Sons Of Anarchy has once again stepped it up a notch with the seventh episode of season four. The show is starting to explore just where the characters’ loyalties truly lie, what they will do to cover up their secrets and just how far they will go to protect their families and their club.
The episode kicks off quickly. SAMCRO are out inspecting the Mayan drug operation, which they run the drugs for, when Jax gets a call from Gemma informing him about the threat on Tara’s life. As the boys leave, a speeding car with three men smash into the Myan compound, killing a few Mayans and shooting Alvarez.
Jax immediately jumps right into the thick of it, grabbing a gun and jumping on his bike to chase after them. After an awesome road chase, with a superb score, the club gets a call from Jax, who has followed the gunners to an apartment.
While Tara attends to Alvarez in the SAMCRO club house, Gemma asks Unser to look into Tara’s death threat. Meanwhile, Tara overhears that the club is now running drugs for the cartel and it may have been a competing cartel that made the threat against her.
While finishing up Alvarez’ shoulder, Sheriff Roosevelt shows up and inquires about the death threat. Tara brushes it off before Roosevelt asks Juice to take a drug test. After the okay from Clay, Juice obliges and leaves the compound with Roosevelt.
Meanwhile, Opie and Bobby go to get Lyla from work in order to protect her. When Lyla refuses to leave, Opie tells her that he’ll get someone to pick her up after work. Meanwhile, Bobby sees Ima with her newly beaten in face. After she admits that Jax is the source of her beatings, Bobby questions if she was the one who made the threat, which Ima quickly denies.
At the station, Juice agrees to bring Roosevelt the sample (one he doesn’t have), in exchange for meeting a Fed that can cut him a deal.
Elsehwere, the boys meet Jax at the gunner’s house. They storm into the apartment only to find a Mexican family living there. They find the driver, whose family is in the house, but not the gunner.
While interrogating the driver’s sister, the gunner storms in and executes her. Jibs reacts immediately and takes him out. It’s explained that the gunner came to the driver, an innocent man, and threatened to kill his family if he didn’t do the job.
Meanwhile, Roosevelt has a meeting with Link Potter, who requests that Roosevelt go to meet Juice, get the sample and then bust him on possession charges. When Roosevelt refuses, Potter threatens to kill his career.
When Jax arrives at the club house, he goes to see Tara, after Gemma informs him she knows about the cartel. Tara is furious that in only two weeks with running for the cartel that this has already happened. She then warns Jax that Clay isn’t to be trusted.
Clay speaks to Alvarez to let him know the shooter is dead and asks him if he thinks that the death threat could have been from the cartel. Alvarez tells Clay that death threats usually aren’t Cartel style, leaving Clay to question who it could have been.
Meanwhile, Juice meets up with Roosevelt and provides him with a sample of coke, but unless Juice took it when we weren’t watching, it’s not from the cartel. As instructed, Roosevelt then arrests Juice on possession charges, leaving Juice dumb founded. After speaking with Potter, Roosevelt informs the shattered Juice that he has to cooperate, before cutting him loose.
Juice is clearly disgruntled when he returns to the club house. Clay has a heart warming moment with him though, giving Juice a “Men Of Mayhem” patch for his cut, showing Juice that the club knows that he would do anything for them. Juice is bought to tears by Clay’s gesture, leaving him more conflicted than ever.
We then come to Jax and Opie who are trying to find Lyla. Eventually they come to the house and see all her stuff is gone, she’s left. This leaves Opie heart broken.
And then we come to the mother of all endings. At the club meeting, Bobby puts forward a vote of no confidence against Clay, and requests a vote for new leadership. The club is a shocked at Bobby but at the same time, you can tell it’s no huge surprise. The episode ends with a drunken Piney loading his gun in his cabin, while Unser speaks to Tara’s boss about the death threat.
The episode closes on Juice putting on his new patch. He then gets a chain and attempts to hang himself off a tree. As we see Juices squirm, we fade to black and open on the SAMCRO symbol, only to hear what sounds like a branch snap. End credits roll. Wow!
With five episodes left, things are seriously starting to heat up. It’s hard to believe how deep and broken SAMCRO are. They’re being infiltrated by drugs, the cops and even their own members. Things have already started to get ugly and it doesn’t look like they’ll brighten up anytime soon.
Of course, there’s still one question on everyone’s minds, will Jax find out that Clay killed his father? And if he does, what will he do about it?