paid mercenary who gets off on killing people and he’s got a team full of guys just like him to act as backup.

Tyler’s also having second thoughts about playing 007, talking to August in one sentence and betraying him the next. Seeing what happened to Bobby plus his former leaders in the One-Niners can’t exactly help Tyler’s confidence grow. Jax lays it out to his friend in purple — stay the course or risk being under August’s thumb forever. Tyler agrees to keep this going, but it’s pretty clear he’s getting real close to changing his allegiances.

Despite Bobby being missing in action his ex-wife’s bounty hunter boyfriend Coletti found out the information on the dead thug who helped the Sons pull off the Chinese gun and drug heist, who they later killed. The body disappeared and with a little bit of information from Jury (president of the Indian Hills charter) they handed it off to a professional to track down anything he could find out about him. Jax wants to do nothing but search for Bobby today, but until Tyler gets back with possible information on the safe house where Marks has him stashed, they can’t do much of anything. With nothing but agonizing time on their hands, Jax agrees to hear Coletti out and see what he’s found out about the deceased.

The Departed

Coletti’s a damn good tracker because in a matter of days he’s found out exactly who this kid was that helped them take down the Chinese before his body went missing. His name was Gib O’Leary, a former military man who returned home recently before turning to a life of crime. His mother and stepfather are gun runners, but the kind that horde weapons not the other way around. They’re the kind who put up no trespassing signs and then surround the house with land mines just to make sure no one is ringing the doorbell.

The toughest part about the exchange with Coletti is his message to pass along to Bobby that insurance is no longer covering his son Tiki’s inhalers and his ex-wife Precious would appreciate a little assistance beyond the cash he just got paid to track down their missing scumbag. The guys comply but deep down they have to wonder if the son we’ve never met will ever see his father alive again?

SAMCRO makes a trip out to the compound where Renee O’Leary and her husband Carl reside. They are greeted with some gunfire because these people aren’t expecting visitors, but eventually following a little hostage negotiation with Renee’s other son, cooler heads prevail. Jax tells Renee he just wants answers about Gib.

She proceeds to tell him that Gib is dead, shot and killed and his birth father, who is a member of the Sons of Anarchy, had to bury him just so no one would ask any questions. She threatened to go to the cops and he lashed out. She assumed when Jax and the other guys wearing the reaper arrived, Jury sent them to make sure she didn’t talk. When Jax confesses that’s not the reason why, Rat pulls a quick one and explains to her that he served with Gib overseas and they were trying to track him down.

Who is his father? Renee answers — Jury White.

Jax now knows that the president of his Indian Hills charter not only covered up his son’s death, but never bothered to tell the club that he was involved in the first place. It’s clear Jury knows a lot more than he’s letting on, but Jax needs find out if he’s just holding a vengeful spirit or twisting the knife that current resides in his back.

“I’m going to find out if our rat’s wearing a reaper”
~ Jax

At the safe house where Marks has Bobby tucked away, Moses is in charge of trying to get him to talk. Now Bobby is no fool. He’s got to know the possibility of him making it out of this situation are somewhere between a snowball’s chance in hell and never. But he’s still got some spunk left in his step because when Moses threatens to cut off more body parts, Bobby reminds him that he didn’t flinch (no pun intended) when he got his eyeball gouged out, what makes him think he’s going to cave now?

Moses offers him a piece of paper with the four locations they believe the pastor’s body is hidden at and if Bobby gives them what they need, he might make it home in one piece. Bobby’s resolve hasn’t even really be tested to this point. It seems he’s met his match, however, in Moses Cartwright.

Bobby: “This is about war and maybe tomorrow, next month, maybe 10 years from now someone wearing a reaper will cut your heart out.”
Moses: “Give me the location of the pastor and just maybe you’ll be the one holding the knife”

Hung Jury

The boys from SAMCRO meet up with Jury and his vice president Gaines at a remote location halfway between Nevada and California under the pretense of needing guidance for an upcoming move against the Chinese Triad.

Once Jury arrives, Jax lays out his real reason for meeting. He knows Gib O’Leary was his son. He knows he covered up the murder. And he knows that he ratted out the club to the Chinese. The only problem is according to Jury only two out of three are correct.

Yes, Gib was his son and yes he covered up the murder because he wanted nothing more than to see Jax dead, but he would never rat on the club. Jax isn’t convinced, and that’s when Jury realizes he wasn’t brought out here for a chat. He was brought out here to bury. So cards on the table time, Jury let’s Jax have it with both barrels (metaphorically speaking). When Jax took over from Clay, he thought this would be a time of prosperity and renewal of spirit from the club after years of being mired in guns and bullshit. Jax was becoming the man his father always wanted him to be and then he got lost along the way.

He started taking out entire crews. He maneuvered massacres and dug mass graves. He twisted and betrayed old alliances and stomped over new ones. Jax was everything he never wanted to be. He was turning into Clay.

“You had the chance to be something good for this club. Something your old man always wanted. But you turned into everything he hated. You became the poison. The reason he checked out.”
~ Jury

The other barrel that Jury blasts Jax with is a little bit more truth about his father’s death than we’ve ever heard before on the show. In the beginning, John Teller was simply cut down by a tractor trailer in a freak accident. Then we find out that the only mechanic he ever allowed to work on his bike was killed and buried and suspicion was that Clay messed with John’s bike so he would crash and die. Letters from John back to Ireland also told of an ongoing affair between Clay and Gemma. It was just further confirmation that if Clay was loosening the screws on John’s bike, Gemma was the one turning his wrist.

But now Jury has even more information to give to Jax. He heard the rumors about Clay messing with John’s bike, but according to his old war buddy — the only person he trusted at the end because he wasn’t a part of the Sons of Anarchy at the time — John knew that bike better than he knew himself. The moment the kickstand flipped over and he rolled out onto the street, John would have known something was wrong. But he kept going anyways.

Jax has heard enough and he knows in his heart that Jury is the one that ratted them to the Chinese so he finally lets go of his anger and punches the Indian Hills president to the ground. When he reaches for a gun, Jax puts a round into his cheek and ends it right then and there. His vice president tries to argue. He tries to tell the other guys that Jax is going to have to pay for what he’s just done.

Later in the day when the mayhem quiets down, Chibs lays down the hard facts for Jax. Killing Jury may have been the right thing to do, but he didn’t do it with the club’s okay and he didn’t clear it at the table. He took this decision into his own hands and that’s now how the Sons of Anarchy work. There’s going to be blowback from the other clubs and the next time he calls for help, they may not be there to answer. Something tells me this bit of revenge may eventually be what causes Jax’s downfall.

Time to Talk

Following a night or two cooling his heels in an isolation cell, Juice is ready to talk to the sheriff and Wayne Unser, but only those two. When they pay him a visit, Juice promises to give up the names of the people responsible for killing Tara, but in exchange he wants to be placed in ad seg (administrative segregation) before he goes to Stockton. They only have 24-hours to comply or he reneges on the deal. Unser still wants to know why he shot at a bunch of cops for no reason. “I don’t like cops” Juice replies. He gives Jarry one of the names of the killers (one of Lin’s crew) and promises to give her the other along with a murder weapon as long as she gets her job done within the next day.

When Juice leaves the room, Unser finally puts it all together.

He knows from his experience at the diner a few weeks back that Juice is literally willing to do anything to earn his way back into the club’s good graces. He betrayed them and there’s barely any way back from that, but settling a huge debt for them? Consider it time served. Jax orchestrated Juice getting inside and his plan to get put into ad seg is his way of being stationed in the same section of the jail as Henry Lin. It’s there Juice can put an end to the Chinese leader.

Unser’s puzzle skills aside, Jarry really doesn’t care. She needs a win right now. Putting away the murder case of a prominent local doctor and the former sheriff is a much bigger deal that one criminal wiping out another one in prison. Survival of the fittest is the way she looks at things. Oh she’ll give District Attorney Patterson the heads up for what Juice is probably doing inside, but chances are Lin will be dead long before anyone will intervene. The deal is made and Juice is getting his transfer.

In his cell that night, Juice is teetering on the edge once again. His only friend on this night is a rather large insect crawling and creeping around the edge of his hand. When Juice has enough, he squashes the bug with his fingers, gently stroking them back and forth until the insect is turned into mush.

Back at the jail, Unser can’t help but think Juice is just getting himself from the frying pan to the fire by making a deal that could still get him killed even if he’s on the inside. He also knows deep down that the reaction he got from Juice weeks ago and the nervous twitch that Gemma’s had ever since he got involved with this situation lets him know that there’s more here than meets the eye. He’s sure Juice is the key to finding out what Gemma’s hiding, but right now he can’t do much of anything except to let this all play out and hope there’s someone left standing when all the chips are finished falling.

At the cabin, Gemma is tending to the junkie mother and her son, trying to provide as much comfort as possible until she can get clean of the drugs in her system. Everything seems to be going well until she gets a call from Wendy — Abel has lashed out at school again and only a parent or legal guardian can pick him up.

When she finally arrives, Ms. Harrison (Courtney Love) explains that Abel is a good kid, but he’s acting out for no apparent reason. In today’s outburst he smacked another kid with a metal lunchbox unprovoked and opened a gash on his head. Gemma shows exactly where he gets it from when she jumps down the teacher’s throat for even implying that her parenting skills aren’t up to snuff.

Back home, Gemma tries to quiz the little boy as to why he hit this kid with the lunch box. He doesn’t have a very solid answer until Gemma presses him on it, and then he unleashes a cryptic message that shakes her to her core. Especially if she remembers what she was crying about in last week’s episode.

Gemma: “You know you hurt him real bad, Abel. Did you know that?”
Abel: “It was an accident”
Gemma: “Do you understand what an accident is?”
Abel: “Do you?”

Before Gemma can really deal with Abel’s outburst, she goes to her bedroom where she finds her birdcage open. She looks around the room to see where they might be fluttering, but instead only sees some blood over by her bed. When she lifts the covers, Gemma is horrified to find her birds chopped into pieces, blood soaking her sheets. In the boy’s room, she finds a teddy bear nailed to the wall with a knife and a not so subtle message

“No Son is safe”

Jax and the guys high tail it back to town and with the worry about his family now dangling overhead, he has no choice but to acquiesce to Marks’ demands. He’ll give him the dead pastor and the signed affidavit about the threats, but he refuses to give up the mother and son he’s protecting at the cabin. This has already gone too far.

No Negotiations

The world is falling down in Charming. The Sons are at war with a god on the streets. Diosa was turned into a slaughterhouse. Dead bodies are popping up like weeds. The options to escape seem few and far between.

Nero has his exit strategy. He’s going to sell his half of Diosa to Alvarez and the Mayans and take the money to buy his uncle’s farm finally. In a perfect world, he even asks Wendy to bring the boys to live with him and Gemma on the ranch along with his son Lucius. It all sounds heavenly to Wendy, but she knows Jax would never allow his boys to go. Maybe a few more bodies stacked or more birds being murdered just a few feet away from them will change his mind. I think when it’s all said and done, Abel and Thomas will know the love of a farm because their father’s home won’t be safe for them any longer.

While Jax is waiting on an answer from Marks to his latest offer, Moses is finishing with negotiations, which is to say there are no negotiations. The deal was hand over the pastor’s body, the affidavit and the mother and son. Half of that isn’t what Marks asked for so in return it’s Bobby who has to pay. Marks threatened earlier to take away Bobby’s ability to ride with his club, which is a requirement to be a part of SAMCRO. As he chops off his fingers and Bobby screams in agony, Moses is taking away more than just body parts from the former vice president.

“Teller finally reached out. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of thinking the terms were negotiable.”
~ Moses

Jax finally gets his answer in the form of another small box that arrives from Marks. He doesn’t even bother to look inside because the horror of what he’s going to face is just too painful to deal with right now. He started the day feeling like his leadership was going to get more guys killed and questioning his every move. When the day is done, his leadership got his kids threatened, a member killed without a vote, and now more body parts getting shipped to him like they were spark plugs.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown and Jax is getting crushed by the weight of it all.

Notes of Anarchy

— Two guest star notes tonight — first Renee O’Leary was played by Dale Dickey, who is apparently the new white trash queen of television. If you need a slightly order woman with a Southern draw and a steely resolves, she’s your lady. Dickey recently starred in True Blood as a werewolf mother as well as Justified, where she was the leader of a prison gang.

— Also tonight the part of Gaines — the vice president of the Indian Hills chapter — was played by Tony Curran, best known as one of the stars of the SyFy series ‘Defiance’.

— It has to be noted that Gemma made a special mention earlier this season that she had African crows at home and those were the birds that were slaughtered. Crows/SAMCRO and tonight’s episode was called The Separation of Crows both in reference to the birds being killed but also the fractured relationship Jax created by killing Jury tonight.

— The only major song featured in tonight’s episode was a cover of the classic Bob Dylan track “All Along the Watchtower” as performed by The Forest Rangers and Billy Valentine. It seems The Forest Rangers are making the majority of the songs this season although here’s hoping The White Buffalo gets at least one more appearance before the show is over. Plus Kurt Sutter confirmed earlier this year that the song that will close the series is from a band who rarely allows their songs to be used. Whether that means it’s an original or a cover, remains to be seen.

Tune into Sons of Anarchy next week when Jax tries to stop more blood from being shed and if memory serves, a major cast member will meet their death….