Sons of Anarchy Review: “Red Rose” (7×12)

Perhaps unavoidably, “Red Rose” is a step down from the preceding episode. Not only is there still one more episode through which to stretch the series' denouement, but it's also just plain impossible to maintain the emotional highs that we've just reached for what would amount to nearly three hours of television. Season arcs come in peaks and valleys, and for the bulk of its running time, “Red Rose” has to function as a valley. But even if last episode was any kind of equivalent to Breaking Bad's “Ozymandias,” “Red Rose” is no “Granite State,” no matter how very hard it's trying to be.

The problem is that Sons of Anarchy's valleys are very rarely interesting, and so, when we're asked to spend multiple scenes pondering the re-mapping of gang territories throughout the improbably massive town of Charming, it's pretty hard to actually care a whit about it. Peaks and valleys is one thing, but after the total wreckage of “Suits of Woe”, going back to business as fucking usual is a bigger letdown than usual.

At least there appears to be a purpose beyond simply explicating the mechanics of gang politics. As I see it there is a two-fold question here. First, why are all of these men still listening to Jax Teller, when they are all perfectly aware that his latest string of decision making has blown up all of their lives into all-out war? Because, this time, he promises everything will be great? That's all the reasoning he has to offer, and they all still buy it. Jax has convinced everyone (and, more importantly, has convinced himself) that he is bringing some sort of beautiful revolution to organized crime, which is more than a little insane.

Now at this point I might throw my hands up in despair. (My notes from about halfway through the episode read, verbatim: OH MY GOD THEY'RE MARTYRING JAX.) Fortunately, though, the episode is prescient enough to pose a second question: How on earth does Jax Teller still have it in him to live this toxic life? “Red Rose” doesn't get so far as to offer an answer, but it lays enough groundwork to leave me confident that an answer is coming.

It's this second question that much of the second half of the episode concerns itself with, and it's no coincidence that the second half picks up speed considerably. Once Jax finally levels with Unser, the episode returns to that well of Shakespearean inevitability that has been the sole driving force behind this season. Jax's redemption tour, such as it is, is shaping up to be more of a suicide mission, and while that looks a whole lot like martyring at the end of the day, it still leaves room for the idea that Jax himself is irredeemable; that the only thing left is for him to die.

Of course I get to say this because, this week, Jax murders Wayne Unser in cold blood. Unser has since the beginning been the show's moral arbiter, a narrative conscience, lingering around through losing his badge, through cancer, through complete and utter superfluity, if only to remind us that, yes, Jax isn't the great guy he thinks he is. The character has gone astray (to put it mildly) over the course of the series, and even in this last season, he didn't have as much to do as one might have liked—why, for instance, was he not permitted to discover the truth about Tara on his own? Would that not have had more dramatic weight? But regardless, the final standoff tonight between him and Jax is a suitable, appropriate end for the character.

I absolutely love the long sequence at Gemma's childhood home. Unser's arrival is pitch perfect, a would-be heroic moment, starring a sad sack old man and the violent psychopath he's hopelessly in love with. For her part, Gemma creeps around the edges of the episode as a ghost, and even when Unser and Jax converge on her, she's already gone; this, too, is her design, and she sees exactly how this must end. After Unser's death, Jax and Gemma talk, but there are no histrionics. A moment that could easily have been overplayed, been melodramatic or even operatic, is instead chillingly, depressingly normal. Gemma and Jax may as well be discussing groceries.

Obviously, though, the big event of this episode is Jax putting a bullet through his mother's head. The framing of this scene in the garden is perfect, Gemma facing away from her son, and therefore from all of the damage she has done. Her insistence that it was all for his benefit, all to save the family, rings hollow, because it is addressed to the void before her. “This is who we are,” she says as she basically instructs her son to kill her. Charlie Hunnam gives a season-best performance as Jax gears up over and over again to kill Gemma, each time leveling the gun at her only to drop it again. When he finally convinces himself to pull the trigger, it's an act of violence that still manages to be sudden, and Sons' unflinching approach to violence means we hold on Gemma's face as the bullet flies out from her forehead. It is not as dramatic, not as gruesome, a death as Gemma likely deserved by this point—but it is fittingly tragic, the death we knew must come all along.

But no matter how good this scene is—and it's really, truly great, seven seasons in the making, and carrying all that weight of expectation without once buckling under it—great scenes like this can't exist in a vacuum, yet that's what I feel like Sons constantly expects. The pacing of this season has been an absolute mess, and, “Suits of Woe” mostly excepted, every single episode has suffered for it, no matter how many great scenes or performances or shots they contain. That's not to say there was room in last week's episode for any or all of the events of this week's. In fact it feels perfect to me to have Jax's killing of Gemma as a separate beat. But knowing that something needs to happen at the end of episode 12 does not absolve one from writing the rest of episode 12, and that's pretty much exactly what has happened here, and what happens on this show constantly.

So we face the finale with nothing left but to learn what Jax's endgame is. We are basically guaranteed more politicking, more red herrings and fakeouts and needlessly extensive plotting, because Kurt Sutter and company are operating under the mistaken assumption that these plots are interesting in and of themselves. And we go into the finale with most of the remaining interesting characters already killed (more on that in the Strays). What possibly is left to cover? Who knows? But even if it's only in fits and starts, from “Red Rose” it is already clear that Sons of Anarchy will ultimately be known as an epic tragedy, occasionally moving, frequently frustrating, sometimes human. If you've come this far, then those moments will still satisfy.

Stray Observations

• Another week, another scene of Juice getting raped. I had hoped that at the end of all this he might get his revenge on Jax, and perhaps the fact that I hoped that at all speak to some success on the storytelling's part. That he dies, essentially sacrificing himself to protect the MC one more time, is tragic in its own right, but is so removed from the character-based conflicts that would make that tragedy really hit home that the overall effect is diminished. Juice has been on borrowed time since failing to hang himself, way back in season four, and his series arc ultimately took him to the exact same point. That's a whole lot of middle for such a delayed payoff.
• Guest star palooza! Michael Chiklis popping up in a surprise guest role is pretty fantastic, and he and Katey Sagal get along brilliantly. Ditto Charisma Carpenter, who while perhaps not as recognizable of a name, does an equally good job of bringing weight to an otherwise minor role. Both characters are there for Gemma to bounce off more than anything else, but if you're going to do this sort of story with the character, then it's absolutely a smart move to fill these one-off roles with character actors who will make them mean something.
• Notice how Gemma and Jax use the same logic to justify Jury and Tara's murders, respectively.
• Now presenting the Sons of Anarchy in The Return of the Terrible Irish Accents and the Interminable Montage
• Did Theo Rossi Show His Ass? Charlie Hunnam will be handling all man-ass duties forthwith. RIP Juice.
• We don't speak of Anarchy Afterword in these parts, but if anyone did happen to catch it, please tell me someone uttered the phrase, “It was the right time for Gemma to go,” so that I can cackle wildly.