The saddest part of “Faith and Despondency” is the way that Gemma is presented – desperate and grasping at any chance to be loved. Gemma may not be the most adored character on the show, but she’s been consistent the entire way through. Even killing Tara (Maggie Siff) went along with her character development. She would do anything to protect her family, even if it was an internal threat. The moment Tara “betrayed” Jax, she became the enemy. It’s not that Gemma didn’t love Tara, I believe on some level she genuinely did, it’s just that Tara was a legitimate threat to her way of life.
Gemma has been inching along to a fork in the road all season. She has had the opportunity to tell the truth and face the consequences. She could have run with Juice (Theo Rossi), who is probably wishing he had taken his chances on the lamb. Yet, she stuck around for the same reasons she’s always stuck around. Her sense of loyalty is her fatal character flaw.
This revelation isn’t only bad for Gemma. It’s horrible news for Jax, and not just for obvious reasons. If Jax finds out that this information is true (which at this point, let’s face it, is almost a sure thing), then he’ll have to admit to his club, and worse yet, himself, that he started a war over a lie. That essentially, his inability to see past his own grief and do a little something we like to call, ‘investigating,’ has led to the current disastrous state of affairs that SAMCRO is now in the thick of. Where will that leave him? It’s not the type of knowledge that will indubitably make someone a better person. It’s the type of realization that breaks you.
Jax is at a fragile point in his life. He’s barely beginning to heal after losing Tara, and since then, he’s lost so much more. Losing his mother could very well be the breaking point. And, what then? Would Wendy (Drea de Matteo) just step in and take the boys? Raise them at Nero’s ranch. Play mother in a way that Tara never could surrounded by the violence in Charming. It’s a fairytale without a perfect ending.
Sons of Anarchy doesn’t have much time left and with the writers wasting the majority of “Faith and Despondency” on non-essentials, it makes me a little nervous about what fans can expect from the last three episodes. Kurt Sutter has always been able to pull off season finales that are worth every dull moment viewers have to endure, but this season has been drastically lacking as a whole. As much as watching the individual characters wrap up their own story arcs seems important in theory, it’s not exactly making for great television.