...and so, we've reached the end of Sutter's pretentious claptrap.
Buckle up!
For the final time, the show opens with... A MONTAGE! Perhaps the most important montage of them all: Jax throws out his pearly whites and slips into something more outlaw. It only took seven seasons. Jax also broods a little, burns his father's letters and visits Opie and Tara's graves. About those letters... So, all that nonsense of spending four or five seasons bickering and infighting over these epic letters that would incriminate Character A, B and C if Character D got their hands on them - that just goes up in smoke? And I was under the impression that the letters were destroyed, no? Or did Jax secretly make a late night trip to Kinko's before they were supposedly destroyed? I'm a little foggy on the details, but no matter: I never cared about the letters. I always found it hilarious that JT's manuscript was about twenty pages and yet it took Jax three or four seasons just to read the whole thing, and even then, I'm not sure he ever did (what a maroon). I know finding time to brood on a rooftop whilst your father narrates what you're reading is a tall order when you're involved in silly chase scenes, one-sided shootouts and trying to wrangle your crappy accent. I'll forgive this whole letter fiasco on that basis.
Finally, SAMCRO brings on their first black member: Tio, from The Grim #######s (yes?). That's all well and good and, like, totally progressive and all, but Tio is relegated to just standing in the background or even offscreen for the remainder of the episode, like a good little token. D'oh.
BAM! Chase scene with a crappy cover of an Elvis song. Something to do with the Irish. I don't know. I don't care. I didn't like it in Season 3, I don't like it now.
After the ridiculous chase scene, Jax lays it all on the line for Chibbs. Mayhem has to land. Chibbs sobs. So emotional.
Enough of that nonsense for now, let's get back to the Oirish. Jax kills a couple of them in one of those "You're gonna tell so and so that..." scenes. There's at least one per episode, just like the montages.
Patterson returns for her cameo. We get a scene with her and Jarry and just maybe she will fire Jarry or at least point out what an incompetent, worthless, biker-humping bozo she is, but nope. Patterson actually compliments her on a job well done. Like, really? At this point in the episode, Tara and Roosevelt's murders have not yet been solved and Jarry has NO leads. Yeah, great job!
Jax kills more Oirish in one of SOA's patented "You're gonna tell so and so that..." scenes. Hey, that's two thus far! Don't push it. Good news is, the Oirish storyline finally comes to a close.
Back at TM, Jax gets in his requisite goodbyes with Nero, Wendy, his kids, even plastic hands. Nero somehow resists the urge to say Mano, or Hermano, or whatever variation he uses.
Chibbs and Jarry have one final scene together. He threatens her. You hear that? It's the sound of confirmation: Jarry was a pointless, worthless character.
Jax has a meeting with Patterson. He hands her all the information to put an end to the Tara/Roosevelt murders. Yay! Eli finally gets justice. Great police work, Jarry. I mean Jax.
Back at SAMCRO headquarters, everyone is crying and voting AYE to the proposition of Jax meeting Mr. Mayhem.
Oh, before I go any further, I just wanted to make it clear that Rat, too, was a pointless character. All that time spent with the homeless woman's daughter? Filler. For that matter, Happy as well. Why did they get promoted to series regulars? They contributed NOTHING. Remember on The Shield when David Rees Snell was promoted to series regular? They actually made him an important, pivotal character who had an arc with closure. You'd think Sutter, having been one of the head writers on that show, would have taken some of that over to SOA land. Nope. His pullover from that show is a goofy, wink wink, suck suck, slap slap, self-congratulatory joke that ends the episode. I'll get to that soon.
Where was I? Oh, right. Loose ends. Jax kills Barosky. Don't worry... OCP can rebuild him, they have the technology.
Elsewhere, just when we think we'll have ONE Gemma-free episode, we get to see her corpse. At least she didn't sing.
Finally, the big payoff to the homeless lady that we all pretty much figured out from the get-go: she's the Angel of Death or some such supernatural nonsense. Hey, in a show that bends reality as much as SOA, don't balk. She can weasel out of an APB as good as the rest of them.
Jax takes the homeless lady's quilt and dresses up as a bum, allowing him to get the drop on Marks... ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS! Several shots fired and not ONE SINGLE COP comes running out of the building. Of course not.
It's Mayhem time. Chibbs is President now, Tig is VP. Happy is now target practice in the episode's next plot twist: of course these guys aren't going to kill Jesu... I mean Jax. They let him "escape." I truly wanted to see him get blasted.
Jarry puts out an APB on Jax. Too bad he killed Unser - now how is he gonna get it dropped?
Jax has a moment with JT's rock, spouting Sutter's inane, pretentious poetry dialogue. Jax makes peace with the old man and promises to bring him a new coat of spray paint.
The APB is now in full effect with a cop stopping and demanding Jax get off his bike. Jax opens fire and, in a show of restraint that would make Ferguson envious, the cop does not return fire. Instead, we're treated to THE FINAL MONTAGE as fifty cops chase after Jax at about twenty miles an hour. The song is really awful, by the way, but you knew that would happen.
Here comes Sutter's lame ending gag: it's Michael Chiklis who kills Jax, sort of. Jax decides to commit suicide by running head on into Chiklis' truck. You see, as I was saying, Sutter refused to carry over the brilliant writing of The Shield and instead decided to fanwank by throwing in "see what I did here" cameos. If there's ONE positive thing I can say, at LEAST Chiklis' character was NOT Vic Mackey. No need in tarnishing that legacy anymore than you already have, Sutter. I wonder, though: were Milo's tomatoes unharmed during the crash? I hope so. He has an ex wife and four kids to feed.
Oh, and if you thought the wheelchair CGI was bad, how about Jax playing chicken with the semi? Here's an image I think sums up my thoughts perfectly:
http://cdn.alltheragefaces.com/img/f...lol-crazy-l.pn g
Jax crashes, the song stops (yay) and a couple of crows chomp on some homeless woman bread as Jax' blood makes its way to the bread. END SCENE! END PRETENTIOUSNESS. Cue: The ####### Executioner, which I hope is as hilarious as the last five seasons of SOA; I need something else to recap and Sutter is the perfect maroon for my foibles.
Oh, and I see what you did there, Sutter, with throwing in that Shakespeare quote at the end there. You pretentious, hacky ######nozzle.
Honestly, it's been fun recapping this show. I really did enjoy it. Yes, it was poorly written and 90% of the time, COMPLETE nonsense. But it was an entertaining mess.
BTW, did we ever find out who Sam Crow was?