SONS OF ANARCHY - "Widening Gyre"

Ahhh the chess piece episode. Every show has at least one a season. The episode all about moving characters into certain places (either externally or internally) for the larger season plot. They can be artfully done or they can be a little boring and mechanical, and while "Widening Gyre" wasn't a bad episode per se, you could definitely feel the writers pushing the characters into their places before they head to Ireland.

We begin with the fallout from Jax bedding Ima, the porn star, when Tara walks in on them in the morning. I don't know about you but I'm getting a little sick of Jax's attempts to push Tara away. I understand why he's doing it but I think it's become pretty obvious that it's not going to work and it's starting to feel a bit redundant. He keeps trying and then relenting a bit, rinse and repeat. It's just not revealing anything new about the characters and it's getting tedious. Still, the conversation between Jax and Opie served as a reminder of what happens to SAMCRO's old ladies, and how you can't really push them away no matter how hard you try.

We move on to some trouble between The Grim Bastards and Calaveras, where the latter brutally murdered one of the former's memebrs. The Sons, naturally, want to patch this over as quickly as possible, given the truce between them and the Mayans is a day old. This was largely a throwaway story, as it was pretty clear the only reason for it was to strip Salazar of his power and piss him off enough to get some sort of revenge on the Sons. It did seem to sort of underline the Mayan/Sons truce, as the scene ended with hugs all around (something that is almost too dramatic of a change), but I'm sure the payoff for this will be appropriately horrifying and dramatic later on.

And so we get to Gemma, who remains the most interesting part of this season thus far. Her conversation with Maureen was certainly revealing but also a bit clunky. They talk about their children not knowing what happened with John Teller in Belfast and Maureen reveals John is the father of her daughter, Trinity. It just seemed like a tease and not a very well-handled one at that.

Tara later helps Gemma with an impromptu hospital breakout that gave us the most affecting moment of the episode when they say goodbye. Tara's relationship with the MC, and Gemma in particular, consistently provide the show with some of its most rewarding material. A lesser show would have had the two still at odds in season 3, but the writers have given the show something far more interesting and emotional with the MC's acceptance of Tara and vice-versa. So even a quick moment of them saying goodbye feels like so much because we know how far they've come to get to that point.

And so the episode ends with the Sons (minus Tig) leaving for Belfast and the Belfast Sons chapter warning Jimmy of their arrival. Like I've said throughout, I'm sure that once the season is laid out, this episode will prove to be vital in terms of moving the plot along, but it just was not a particularly involving episode of television. But next week we get a 90-minute episode of the Sons in Belfast, which looks to be chock full of the things we love from this show.

Grade: C+

RANDOM THOUGHTS:
- I don't really know what's going on with Chibs' wife and kid in this episode, and, like most of the Irish plot this season, I'm a little confused and find it hard to care about. Hopefully this next episode clarifies and deepens that plotline.
- "You do realize that pretty much every Latina you bone ends up dead, right?" Beautiful, just beautiful.
- Poor Unser, he can't do anything right. No matter which way he goes, he's betraying someone. I'm sure that death would be welcomed at this point.
- Tara's boss got some redemption this week, but I don't really buy it. Tara's really that good of a surgeon that Margaret's willing to break the law?
- I really don't care about Opie's porn star girlfriend. Their rift and reconciliation took all of half a day and didn't add anything to the episode.
- Salazar and his girl watch Tara leave Jax's... there's no way this ends well.