It may have seemed like a foregone conclusion after last week’s episode that SAMCRO would be heading for Belfast this week, but since they have to wait until Oswald’s charter plane leaves for Manchester, they’re stuck in Charming for one more day. And as it turns out, it’s for the better, because after a member of the Grim Reapers turns up dead, SAMCRO has to step in and stop them from seeking revenge on the Calaveras. Afraid of striking back without checking with Alvarez first, Clay decides to approach the Mayan president directly to act as a mediator. But while Alvarez admits that he still needs the Calaveras in his pocket because they serve a purpose, he agrees to let SAMCRO question Salazar about the assassination. Salazar begrudgingly gives up the man responsible, but Alvarez punishes him as well, stripping him of his patch and putting someone else in charge.
Salazar isn’t at all pleased, and after they made a point of showing his reaction to Jax telling Alvarez that they were going to be out of town for a week, I just knew that he was planning some kind of retribution. And now that they know that Tara is Jax’s old lady, you can bet that they’re going to go after her, especially with the club halfway across the world. Still, it feels a little too soon to be doing another subplot involving an attack on one of SAMCRO’s women after Gemma’s kidnapping/rape last season, so here’s hoping that Salazar is taken care of before anything bad happens to Tara.
After all, it’s not like she hasn’t already been through hell these last few weeks. She was held at gunpoint by Cameron while Half-Sack was killed and Abel was kidnapped, she became an accessory to murder when she helped Gemma kill Amelia the caretaker, and on tonight’s episode, she walked in on Jax to discover that he had just banged a porn star. Opie believes that Tara is too resilient to let something like this make her want to give up on the relationship, but she’s still not happy about it and has moved out of Jax’s house for the time being. Gemma suggests that telling Jax about the pregnancy may change his mind about his plan to “protect” her, but she wants to keep it a secret until she decides what she’s going to do with the baby, and makes Gemma promise not to tell anyone.
Of course, Gemma wants a favor in return, and before you know it, Tara’s helping her escape from the hospital. She doesn’t seem to have thought things through very well, but then again, she doesn’t seem to care much, either. Her administrator Margaret Murphy, on the other hand, is more than aware of what this could mean for her career. But after Tara tells her why she’s committing a felony (namely, to help Jax and the club rescue Abel from the Irish), Margaret decides to come to her aid… by promptly punching her in the face. Hey, if the cops are going to believe that Tara was held at gunpoint by Gemma like she originally claimed, then she might as well make it look real. And is it just me, or has the woman formerly known as Margaret the nosy bitch suddenly become a likeable character? Go figure.
Unfortunately, Tara’s sacrifice is all for naught, as Unser doesn’t buy her bullshit story one bit, stopping Gemma outside the hospital just as she’s making a run for it with Jax, Clay and Tig. But when guns are drawn and Unser’s bluff is called, they head for the airport while Unser radios in for backup. (Maybe Gemma shouldn’t have been a bitch and called him a traitor when he was just trying to do his job.) With the police hot on their trail, however, Tig decides to create a diversion while the others head for Oswald’s plane. It appears that just about all of the major members are joining Jax in Belfast, except for Piney and, of course, Tig, who now has plenty of time to bond with Kozik while he waits for the others to return.
They might be surprised when they arrive, though, as Liam isn’t the only SAMBEL (that’s Sons of Anarchy Belfast, for those keeping count) member who’s in bed with Jimmy O. Maureen’s husband McGee has also turned mercenary, and he’s already informed Jimmy of SAMCRO’s arrival. Gemma, meanwhile, is just worried that Jax will find out the truth about his dad’s history in Belfast. She’s definitely hiding something involving John Teller and Maureen (probably an affair, and it might even be related to his death), but not even she knew that John was the father of Maureen’s daughter, Trinity – a fact that literally made her sick to her stomach after Maureen hinted at it during their phone call. Hmm, the plot thickens…
