Sons of Anarchy Review: "Greensleeves" (7×07)

As we get started this week, I'd like to offer Verizon's summary of this episode: “SAMCRO makes an unlikely partnership in order to undermine a powerful club enemy.” I am not inspired with confidence.

And sure enough, “Greensleeves” suffers from the same issues as earlier episodes this season, the same issues that have plagued the show for years now. It's bloated, overly complicated for the sake of being so, and reluctant to change its status quo, preferring instead to cycle through endless iterations of the same conflicts, over and over. That the show can't figure out how to streamline this mess of plot is a shame, because many of the individual components are quite good this week. But the show is spinning its wheels, and it's doing so in the laziest possible way, to boot.

First, that cop who got shot, and who was waking up at the end of last week? She's just not going to ID the club because Charming. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It's lazy, and it's the same narrative bullshit this show pulls on a regular basis. A threat is built up, pushed to the precipice of an actual payoff, and then just vanishes, just in time for a new, even bigger and badder threat, to emerge. This happens literally every season, sometimes multiple times a season. We're halfway through and we have already gone from Lin to maybe-Jarry-but-not-really-lol-jk to Marks within a few episodes. It's frustrating.

This episode features two great monologues, one from Jax and one from Gemma. Jax's very long speech to the club is more or less his St. Crispin's speech, and sure enough, it presages what will certainly be the club's final trudge into war (barring another last minute reversal before Gemma's secret is revealed). It's weakened by the fact that, to paraphrase Nero, we've heard this before, but that doesn't mean Charlie Hunnam doesn't give a good speech regardless. In some ways, it is finally an at least partly honest acknowledgment by Jax of of how far down this path SAMCRO has gone, and it's a reminder to the audience that his vengeance is in pursuit of a lie. With the information we have, it's easy to become frustrated and lose sight of the fact that the club is completely unaware; it's very smart on the writers' part, then, to give such a potent reminder of that fact. Dramatic irony is no substitute for a compelling narrative, but at least the performances are worthwhile.

The same is true of Gemma's monologue, which this week is addressed to Thomas, rather than Tara's ghost, and which is overheard by Abel. If nothing else, the show deserves credit for creating some tension in this sequence; I was convinced that Wendy would overhear it, and Gemma would shoot her. The episode attempts to build tension throughout this storyline, as Gemma becomes convinced that Jax plans to hurt her for her part in helping Juice. But the setup for this tension is pure sitcom, a misunderstanding caused because Rat and Happy needlessly withhold information from Gemma. From a characterization standpoint, it's about time Gemma starts feeling some guilt for her actions, but the tension itself is manufactured, and toothless, the moment you give it any thought.

Very little else happens throughout the episode. Between episodes, Jax has apparently hatched a plan to plant Juice in prison and have him work with Tully, but by episode's end, that's still all the information we have. Similarly, Abel knowing about Gemma is a tragic development, but it doesn't move the needle on the season arc at all; the revelation is still a ticking bomb and no more. Unser might be ever closer to unraveling the truth, but he's still just approaching the truth, and every episode seems to suggest he's only one move away, before moving the goalpost on the story's resolution. The longer the narrative time bomb ticks, the more of what tension remains deflates. Inevitability can create a sense of dread, sure, but before long anticipation becomes annoyance. You'd think Sons might have realized this by now, but every season still has the same problems.

To stall the eventual and necessary payoffs of their stories, the writers instead construct missions-of-the-week to occupy the club, which is fine as a structure for a series, but exhausting when we have to sit through the same emotional beats, over and over again. Gemma is guilty and insane. Jax is heroic but misguided. Unser is finally turning a critical eye to the club to which he's given so much and from which he's received so little in return. Nero wants out of the game. We know. But even though the show takes place within an extremely decompressed timeline, it doesn't make that pacing work the way a show like Breaking Bad manages to. The tension on that show is genuine, and grows naturally from the story consequences of its characters decisions. The tension on Sons is fake, reverse-engineered to arrive at an ending that just needs to get here already.

I'm not going to fault the show for its strengths. Like most episodes, the acting is on point, and there some lovely shots in this episode too. The composition Gemma and Nero standing beneath the Teller-Morrow sign is beautiful and almost even poetic, at least by Sons' standards. Jimmy Smits is, and always has been, a reliable, valuable addition to the cast, and Nero's scene with Gemma at T-M is poignant. Their exchange, Nero tearfully insisting “We deserve something better, Gemma,” and Gemma's plaintive reply of “Do we?”, is powerful. But as I wrote at the outset of this season, its success rises and falls on its ability to maintain momentum. That momentum has fully stalled. Given the ending of tonight's episode, it's likely to pick up again, but if Marks is just another episode in this crazy rollercoaster ride, another obstacle so that Katey Sagal can stick around until the finale and nothing more, then we'll be back here again in three episodes' time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Stray Observations:

– Another unnecessary diversion this episode is with the titular Greensleeves, a gross pimp who exists only so that Jax's Diosa operation can appear noble by comparison. While Diosa might be better than working for fucking Greensleeves, their last crew was violently gunned down, so let's cool it on how great of an employer we are, Jackson.

– Holy shit Jax is going to get this woman killed. If it weren't for the previous speech I would believe he didn't give a shit. But that's the thing with Jax; he can be as nice and caring as he wants, but at the end of the day he does not care if these people die.

– Maybe Gemma is nervous about going to the cabin given that it is routinely the place we take people to in order to murder them? RIP Piney.

– Bobby Elvis is down an eye, as Marks announces that he means business. My gut says the show is cheating by letting him survive, especially since Bobby is basically a redshirt at this point anyway, but I might be letting the show's terrible history with this sway my opinion.

– Obviously the title was an excuse to close with Katey Sagal singing “Greensleeves.”

-Tig casually grabbing at Unser while on the phone is hilarious.

– Poll: is the child actor playing Abel really bad, or are the dead creepy eyes a secretly brilliant performance?