Writer: Jack LoGiudice
Grade: A-
I have to assume that Clay's issue with Jax's stunt is that he didn't take the body and dump it in a hole somewhere far away where it would (hopefully) never be found, or at least just leave it full of bullet holes without the Niner signifiers. If the Mayans had found the body with an SoA tag, I'm not sure how that would have made it less likely that someone from SAMCRO would get shot by Mayans... so Jax was correct in telling Clay that getting rid of the SoA tag was the right thing to do, but the stupid part was framing the Niners, yes? (I do pretty well with the emotional stuff, but a lot of the business and political aspects take me a while to grasp.)
I think Clay’s done plenty of painfully stupid shit (not least of which is apparently forgetting that the guy Bobby offed at the end of the first season was at his girlfriend’s apartment, and thus she was more likely to be the witness than Opie), but I do think Jax’s decision to frame the Niners, rather than just get rid of the SoA tag and leave it at that, was a little reckless. He didn’t seem to think through the full implications of the fact that they’re selling guns to both sides (or were, anyway), and thus were likely to get caught in the crossfire. Of course, who knows, the Mayans may have pinned the murder on SAMCRO even without the tag, so it’s probably unlikely that there was a way for no one to get hurt, short of not killing the guy in the first place.
As for what went down with Jax and Luanne, that was troubling for me for a few different reasons. When Jax screamed at Luanne at the hospital, I didn’t really question it at first. It reminded me of hot-headed Season 1 Jax, and it made at least some sense that he’d be irritated by Luanne’s apparent lack of faith in the SoA, and in him personally.
But when Luanne showed up at the warehouse and was terrified of Jax, I was actually a little baffled because I've never seen anything to indicate that women would or should be afraid to be alone in the dark with Jax. I'm a pretty jumpy woman myself, so I could sort of relate on an instinctive level, but it still seemed weird for Luanne to be afraid of him. Luanne is Gemma’s friend, so she’s probably been around Jax enough to get a read on him, and he doesn’t exactly scream “not someone you ever want to be alone in the dark with, ladies.” As in he’s not going to murder you, or rape you, or beat you to a pulp if you’re a woman. Of course, by the time this scene rolled around, I'd conveniently forgotten that he'd screamed at her at the top of his lungs and scared the shit out of her at the hospital.
And coming back around to that, I think it’s safe to say that women are generally not subjected to that kind of violent posturing from Jax. Granted women also don't try to tell him how to do his job very often, but it's not like his outburst was some necessary part of his brilliant plan to beat the shit out of people with baseball bats. He could've done that without yelling at the understandably-already-freaked-out Luanne. So while her being afraid of him at the warehouse makes a little more sense if I remember how he reacted to her at the hospital, that reaction itself is questionable—it’s out of character for him, and that really speaks to how on-edge he is right now.
There's also the fact that, whatever his faults may be, I still consider Jax to be a warm, caring person, particularly toward women,* so Luanne's fear of Jax made me sad. He shouldn't have yelled at her, but sheesh, is he really that scary? He's like a big puppy! A big puppy with a motorcycle and a lot of weapons training, but still...
*(Which doesn't mean he doesn't have some sexist quirks, but he's light years ahead of most of the other guys in the club when it comes to his treatment of women.)
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