‘Sons of Anarchy’ season 6 episode 1 recap: Back To Charming

FX

One of the best shows on TV is back for a whole new season. Here’s how things went down. When we last left SAMCRO, Tara and Clay were on their way to jail, Jax had most of the club under his thumb and Damon Pope is six feet under. The 90 minute season premiere was full of hard stuff to digest, so let’s get chewing.

From the outside, the Sons are more powerful than ever. Their main rivals for Charming have all been routed and their criminal network – with the aid of Nero Padilla – is thriving. Jax meets with August Marks, now heading up Pope’s gang, and we learn that Clay is in protective custody, which might mean he’s getting ready to flip on Jax and SAMCRO. Marks also still wants to call in the marker on Tig from last season, and the two make a deal – Clay dies in jail, Tig dies outside.

The club goes to investigate a porn shoot in Stockton only to discover the guys producing it are Iranian brothers doing gonzo torture stuff. Tig, still distraught about seeing his daughter burned alive in front of him, snaps and drowns one of them in a bathtub full of piss. Because, really, if a bathtub full of piss shows up on Sons of Anarchy, somebody’s going to die in it.

Lee Toric is still walking the edges trying to break SAMCRO as well – he has Otto repeatedly attacked in prison, tries to flip Clay and offers witness protection to Tara. She rejects the deal, but Clay might not – as he walks into gen pop, he tells a guard that he “wants to talk.” I can’t see Clay doing anything that’ll hurt the club, so it’s going to be a serious miracle for him to take Jax out without endangering everything else. Oh, and Toric also has a bit of a heroin habit.

Bobby Elvis, after quitting SAMCRO last season, is trying to get his own club together – possibly using the abandoned Nomads name. Whether he has the pull to do it, especially without the connections that the Sons bring to the table, is something else entirely.

The most shocking moment in the premiere was undoubtedly the school shooting that acted as an exclamation point at the end. For the most part, the violence and mayhem committed by SAMCRO and their rivals has been pretty contained – civilians don’t end up in the morgue too often. But it’s obvious that the gun that kid used came from their arms operation, and the club’s going to have to be held responsible.

Responsibility, however, isn’t something that Jax can easily shoulder. The episode ended with another punch in the gut, as Jax is sleeping with the madam of a brothel (and working out his mommy issues) while Tara is in prison.

All in all, this was a pretty good setup for the season. With no real rivalries distracting the Sons from how much they hate each other, the time is ripe for the club’s implosion to begin.