So, who never wants to eat chili again? Personally, as a vegetarian, I’m okay after looking at the head stew, but the image of the ground beef sliding off of that guys face is one that’s going to stick with me. Ground beef. Sliding. Serving that chili wasn’t even weirdly empowering and fun like it was in Fried Green Tomatoes. It just kind of made me want to vom.
First things first: As many guessed, Juice did not shuffle into that mortal coil last week. The branch, did in fact, break. I didn’t want to mention it last week for those of you who aren’t on Twitter obsessively, but Theo Rossi is still tweeting from the set, so his survival wasn’t exactly a huge surprise. That is, unless the game-changer I’ve been predicting this season is actually a badass Walking Dead crossover, and Zombie Juice was coming to take his revenge.
At this point, I think poor Juice would love to be a shuffling, brain eating zombie. After his failed suicide attempt (sidebar: is that redundant? If it wasn’t failed, wouldn’t it just be a “suicide win?” or “suicide solution?”), Juice isn’t infused with the spirit of the Lord and a burning desire to set things right and live his life. He’s just as anxious and depressed as he was before, if not more so.
Not only has Theo Rossi done an excellent job in these past several episodes, but Tommy Flanagan also deserves a big shout-out in this storyline. Chibs has clearly taken a page out of the Gemma Teller book of “Not Saying Shit But Figuring Out Everything With Some Pointed Looks and Other Non-Verbal Cues.” His interactions with Juice have been subtle, but it’s been clear for the past couple of episodes that he’s the only one who knows that something else is up with Juice. I can’t figure out how much he knows – he definitely realized the clotheslining story was bullshit, but I’m not sure if he knows everything– that Juice actually stole the coke. Chibs doesn’t seem to be one of the more hot-headed, reactionary members of the group, so it doesn’t really surprise me that he’s sitting on whatever information he does have.
Speaking of sitting on information, Jesus Mary and Joseph, Piney is dumb. Or was dumb, I guess I should say. The letters that Tara gave him basically say that Clay killed John Teller. On top of that, he’s known Clay for decades, so he knows what he’s capable of. Then on top of all that, he can clearly see that Clay is getting more and more desperate with each passing day. So given all of this evidence, did he honestly think that he could directly threaten Clay and have everything turn out alright? That seems like the absolute height of naivete to me. Maybe he turned the oxygen up to high and it was going to his head a little bit more than it should have been.
Honestly, I’m surprised that Clay let it go on this long. Piney really only has the sack full of heads and the Mayan traitor to thank for getting to live that one extra day. Clay was so busy dealing with that, that it took him a little time to go take care of the Piney problem. But take care of it he did, with a shotgun blast to the chest. In a single second, he obliterated not only one of the founding members of the club, but Opie’s father; and so soon after another member of the club killed Opie’s wife. What I want to see is that guy go apeshit on the entire organization. He’s about overdue, I would think.
Ultimately, Piney’s actions are no surprise, as the club isn’t known for their strong decision-making skills. I love Jax, but I spent most of this episode wanting to smack him upside the head. “I had no idea muling would lead to this shit.” O RLY? That “shit is fucked up and bullshit” would quickly become SAMCRO’s metaphorical protest sign never occurred to you when you were getting into bed with a Mexican drug cartel? Have you never heard about Mexican drug cartels? These fuckers torture and disembowel people for tweeting shit. What do you think they’re going to do with a bunch of white boys (and, uh, Juice) running coke? COME. ON.
At least Tara has taken off her leather bracelet and regained some damn sense. After trying to be mini Gemma, she remembers that she’s a doctor and finally realizes that Jax’s stupidity is going to get her entire family killed. While Jax is generally terrible at making decisions, he isn’t a total idiot, and agrees that she should go. Now the question is, will Piney’s death make her run faster or make her stay to finish what they’ve started? All I know is that the death toll is rising and every minute Tara stays in Charming is another minute she gets closer to ending up with everyone else – with or without her head.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Oct 25, 2011 @ 23:01 EST5EDT
Awesome episode..loved the scene of Jax and Tara at the kitchen table. You see the man that she loves, he is not the posturing strutting bad guy with her. I think Gemma will figure out that Clay killed Piney and that should prove interesting.
With all the brutal violence I did get a few chuckles last night. I have a twisted sense of humor so I did get a kick out of the head coming to the top of the chili and Gemma handling the situation so smoothly.
My biggest laugh came when Gemma told Tig to take her home and he tossed her pocketbook over his shoulder and followed her out. There is another man that can be so sweet one minute and a cold blooded killer in the next.
It is my theory that Piney knew Clay was going to kill him. He counted on it. He figured it was the only way to expose Clay. It really seemed like a goodbye when he apologized to Opie. RIP Piney. Poor Opie!
clay has killed 3 of the first nine and opies wife and put a hit on tara and i think gemmas going 2 b his down fall because of tara and the babies