The Questionnaire: David Hale

Next up in the Sons of Anarchy characters meets the Inside the Actors Studio Questionnaire series:  Deputy Chief of Police David Hale.  To catch up on the earlier installments in the series click here.  Now, on with the show!

What is your favorite word?

Law

What is your least favorite word?

Necessary Evil

What turns you on?

Staying on the right side of right and wrong, smug righteousness, clandestine workplace romances.   

What turns you off?

Moral ambiguity.

What sound or noise do you love?

The sound of handcuffs clicking into place when I arrest someone.  

What sound or noise do you hate?

The sound of Harleys rumbling through downtown Charming.

What is your favorite curse word?

Damnit. But I prefer not to swear if I can help it. 

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Chief of Police, Exterminator, or Mayor of Charming.  

What profession would you not like to do?

Criminal defense attorney. 

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when arrive at the Pearly Gates?

You mostly stayed on the straight and narrow, come on in.

Sons of Anarchy 2.13 Na Triobloidi Recap

Before the recap begins, let’s have a moment of silence to mark the passing of Half-Sack Sack Half-Sack. …….  We’ll remember you for the MILF chubby Gemma gave you, your boxing prowess, your ability to remove a deer from a BMW with a chainsaw, and your fortitude for cleaning up a toilet defiled by Piney at the club house.  Now, who wants the job of informing Cherry of the news? {…. crickets…}

Half_Sac Pic Source Here 

On with the recap of Na Triobloidi!  In which, Kurt Sutter cuts out my heart with a rusty grapefruit spoon and I am smiling the entire time.  Watching Na Triobloidi is sort of like reading Crime and Punishment. OMG I’m such an ass kisser.  I just compared Sons of Anarchy to Crime and Punishment. WTF?  You know it is really, really good.  Brilliant, in fact.  But at the end you feel like the dog that got drug behind the car in National Lampoon’s Vacation.  Just without the whole being dead part.  And this is not to say that I am bitching and moaning.  Not. At. All.  I have a huge amount of respect for any show/book/movie  that can create amazing characters that you care deeply and then put them through these awful ordeals so we can see how they make it through.  To do anything less is cheating.  This is why I don’t watch CBS.      

Okay, before I digress any further…  The finale of Sons of Anarchy opens up with three rats eating away at a crow set to the tune of Burn This Town by Battleme you can get it here.  In my mind, the rats are the Principal Zobelle and affiliates, the ATF Bitch, and the Irish. The thing about all three of these rats eating away at SAMCRO is that they are all interrelated.  They aren’t isolated to one particular thing.  Zobelle was in bed with the Feds and the Irish.  The ATF was in bed with the Irish trying to get Zobelle.  They all picked over SAMCRO’s carcass while the boys were fighting amongst themselves about whether Clay or Jax had the bigger dick.  By my scorecard that leaves us with:  The World 1, SAMCRO 0.    

Rat Photo from @high_score 

Was anyone actually surprised that Zobelle was in cahoots with the FBI?  He has been walking around like his shit doesn’t stink all season long.  He had the trump card in his pocket the entire time but it proved ineffective by the way SAMCRO swiftly removed his layers of insulation.  And OMFG what an amazing sequence of the Sons going to war, Unser’s truck opening up with Piney yelling Ye-Haw! and then opening fire.  It was brazen and satisfying.  However, Zobelle still slipped away.  That’s okay, Budapest can have him.  It will give him a nice place to adapt and adjust.  Really, Budapest is incredibly nice even though Zobelle really deserves a cave in Kandahar.  Zobelle’s escape is Darwin’s theory of evolution at work.  The strong survive.  The weak are shot to death on the shitter in a tattoo parlor.  You know, like Westin was.  A quick question:  who, when about to disappear gets their kid out of child services to go get some more ink?  Like, has Westin ever heard of getting an ice cream cone?  Jax does the deed.  Happy is proud (which gives me the creepers) and Jax seems less than satisfied.  Maybe he built it up in his head too much?  Maybe doing bad things doesn’t feel so good?

ATF Bitch.  (Sigh)  This is the second time this season where someone has been given the chance to off her and hasn’t.  Let’s face it.  She is a bad cop but a smart bitch.  Hale, who got all righteous about saying that he is a cop who is actually bound by the law but he also turned Zobelle out so I don’t think he’s going to qualify for law enforcement sainthood anytime soon.   Anywhoo…  ATF Bitch sets up Eddie the Weasel and then kills him when he tries to run away.  When Gemma offs Polly, motivated because God put the girl in her path to kill (um, paging megalomania and delusions of grandeur) ATF Bitch puts both killings on Gemma.  Once again we see ATF Bitch acting the way a president of an MC would.  I don’t really think we can consider the ATF as anything but another gang—unless Stahl is replaced.  So you’ve had two murders pinned on your, WWGD?  Go on the lam with Unser, of course.  I kinda like the thought of Gemma and Unser on the run in a police cruiser.  Warm and fuzzy, yes.  Inconspicuous, not exactly.

 Finally, the Irish.  Cameron Hayes mistakenly thinks that Gemma has killed Eddie the Weasel (oh yeah, we have you to thank for that too Stahl).  In a gut-wrenching sequence, he kills Half-Sack, terrifies Tara, and makes off with Able.  A son for a son.  Good lord.  I get why he was crying—holding that baby boy probably made him think of his own son as an infant and all that has been lost.  People do crazy shit when they are grief-stricken and can blame someone.  You know, like kidnapping a baby.  Jax’s baby.   Yeah, that’s gonna end well for Cameron.  Season 3, here we come!  You know in like 9 months. 

Loose Ends

• Luanne’s murder hasn’t been dealt with yet and Georgie Caruso is at large prowling the red light district in Bangkok for talent
• Whatever happened to those outstanding gun charges from the raid on the dinner of the faithful?
• Um.  So what the fuck happened to Darby
• Tara tried to talk Gemma out of killing Polly.  Pot, Kettle, meet Black. 
• Opie seems to have traded up for a bandana. 
• SAMCRO is all about family.  Too bad their antagonists aren’t. 
• My only minor complaint:  there was no humor in this episode.  It was all heavy.  It needed just one little scene with Juice.  Just one. 
• Oh, and last but not least Otto got his revenge.  But man, he is never, ever going to sit at the table in Church again.   Maybe at his wake.  

Sons of Anarchy 2.06 Falx Cerebri Recap

So previously on As the Harley Rumbles, SAMCRO was under attack by the Principal Zobelle and his menacing band of aging punk rock gods white supremacists.  As the title alludes, Falx Cerebri was all about divisions, or if I want to get high cotton about my take on it, the cleavages amongst our pals in Charming and the alliances they make. 

The tension between Clay and Jax continues to build throughout the episode.  With Piney conveniently/inconveniently away on a 4-day bender, Chibs in serious condition with a subdural hematoma, and Opie bitchfacing Jax (again) to back down and get in line, Jax is largely on his own in the MC.   Although, that isn’t an entirely fair statement – Jax also chooses to work on things from his end in what he perceives as his interest in protecting the club.  The obvious alliance is Clay, Unser, and it appears most of the members of the MC are hell-bent on spilling Zobelle’s pristine blood, although not in Charming.  So too is the alliance between Jax and Hale, although the extent to which Hale goes all in is astounding.  When Hale began to threaten his arm with a piece of glass in Impeccable Smokes to get Polly to cooperate, I was applauding.

Basically, this whole set of alliances that are set up around the Jax and Clay story line make me feel like Kurt Sutter is beating me over the head with a copy of Hamlet are based on an untenable either-or proposition.  Either the MC strikes, reacts, and goes for the jugular OR it sits back, looks at the chess board, and contemplates its navel lint.  As we see how Zobelle’s manipulation of SAMCRO’s raid on the Aryan membership drive dinner of the faithful plays out, it's pretty clear that neither of these approaches are working well.  Oh, and AJ Weston’s  Henry Rollins’ kid scares the shit out of me. 

Meanwhile, over in the girl’s bathroom, Gemma and Tara are working on an alliance of their own, courtesy of Smith & Wesson, some porn posters, and Ima’s sensible, 4-door, suburban mom Lexus.  By far, this was the most lol-larious scene of the episode.  These women enjoyed taking on some frustrations with firearms and it was a helluva lot of fun to watch.  I’m about as straight of a white girl as you can get, but even I thought Gemma teaching Tara to shoot was hot – I can’t imagine what that scene did for the boys in the viewing audience.  Anyways.  Back to the story.  Gemma, in spite of wanting to cut Hale and Unser’s big soft hearts out if they ever mention the verboten gang rape of yore, allies with our boys in brown:  Unser consoles her feelings of guilt; Gemma helps Hale with an ID on Polly.   There is also a gang-of-two alliance between Gemma and Jax that we see glimmers of after the explosion when Jax blows past Tara and is consoled by Gemma.  

_{(And I’d totally write more about the Jax and Gemma gang-of-two if it didn’t take me so long to recap a single freaking episode.  Also, another thing I'd love to write more about:  Dead Daddy John Teller's Burnt Book of Biker Wisdom.)} 

            And, is it just me or do Tara and Jax (Note to the wardrobe department:  please, just trim those split ends and tidy up Jax’s beard.  I’m so over the Jax looking like Jesus and/or Kurt Cobain ) seem to be very tenuously allied with each other or, for that matter, anyone in particular outside of Gemma and Hale?  

WTF Moment:  Oh.  Hai.  IRA guys.  Are you now in business with Zobelle?  Guess you guys really are in it all for the cause.

Second Runner Up:   Happy’s enthusiasm for beheading Zobelle in broad daylight.  Sheesh…this guy makes Tig look like a saint. 

Action Moment:  I know you are expecting me to say the raid but nope, nope, nope.  It is the faux failing breaks meets Unser and Hale’s Big Gulp of radioactive diet-cola flavored piss coming.  Love it.   

Get Over Yourself Moment:  This week’s award goes to Tara (hell, at least it wasn’t Opie AGAIN).  Usually, I reserve this part for scenes where I just have to roll my eyes at characters that do something implausible or annoyingly lacking self-awareness.  This week Tara was totally lacking self-awareness but in an incredibly satisfying character development/internal conflict sort of way. 

Tara’s jealousy gets the better of her when Gemma is more supportive/comforting to Jax after the bombing.  Tara’s green-eyed monster really shows through when she suggests that Gemma is to blame for the explosion.  And then later at the Old Lady’s Gun Show, Tara who was so concerned with things being normal downright relishes in threatening Ima with her .38 and then shooting up the girl’s car.  The tension in Tara, how much of the MC to let in, what is normal, and how she wrestles with it is so well written and even better played by Maggie Siff .  None of these characters are perfect.  All of them are flawed.   And we are starting to see more of these flaws play out as Tara’s character develops. 

Sons of Anarchy 2.05 Smite Recap

For fun and edification, let’s start the recap with the definition of smite which means to “to strike heavily or strongly with the hand or an implement held in the hand.”  There is a lot of smiting going on in this episode but in a nutshell: Gemma smites Tara, with much hilarity; in a massive, gratifying two-for Unser smites Hale and Boy Scout Hale in turn smites the enemies of Charming.  Jax smites Clay at the vote; and Principal Zobelle smites SAMCRO. 

After an awkward, passive aggressive, knowing exchange between Jax and Gemma about the whereabouts of a box that contained funky underwear and Dead Daddy John Teller’s Burnt Book of Biker Wisdom about the vision for outlaw motorcycle clubs, the ladies are off to town to get Gemma some hormones to fix her Mojave problem.  Gemma does the girlrun in FMBs to chase after the pert blonde that kidnapped her. When she loses the girl to Henry Rollins, she accidentally clocks Tara in the nose.  Breaking it.  I don’t know if I have a sick sense of humor or if this was just unintentionally funny but I laughed.  Hard.  Back to the show:  Tara blackmails Gemma to see a shrink (which she bails on, of course) and the they are warm and fuzzy about as much as these two bitches can possibly get.   Oh, and I totally want Gemma’s sunglasses.    

Boy Scout Deputy Chief Hale is left between a rock and hard place after Principal Zobelle visits him with footage of Opie torching Darby’s meth lab and Hale taking a bribe of a $150 gift certificate for cigars.  Jax, followed by Unser are hot on their heels.  The scene between Unser and Hale is probably one of the best of the season so far.  Unser tells Hale that he picked him because he knew Hale would do the right thing for Charming.  And, before Hale can get too comfortable with Principal Zobelle, Unser lets him on the big bad gang rape secret so Hale can come to his own conclusions.  So, the way I see it, Unser smote Hale with information.  How so unlike on of the major themes of Hamlet, which is sooo not about information, knowledge, and truth.   This whole exchange made me believe in the spoiler that the someone that we know and love would die in this season would be Unser.  But alas, it won’t be him. 

In turn, Hale lets the Jets and the Sharks go with a warning.  Your smite two-for comes when he stops Clay and Jax, telling them about Zobell’s surveillance, evidence of Opie torching the meth lab, and, most interestingly Hale sells out his brother’s eminent domain land scam.   I would argue that all of these, at least in Hale’s mind represent threats to Charming.    It isn’t that Hale likes SAMCRO, it’s that he perceives a group that gang rapes women and cooks meth for short-term gain or another group seeks to sell off portions of land to greedy developers for a quick buck as enemies of his town.  Good on Hale.   All of this makes him an incredibly interesting character because it is hard to reconcile the fact that he overlooked Darby’s meth lab with his new-found moral code.  I suspect it will be resolved in the long run and I’m interested to see where Hale goes.   

So our predictable major smiting comes from Jax at Church.  There are undercurrents of politicking and allegiances being set throughout the episode.  Both Jax and Clay consider Juice to be the swing vote.  Boy, were they wrong.  Basically, it breaks down as you would expect – Clay wants revenge NOW MOTHEFUCKER and Jax wants revenge that isn’t “half blind” by gathering more intel.  Bobby Elvis turns out to be the deciding vote because he had some convenient off screen time with Piney who told him about how he gave John Teller’s Big Book of Biker Wisdom to Jax.   Tig, Opie/Bitchface, Juice, and Clay all vote for revenge now motherfuckers.  Chibs, Piney, Bobby Elivs, and Jax all want to be “smart” about it.    Bobby Elvis later tells Clay that if he wants blind action, he should go to Tig but if he wants the truth, Clay should come to him.  INSERT OBVIOUS TRUTHY HAMLET REFERNCE HERE . 

I love Bobby Elvis but he is now at the top of my list of characters that won’t make it to see season 3.  He is hiding Luanne’s skim operation, he dares to subvert what Clay considers the best interest of the MC, and he is truly a likeable character.  Shall I go on?

The obvious and less than subtle smite award goes to Principal Zobelle (who apparently is Per Blonde's father) and his team of gang raping white separatists who take out Otto’s eye and leave a car bomb at Teller Morrow (Noooooooooo  not Chibs!  I love him!   Damn you cliffhanger!) so that all of SAMCRO can feel his wrath. 

Action Moment:  There were a few contenders for this during Smite.  The Charming Rumble on Main Street, replete with Jax doing a 180 switch from, hey street fights aren’t the answer to this to a HOSHIT YOU DIDN’T JUST DO THAT TO MY BIKE HENRY ROLLINS beat down was good but problematic for two reasons: (1) it was just a little too Sharks v Jets for my taste and (2) does anyone actually believe that Jax Teller could take Henry Rollins’ character?  No?  I didn’t think so either. 

The explosion of the Aryan Aerostar of Death at Teller-Morrow was good, but a little expected. That’s why this week’s best action moment was when Otto got jumped in prison.  Otto nobly fought back but to no avail since it was a 3 on 1 fight.  And the squirm-inducing broom handle to the eye was an uncomfortably brutal yet perfect set up for the rest of the episode.  Kurt Sutter, you are one sick puppy and I love you for it because you make brilliant television shows. 

Get Over Yourself Moment:  This week we have Tara to blame thank for the GOY scene in Smite.  Tara worries that something bad is going to happen to Able AKA The Kid, to her, and to Jax who is still pretty but needs to shave that beard before he starts looking even more like Jesus, the martyr for everyone’s sins. Oh Tara, you are an incredible buzzkill with your concerns about normality and Shakespearean tragedy foreshadowing.  Jax breaks out Dead Daddy’s Book of Biker Wisdom and all is totes okay.     

WTF Moment:  Um, Opie and the crack-smoking-porn-queen-that-drives-a-Prius.  Hey, it might be a bit early but that bike restoration project might not keep him warm enough at night.  If it helps him get is balls back, I’m all for it.

Character I don’t know whether I should pay attention to:  Bitchface hospital administrator with the glasses who thinks that Jax is beating Tara.  Either she is going to go away or Tara is going into private practice.  I'm just sayin'