Quick Thoughts on SOA

I'll keep this week's thoughts on SOA short and sweet. It felt like the writers chose an unfortunate time for a throw-away episode. Compared to last week's thriller, this week's episode felt like a snooze. That said here are some observations:

- Early in the episode Clay makes a promise to his flock that "no one else will be hurt under (his) watch". He can't possibly keep this promise and making it will surely come back to bite him.

- Tara has really begun to embrace her status as Jax's old lady. First she gets waited on in the club house, then she goes crazy on that bitch from the hospital. While it was extremely gratifying to see her beat the shit out of that annoying woman, it was completely out of character for her. It would have been better for her to use her brain to get back at her than her fists.
-I'm pumped to see Half-Sack finally get patched in.

- Did anyone else notice the very unparental kiss that Zobelle laid on his daughter? Either she is not really his daughter or Zobelle is even sicker than anyone thought.

- I liked the fact that Lem from The Sheild made an appearance as a member of the Tacoma chapter of SAMCRO. He was one of my favorite characters, lets just hope no one chucks a grenade into his car this time.

- The Rainbow Coalition of SAMCRO, the Niners and the Chinese was pretty silly. Well, actually, that whole rumble scene was pretty silly. Anyone catch Tig's Mike Tyson/Walter Sobchak ear bite? How could Weston neglect to send someone to scope out the scene of their brawl before hand to make sure they wouldn't be out-gunned?

-It is interesting who Unser has transformed into one of the most sympathetic characters on the show. He used to be sleezy, crooked cop. Now he is a sleezy, crooked cop who is essential to SAMCRO's success against the Nazis.

- It seemed as if Zobelle picked up some sort of accent at the end of the episode. He has always had a particular manner of speech, but never an accent. Weird.

That's it for now. Expect much more next week after the 90 minute finale.

Netflix Watch Instantly Column #1

This is the first installment of an ongoing column dedicated to reviewing and recommending the "Watch Instantly" movies on Netflix. Anyone with a Netflix subscription is familiar with the type of movies found in this category. They are typically older classics (Die Hard, Terminator, The Big Lebowski), low budget independent films, bizarre horror movies, foreign films, and genuine crap. I have Monday's off from work, so I usually spend most of the day sitting around waiting for other people to get home. To kill time I like to choose a movie from this Netflix Watch Instantly list. I will rate these movies using a scale that is based on two factors: how bored you would have to be to decide to watch the movie and how high you would have to be to actually enjoy the movie. Without further adieu, here is the first inaugural Neflix Watch Instantly Review.

Fetching Cody

I selected this particular film because it stars Jay Baruchel, an alumnus of Undeclared, one of my favorite TV shows. (Apparently Jay is a pretty recognizable star in Canada. Unfortunately, the only American movie I can remember him being in was Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, where he just had a bit part.)

Fetching Cody is essentially a love story about two drug addicted street kids on Vancouver's East Side. This setting plays a prominent role in the cinematography of the film. There are a lot of shots of abandoned buildings and gritty streetscapes. I had no idea that Canadian ghettos existed, but apparently they do. The film is a fairy-tale of sorts, so there is very little gratuitous sex, violence or drug use, despite repeated reference to all three.

The film opens with a shot of Art (Baruchel) and his girlfriend Cody riding his bike around the slums making small talk with the local homeless people, trannies and drug pushers. Soon the couple part ways as Cody hops into a passing truck, presumably to turn a trick. Later that evening, Art climbs through the window of Cody's one-room apartment and finds her in a coma with a syringe and a bent spoon laying next to her. This is where things begin to get bizarre.

Cody is taken to the hospital, where Art is informed that she is suffering from kidney failure. It is made clear that this failure is a result of years of abuse and not simply an overdose (a fairly important distinction later in the movie). Dazed and with nowhere to go, Art stumbles into a bar where he meets Harvey, an older homeless man. Harvey tells Art that he has a warm and dry place for him to stay the night in an abandoned warehouse or factory of some sort. Inside the place Art finds an old recliner, wrapped in Christmas lights. He soon discovers that this chair is a time machine and he is determined to use it to go back in time to keep Cody safe and healthy.

This film immediately brings to mind The Butterfly Effect. The similarities are countless. Much like Ashton Kutcher's character in Butterfly, Art discovers dark secrets about his lover and realizes that is impossible to change the past without completely altering the present. The writer/director of Fetching Cody claims that he started writing the story years before Butterfly was released, but who really cares? So what that the movies are similar?

While The Butterfly Effect attempts to explain and rationalize the time travel, Fetching Cody, to its credit, doesn't bother. The movie is a fairy tale (and its knows it) and as such does not insult the viewers intelligence by attempting to make the supernatural elements of the story realistic.

Without giving too much of the ending away, the point of the movie is to demonstrate the fact that sometimes in order to save the people you love, sometimes you have let them go (If you love something, set it free). I really enjoyed the movie on both an emotional and aesthetic level. While Baruchel is way too clean and well put together to be believable as a drug addled homeless person, he is extremely convincing as a guy who just wants his girl back. And after sitting at home alone all day long waiting for my girl to get home, I could relate.

Boredom Rating: Familiarity with star, plus plot based on drug use and time travel, equals a movie I would watch even if I wasn't bored.
Intoxication Rating: Half a joint. Not necessary, but certainly helpful.

The D.E.N.N.I.S. System

Thursday night's Always Sunny revisited an aspect of the shows mythology that I was worried they had abandoned. Everyone knows that the shows is about a group of horrible losers who destroy everything around them except each other. In past seasons however, despite being so awful, Dennis was a capable, if not remarkable, coxman. Unfortunately, prior to this episode, the writers had neglected this aspect of his character.

This episode, titled "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System", has a simple premise: Dennis schools the gang on his patented system for getting women to fall in love with him. (He uses an acrostic (the second acrostic featured in Thursday's T.V. line up, the first one was used in 30 Rock) on a flip-chart for effect.) The system is...well, I'm just going to come out and say it...the system is fucking genius.

D- Display Value: For Dennis this means filling a forged prescription for a fake grandmother. For Charlie it means breaking into the Waitresses house with a bag of hair and dismantling her garbage disposal. (It was nice to see the Waitress again, I hope they bring her back to the forefront a little bit. She always brings out the most pathetic (and funniest) side of Charlie.)

Engage Physically: This step involves not only Dennis and his lady friend (a.k.a victim, played by Dennis' real life wife) but also a confederate (namely Mac). Dennis takes his date to a restaurant he knows to be closed. After feigning surprise he suggests they order a pizza and eat at his apartment. Upon arriving at home with said pizza, the couple find Mac sitting on the couch (he would have been in the his room but he saw a black widow spider in there). Seeking privacy, Dennis invites the young lady into his room where he seduces her over a slice of fresh 'za.

Nurture Dependence: Dennis offers a few options to achieve this step: Slashing her tires so she can't drive and must depend on him for a ride, calling her home late at night from a payphone and threatening her in a scary voice so that she runs into his protective arms, etc.

Neglect Emotionally: Self-explanatory.

Inspire Hope: Cue Top Gun Sex Scene.

Separate Entirely: Also, pretty self-explanatory

As the episode goes on we discover that in addition to the D.E.N.N.I.S. system, members of the gang are also employing the M.A.C. system (Move In After Completion), which pretty much consists of Mac sweeping in after Dennis "Separates Entirely" and offering the ladies a shoulder to cry on. Then he bangs them. Further down the food chain is Frank. His plan involves flashing Magnum Condoms and a wad of hundreds at Dennis' and Mac's scraps in the hopes on enticing them with his massive dong.

The episode features a sub-plot involving Dee and her Army boyfriend (from the wrestling episode), who is actually wearing the pair of jorts Frank gave him. Dennis is convinced that army guy is trying to "D.E.N.N.I.S." her. To prove her independence, Dee decided to treat her new boyfriend like shit. He eventually gets fed up and leaves her, but not before calling her a "mean person" (understatement of the season). More importantly, we get more evidence that Kaitlin Olson is one of the more gifted physical comediennes on TV right now. Last season we got a scene of her careening out the door of a shoe store and directly into a parked car, this episode we got a shot of her falling head over high-heels down a steep hill.

Eventually Frank destroys the entire system by attempting to bypass the M.A.C. system and go straight to the scraps by announcing to Dennis's victim that Dennis (and by extension, possibly her) has HIV. The final scene is classic Sunny chaos in which everyone is screaming over one another, Charlie pays a carnie to stab the waitress and a poor elderly woman (Gladys, the piano player from the Nightman Cometh episode) is abandoned at the fair.

-Welcooommme tooo helllllll......

All wrapped up in a bow...

I am kind of glad I neglected to post anything about last week's SOA episode. Last night had way more to talk about than the 90 minute extended episode from last week.

The episode was chock-full of powerful moments and big surprises. Tara and Jax get a knock on their door at night, scared, Jax pulls out his gun to answer the door. When he discovers that it is Clay at the door he invites him inside and promptly hands Tara his weapon. We see Tara hesitate for a split second before taking the pistol and there is a shot of her silhouette framed by the doorway with the gun in her hand. At that moment Tara has chosen Jax and the life that comes with him over the life that she had planned for herself.

During Clay's visit to Jax's house they discuss their next step in dealing with the aftermath of Jemma's bombshell from last week. Jax bluntly states that he wants "kill them all" and Clay's reaction to this is unclear. There is a clear role-reversal in terms of "strategic vision" going on. Initially Jax resisted Clay's heavy-handedness towards the Nazis, but after hearing that his mother had been raped he is ready to go to war. Clay, who for the entire season has been shortsighted and quick on the draw when dealing with his enemies, decides not to immediately spring into action (or violent rage) and to finally come up with a plan to exploit Zobelle's weaknesses, which is what Jax had been lobbying for the entire time.

Wow. What was up with Jemma this week? First we have a scene in which she tells Tara that her relationship with Clay is doomed because "men need to own their pussy" then she goes out and almost bangs Tig. What gives? I don't remember any reference from the past episodes to any simmering feelings between Jemma and Tig, yet that scene made it seem as if they had been pining for each other all along. I guess she just wanted to feel desired, and as for Tig, well, he has just about lost his mind, so who knows what he was thinking.

There had been plenty of scenes in the past few weeks foreshadowing Tig's eventual breakdown/confession, but that didn't make the scene where he finally came clean to Opie any less shocking. More shocking than the confession itself was the fact that Opie restrained himself and didn't kill Tig with his bare hands.

I don't quite understand why Opie was so quick to place so much blame on Agent Stahl. She is a manipulative bitch, but at the end of the day she is just doing her job by bringing down criminals. She certainly put the wheels of Donna's murder in motion but she didn't pull the trigger. Clay, on the other hand, a. didn't trust Opie, b. betrayed him and, c. killed his wife. The dialog in the scene where Opie tracks down Stahl, pulls his gun out as if to kill her and says "The outlaw showed mercy." was downright cheesy but who cares, it still gave me chills.

Last night we also saw another scene of Jemma seeking out religion. This time in the form of a heroin addict priest. Soon after this, we see Jax spreading the gospel of his father to Opie in the form of his manifesto. Are these scenes connected? Is there some sort of biblical allegory playing out here? I am not familiar enough with the source material to tell, but it certainly seems like they are going somewhere with this religious stuff.

The unsettling thing about this episode is that it all seems too convenient. Jemma has gotten her secret off her chest. So has Tig. Jax and Clay are back together (seemingly). Jax and Opie are best friends again. SAMCRO finally has some leverage against Zobelle. Chibs comes clean about his involvement with Stahl with no adverse consequences from the club. Clay shows Jemma that he still loves her even though she's been raped. And on. And on. This season has been too complex and too dark to simply wrap up in a bow. I hope the writers don't try to.

The Curse of Matt Stover

With the release of Steve Hauschka and subsequent signing journeyman kicker Billy Cundiff, the Ravens have fully acknowledged that they made a mistake in the handling of the place-kicker position this off-season.

Ozzie Newsome, widely regarded as one of the leagues top GM’s, has made some extraordinary personnel moves over his career in Baltimore, however, he has made his fair share of blunders, this current kicker situation being the most recent.

In the past he has missed on high draft picks the likes of Travis Taylor, Kyle Boller (Brian Billick shares most of the blame for this disaster), Dan Cody (who I was excited about, but could never stay healthy), and Mark Clayton (The jury is still out on him, but considering he has never risen past the level of number two receiver on a weak receiving corps, I think it is pretty safe to say he has not met expectations).

Like most GM’s he has struggled to make a big impact on the field with his free-agent signings. Dominique Foxworth, Chris Carr and L.J. Smith have been complete non-factors. On the other hand, Kelly Washington has been a pleasant surprise.

With the Colts coming to town this weekend Ravens fans will have the pleasure of seeing Matt Stover at least one last time. Unfortunately he will be on the opposite sideline. The rationale behind cutting Stover before the season was that the Ravens would have to use an extra roster spot to carry two kickers because they felt that Stover would not be able to kick-off or hit long field goals. I refuse to believe that keeping Edgar Jones, Oneil Cousins or Frank Walker on the team was worth losing Stover.

Matt Stover is legend in Baltimore and he deserves a roster spot on this team until his leg falls off, I don’t care who you have to cut to make this happen. I hope if the Ravens lose this Sunday it is on a last second field goal by Money Matt Stover.

Thursday Night Spectacular

The normal Thursday night line up was enhanced a tad this week by this season's first Thursday night football game. So, not only was a I watching Community, Parks and Rec, The Office, 30 Rock, Always Sunny and The League, I was also trying to keep track of the Bears vs. the Niners.

First, the football game - The Niners got their first win in over a month against coach Mike Singletary's former team. Bears QB Jay Cutler threw his fifth and final interception of the game on the final play to seal the 10-6 loss. It is starting to look like the Bears got the short end of the stick in the trade with Denver over the off season. Cutler has thrown a league leading 17 interceptions this season and the Bears have a long road ahead of them if they plan on making the playoffs. The Niners, despite losing 4 straight prior to last night, could still have a chance at the post-season due to the terrible division they play in.

Community - I'm out on this show. Don't care about it, don't think it is particularly funny. I only half-watched but from what I could gather, this episode was about McHale's character and the chick who plays Trudy Campbell joining a debate league. I wouldn't expect to see anything more written about Community on this blog.

Parks and Rec - Pretty hilarious episode. The Parks Department (well, mainly Leslie) is determined to create a contest winning mural that captures the spirit of Pawnee. Tom pays an art student $20 to create his mural for him. It turns out that the student is a budding abstract impressionist and the mural that he paints for Tom is just a bunch of shapes and colors. Anne draws an infantile picture of a park and glues pictures of animals cut from a magazine to it (Great zinger from Tom: "It looks like something a death row inmate would make during art therapy"). Jerry makes a beautiful photo-mosaic of a Pawnee landmark but makes the mistake of referring to it as a murinal (mural combined with urinal) and like always everyone shits on him. My favorite was Donna’s (I think that is the big black lady's name). She recreated of The Last Supper but instead of depicting Jesus and his disciples, her version featured famous Indianans (Larry Bird, Michael Jackson, Greg Kinnear (as Jesus)). The group can't agree on whose mural should represent the department in the contest, so they decide to combine the designs. The result is, predictably, a disaster, but the process brings the department closer together. There is a funny sub-plot about Andy becoming a shoeshine who becomes freaked out by an inappropriate sound Ron (fast becoming one of the funniest characters) utters during a shoe shining session.

The Office - Dunder-Mifflin might be going out of business! In order to keep his staff's minds off the impending doom, Michael orchestrates a rousing game of "Belles, Bourbon, and Bullets", a murder mystery game set in antebellum Savannah. Hilarious southern accents ensue (Andy’s displayed a knack for regional dialects).

30 Rock - I have begun to use the 30 Rock timeslot to enjoy my pre-Always Sunny jay. From what I saw, this episode was about the TGS cast welcoming a new member. I vaugely remember chuckling at a few Tracy Morgan jokes.

Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Sunny got back to its roots with this episode. It didn't waste any energy with elaborate story lines (breaking into the World Series, giving Frank an intervention, going on a road trip) and or settings (courtrooms, baseball stadium dungeons). This episode was all about the chemistry between the characters. One of the best things about the show has always been the little nuances and idiosyncrasies that the characters display from season to season. Here are some examples from this episode: Mac and Dennis pointing out Sweet D's resemblance to a bird, Mac's obsession with the male physique (I refuse to believe that a guy who is so obsessed with choreographed fight scenes and muscle bound men has never scene The Transporter), Charlie's love for felines (by the way, how funny is it that Charlie wears a McGregor sweatshirt. Is he a gym coach?), and Frank's love for trash. The plot for this episode is simple, yet effective (plus it included a sweet message about the importance of friendship (Mac/Dennis = Dynamic Duo, Frank/Charlie = Gruesome Twosome)). After D tells Dennis and Mac that they act like an old married couple they decide to take a break from each other. Mac goes to Charlie and Frank's house, Dennis goes to Sweet D's. D gets a cat stuck in her wall and enlists Charlie to assist in its extraction. Charlie puts more cats in her wall. D goes into the wall after them and gets stuck. Mac and Dennis reunite. The End.

Things I learned from the episode:

The importance of "packing on mass".

Apple skin and seeds are highly toxic.

Cigarette smoke suffocates the bacteria found in apple seeds and skins.

All calico cats are female.

The League - Thankfully, after the third episode, The League seems to be finding its voice. I think the writers may have read the posting where I complained about the wife characters; one is completely gone and the other has been pretty much relegated to the background (although Ruxton’s wife assumed a more central role in this episode). Speaking of my suggestions, the writers also clued us in to one of the teams names; Dr. Andre’s team is called Double Entendre (which absolutely sucks). This episode focused on a Sunday lunch party put on by the afore-mentioned wife of Ruxton (I have no clue what her name is. Something Spanish I think). He invites the rest of the league over because, obviously, if he can’t watch the games, no one can. We find out the Dr. Andre is member of another league ( The Fantasy Football League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Which absolutely sucks.); one in which he dominates and is revered as fantasy football guru. The episode ends with a toddler smearing dog feces (the dog’s name is Kale, which absolutely sucks) on an infant’s face.

Stay tuned for a review on the new Call of Duty game for the Xbox.

The Men Who Stare at Goats Review

Yesterday I forewent my normal slate of Thursday evening television in favor of an advanced screening of The Men Who Stare at Goats. Big mistake. Let's just say if they made a movie about me in the theater it would be titled The Man Who Stares at His Watch.The movie wasn't awful, it certainly had a few bright spots that made me chuckle, but I couldn't help feeling disappointed. The cast was superb; George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Ewan McGregor all have the capacity to turn in great comedic performances, they just didn't (or couldn't).

The plot of The Men Who Stare at Goats (I use word 'plot' loosely in this instance) revolves around a reporter, Bob (McGregor), who travels to Iraq right after the US invasion in 2003 in search of a story (and to impress his wife, who has just left him for his editor). While waiting in Kuwait to enter Iraq, Bob meets Lyn (Clooney) at the hotel bar. McGregor soon discovers that Lyn was a member of a secret military unit of "psychic spies and jedi masters". Fascinated, Bob decides to write a story about this unit and tags along with Lyn into Iraq. The second act of the movie involves a series of flashbacks where we are filled in on the Lyn's backstory and the history of his psychic military unit called the New Earth Army. Bridges plays Bill, the founder of the New Earth Army and Larry (Spacey) is a jealous recruit who eventually brings down the unit. The movie really runs off the tracks in the third act. Clooney and McGregor, lost in the desert, stumble across a secret psychic compound run by Larry in conjunction with a burnt out Bill. Psychic experiments, which bear an uncanny resemblance to torture, are being performed upon Iraqi prisoners as well as goats. McGregor, Clooney and Bridges decide it is up to them to free both the men and the animals. They achieve this by distracting Larry and his comrades with a large dosage of LSD spiked into the compound's drinking water. If this sounds bizarre and somewhat difficult to follow/comprehend, its because it is.

The Men Who Stare at Goats felt like a Coen brothers movie, only without the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle, e.i. Walter Sobchak) nuances that make their movies so good. Lyn reminded me a little of the character Cloondog played in Burn After Reading and Bridges' Bill was the Dude if he had followed Walter into the Army during 'Nam. Both actors are Coen brothers veterans, so you would think that they would be able to recognize a disjointed, wanna-be Coen brothers script when the saw one.

The saddest thing about this movie is that midway through I remembered that I had seen George Clooney in the deserts of Iraq before and even with far inferior costars (Ice Cube, Marky Mark and Jamie Kennedy), I would have much rather watched Three Kings again than sit through the remainder of 'Goats.

CHEATERS WAS A FRAUD?!?!

According to Inside Edition, the television show Cheaters was scripted and the men and women who cheated and were cheated on were nothing more than paid "actors". Here is an excerpt from the Inside Edition report:

But the best-known episode of Cheaters, the episode that put the show on the TV map, is the episode where host Joey Greco gets stabbed by an irate man caught cheating.

"So none of it was true?

"No," says Cassandra Terrazas, a Dallas hotel receptionist who says she was paid $350 for a few days work playing a woman who is caught having an affair with the man.

She was told the confrontation would take place on a lake located near Dallas. "It was all set up," she says. "They just rented a boat for us and we were supposed to be out like we were fishing and I was supposed to be sunbathing, and then they were going to come up on another boat and catch us."

The young man was immediately restrained, and Greco, blood gushing from his wound, was rushed back to shore where paramedics fought to save his life. A police car sped away, and the viewer is led to believe the knife-wielding cheater has been arrested and taken to the Rowlett Police Station.

But according to the police in Rowlett, Texas, that never happened. "There were no arrests at all during that time period for that type of crime," says John Ellison of the Rowlett Police Department.

According to Cassandra Terrazas the ambulance was rented, the blood was fake, and everything was scripted right down to the person who fell off the boat.


Do you know how bitter this makes me? I mean, I always suspected that the stabbing incedent may have been staged, but to hear that the entire show was a sham really breaks my heart. What I want to know is if they paid regular people to act as if they were cheating and being cheated on did these people also agree to bang each other on the hidden cameras they had set up? You would think that they would have to pay the "actors" more than $350 to bang a stranger on TV, right?

I used to think Joey Greco was the all time greatest douche-bag on TV, now I think...well actually I still think that.

Sons of Anarchy - Fa Guan

I won't try to delve too deeply into this week's episode, I will save the major analysis for next week after the 90 minute season finale airs and we get a little more clarity and closure (or maybe not). That said, here are some of the most recent developments in the main story lines.

In earlier episodes this season it seemed that most of SAMCRO's rank and file would side with Clay in the inevitable splintering of the club. Now, I'm not so sure. Jax and Opie had a moment at the judge's house that seemed to suggest that their friendship is not completely lost. (Quick sidebar about the judge kidnapping: This whole plot line struck me as ridiculous. The Chinese recruited SAMCRO to pressure this judge into allowing a gun-smuggler into the country because if the Chinese did it themselves it would cause the judge to look into smuggler's possible connections to Asian organized crime as well as Hamas. Why the hell would it matter who does the pressuring? This whole thing made no sense to me. Also, how could Clay be so quick to jump in bed with a group affiliated with a member of Hamas? If he thought the ATF was up his ass, wait until the Department of Homeland Security lands in Charming. Working with the IRA is one thing, but an Islamic terrorist organization? Really, Clay? Hamas?) Also, Clay's right hand, Tig, appears to be rather disgruntled about his diminished responsibilities. I am now starting to think that Bobby would side with Jax. He seems to recognize the need for a shift in the club's philosophy as well as its income source. (By the way, Bobby has become one of my favorite characters on the show. How awesome was his banana bread loaf with a giant knife stuck in it? What did you make of the scene where Tig approaches Jax and asks Bobby to leave, only to have Jax tell him that anything he can say to him he can say to Bobby? Allusions were made to the Donna situation, and Bobby is one of the smartest members of the crew. I would have to assume that he has some notion of what the root cause of all the strife between Jax and Clay is. He even asked, "What was that dead wife stuff about?". Lastly, I did not anticipate Bobby sharing the fact that he had been hooking up with Luanne. I guess he did know a thing or two about banging porn stars after all.)

Tara seems to have made it clear that allegiance to Jax outweighs her Hippocratic Oath. After seeing Chibs reaction to the news that he is no longer in need or critical care and would soon be transferred to another hospital (one where he would, presumably, not be protected), Tara coaches him to fake extreme pain. He is placed back on the critical list and allowed to stay in Charming.

Speaking of Chibs, I was suprised we didn't see any of his wife this episode. I thought after last week's she would play a major role in how the end of the season unfolds. I'm sure she will make her presence felt in the finale.

I am curious to find out where Gemma is going with her seemingly new found spirituality. She has been spending an awful lot of time in the hospital chapel and after initially turning down Unser's invitation to a church service she makes her way inside and appears to be genuinely moved.

Leftovers:
Several times during the episode it was made apparent that SAMCRO is hurting for cash. Jax refuses to, or simply cannot, bail out the porn stars ("I'll just take out an advance on my trust fund"), Chibs has allowed his insurance to lapse, and Jax reiterates to Clay that the Caracara operation is the club's only source of income.

The church scene at the end of the episode baffled me. Why was Unser attending a black church? (I didn't realize that Charming had a significant African-American population. The only other black characters we have seen are the One Niners, that crooked cop who was shot a few episodes ago, and that nanny lady who we occasionally see helping Gemma at home) And who in god's name was that triflin' looking lady that Gemma thought she recognized outside the church? Was she a ghost? A vision of a young Gemma? Why does "everyone know (her)"? Freaky.

-I'm going Nomad!