Sons Of Anarchy season 3 episode 7 review: Widening Gyre

3.7 Widening Gyre

One of the biggest problems with season three of Sons Of Anarchy is that the writers seem to know where they’re going. They just seem to be having problems getting there.

Case in point, this week’s episode. There’s nothing all that wrong with the episode at heart, but the pacing was all over the place and the story was simply frustrating.

It opens where the last one started. Tara walks in on Jax with one of the porn girls. Naturally, she’s annoyed. And walks out again.

It appears that Jax and Tara are still split up, but surprisingly, this arc seems to be ignored for most of the episode. The episode, I suppose, is just a stopgap before the big finish in Belfast, which will probably take up the last few episodes of the season. It is quite Belfast-heavy, but as usual, this side of the plot arc is by far the least interesting.

It’s heavily hinted that Maureen’s daughter and Jax are half-siblings due to Jax’s deceased father, John. I felt that this was a very weak plotline, as Maureen’s daughter appears so infrequently that it would be a push to even call her a minor character. The other big revelation is that the Belfast chapter of SAMCRO are working with Jimmy, which will mean that the Sons appearance in Belfast next week won’t be a surprise. 

At the end of the episode, we actually get to see the Sons get on the plane, so I can actually say with a degree of certainty that next week we will finally get the big showdown as promised.

One character who I certainly didn’t expect to be going along with the Sons is Gemma. With the assistance of Tara, she has escaped hospital and is going to Ireland. It seemed a little hard to believe that Tara could sneak Gemma out of the back of the hospital and then simply lie and tell the police that it was done at gunpoint. No one seems to ask where the gun came from, for one thing.

There was also a brief scene early on with an altercation between the Sons, Mayans, Grim Bastards, and the Calaveras which added very little into the story. Basically, someone is shot as revenge for one of the Grim Bastards being killed. I don’t feel that the Grim Bastards are in the show often enough for the viewer to feel any real affiliation towards them. The scene seemed to be there just to get some action into the episode. 

There genuinely are moments in this episode where the writers don’t seem to know what they are doing. Particularly, halfway through, where they really seem to have run out of steam and are just trying to make up something, anything, to get the Sons into Belfast.

So, after two really good episodes in a row, season three of Sons Of Anarchy continues its very patchy form. Why, Sons Of Anarchy? Why must you toy with my emotions every week? Please can we just forget this subpar plot arc and go back to being best friends?

Okay, you get it. This week’s episode wasn’t very good. It wasn’t offensively bad, but some of the smaller parts of the story didn’t work and the bigger arc seemed to move very slowly. Hopefully, next week it’ll be back on form and, hopefully, it can hold onto said form until the end of the season.

Read our review of the episode 6, The Push, here.