Sons of Anarchy 2.12 The Culling Recap

A quick programming note before the recap:  get your ass on Twitter and follow Kurt Sutter at @sutterink.  If he gets 5213 followers by Friday, he is going to give away some free SOA swag to 10 lucky fans.  

So previously on As the Harley Rumbles, we killed them all.  Wait.  No.  We didn’t because cooler heads prevailed.  Season Two's penultimate installment of Sons of Anarchy, The Culling effectively sets things up for a kill em’ all season finale.  Assuming that Hale doesn’t cock block SAMCRO’s vengeance again.  And HOLY SHIT I have some serious blood lust for Zobelle, Weston, Polly, and Edmund.  WTF is wrong with me?   Anyways, SAMCRO’s diabolical plan to eradicate Principal Zobelle and LOAN frames the major events of the episode:  AJ Weston’s flame out; the IRA gun deal switcheroo; Tara smacking a bitch up; and the tug-of-war between Hale and Unser.

Big kudos to Henry Rollins this week.  He had AJ Weston’s rage down cold.   Upon discovering that Zobelle had been supporting the Mayans and dealing drugs, he kills two civilians and the dorky guy from the League at the heroin packaging plant and then goes to confront Principal Zobelle himself.  His kids are taken away from him and he agrees to a Sharks v Jets rumble with SOA.  Boy, he may prefer to win over being fair but he really had the rug pulled out from under him many times over.  And anyone who can realistically argue that Jax Teller would beat AJ Weston in a fistfight is out of his/her fucking mind.  All of this is to say that we have finally seen the class and race divide play out as Kurt Sutter hinted it would earlier in the season. 

SAMCRO gets the guns it needs from Jimmy O and the IRA thanks to a nice little switcheroo to throw the ATF off their trail.  If that little weasel Edmund wasn’t shitting his pants when he saw those two dead rats in the gun crate he should be.  In this whole IRA morass, Chibs is still seething with hate for Jimmy O.  I don’t think this is going to die on the vine and we’ve already seen that Chibs is willing to go off the reservation to get revenge on his old IRA pal.  How much SAMCRO allows this remains to be seen.   

So Tara and Hospital Bitchface and the Throwdown at St Rednecks.  I’m having trouble putting my finger on this other than to say that What Would Tara Do is the new black.  On the surface this scene is so monumentally satisfying but it kinda makes me feel dirty for liking it so much and watching it 5 times.  Yes, the bitch did deserve to be put in her place.  OMG she called Gemma a BIKER HOAR?  WHAT?  But we have seen Tara want to draw a clear line between her personal and professional lives all season long.  Perhaps it was the “bitches gotta show respect because you’re an old lady healer” series of pep talks from Gemma.  Perhaps it is her tru luv for Jax.  Maybe, as a professional she was tired of being pushed around by a bureaucrat. 

Alan Sepinwal attributes Tara’s violent take on the situation as being akin to the Clay/Gemma way of taking care of business rather than the Jax/John Teller school.  I don’t know if I completely buy that because even Jax can justify violence to avenge Gemma’s rape and would do the same if it had been Tara.   I think that as Tara takes on a more central role as Jax’s old lady in the MC, her view of violence to protect the club and the SAMCRO family has changed from something that was abhorrent to something that is justifiable.   Which sort of works when you consider Kurt Sutter’s recent comments about Tara in at interview with Maureen Ryan suggest that Tara is coming from a place where she is repressing that dark side rather than embracing it. 

The push and pull between Hale and Unser really comes into full view.  Unser jumps in the SAMCRO pool with both feet while sending mixed signals to Hale.  “Do your job.  No wait.  Do as I say.”  Hale really is the touchstone for reality in this episode.  As much as we love SAMCRO, they are anti-heroes.  Hale seems to have a set of values that more closely resembles a real world version of right and wrong.   Even if he does thwart SAMCRO at every turn, depriving me of the vengeance that I am craving, damn it.  Unser's "not in Charming" policy doesn't seem to be working too well but it is of his own making by calling Hale acting Chief.  Hale breaks up the Sharks and Jets rumble by arresting Weston and then spares Zobelle and Polly by throwing them in the clink too.  I'm curious to see what the implications might be for Deputy Boy Scout Hale. Unser has nothing to lose and is living on borrowed time so I think he'll come out just fine in the wash.

Remainders

• Uh.  What the fuck happened to Special Agent Skinner Darby?
• Tig bit some dude’s nose off in the Sharks v Jets showdown. 
• Might we see Half-Sack get patched in soon?
• That kiss between Zobelle and Polly along with the whole “you smell of him…  is someone else’s odor staining your fingers” thing just squicked me out.    
• Is the whole Georgie thing and Luanne's murder just going to go unresolved this season?