WARNING:  Before you read this post or go on any Sons of Anarchy fansites, please watch the show. Myself and countless other bloggers and fansite owners have been up to our ears in whiney bitches who went on places where they knew that SOA would be discussed and complained about spoilers. You cannot expect people to not talk about an episode like "Laying Pipe" on the Internet. 

     It takes an incredibly talented individual to write a show that invokes as much emotion as Sons of Anarcny does for it's fans. For the last few days I've been all over the internet reading the reactions of SOA fans on Twitter, Facebook and everywhere else and I have never seen anything like it.  I've seen fuckloads of people saying that they're never going to watch again (we'll get to that in a minute), lots of #RIPOPIE's and a ton of finger pointing. 

    I can understand some of those emotions, but what I don't understand is why they're pointing the finger at Tig. They're saying that he needs to die right along with Clay and that he needs to be punished and waaaah waaah waaaah blah blah blah. They're saying some really slanderous shit and they're even bringing up Donna again. That's kind of... not fair. That was years ago, why bring it up now? As far as this mess is concerned, I thought he already paid for it by attending that little bonfire in "Sovreign".  What's the deal with saying that Tiggy (who you were saying you wanted to hug 2 weeks ago when Dawn died, and that this was all Clay's fault and that Tig needs to kill both Clay and Pope, did you get amnesia or something?) is this evil fucker that needs to die right next to Clay? Damn, that shit's cold.  Why you gotta turn on a motherfucker like that? 

   Due to the fact that I'm tired of defending Tig on all of the message boards, and it's hard to sit back and let you guys rip him to shreds, I'm going take us all on a trip down memory lane. We all seem to have forgotten the shit that happened last season (I've unofficially dubbed season 4 of SOA "The Great Clusterfuck") and we need to be reminded of all the piss poor decisions that got us in this mess in the first place.     

    Let us go back to kinder, gentler times. The boys were just getting out of prison. Kozik, Piney, Miles and Opie were still alive. Pope's daughter wasn't roadkill yet. Dawn was just a mooching asshole and was Original Recipe instead of Extra Crispy. Those were good times, weren't they?  If you recall, this was the episode where Jax and Clay did the horizontal bop with their respective ol' ladies, and afterwards declared to each of them (post-coital contemplating) that they were done with SAMCRO and from then on, they were going to concentrate on making their exits. Those two scenes were very important because from then on, both Jax and Clay were in it for themselves. The brotherhood died right then and there. After that, the deciions made by Jax and Clay involving the Cartel and burying the truth about killing Douche Sr. (John Teller) were all the beginning of the death of SAMCRO.

    Jax told Tara that it was all about corruption and never about brotherhood. I agree with that, but then I disagree with it too. For Jax and Clay, it was never about brotherhood at all. Clay was doing so much fucked up shit and hiding so much shit, he was never a part of that brotherhood. Jax wasn't a part of it because he hardly ever involved his brothers in making decisions for the club. If he wanted something done, he'd usually go and do it on his own and tell the club about it afterwards. The club was never really in the decision-making process and I was under the impression that they were supposed to be.  I thought they were supposed to vote on everything and it was supposed to be brought to the table. Any real issues that the club might have had were always lied about and buried instead of being dealt with at the table. It was Clay and Jax's way of running things throughout the whole series, not just in season 4, that has gotten them in the mess they are in right now. 

    The "sense of brotherhood" that Jaxhole was bitching and complaining about was always there among Chibs, Tig, Happy, Juice, Bobby and Opie. When something went wrong or they didn't like where things were going, they'd talk to each other about it, they were always there for each other, and in some instances they were trying to find ways to get their Prez and VP involved and bring it to the table. If there were ever fractures in the club, it all began with Jax and Clay. 

   Both of these men lied to the club. Clay did it because he's a fucking sociopath and that's what guys like that do. Jax would lie to the club for the bullshit and flimsy reason of "protecting someone" and those lies would always end in disaster.  Clay buried shit because the things he had done would have gotten him killed and he couldn't have that shit. As shitty as that is, it's understandable. Jax did it because he wanted to keep the club from dealing with it's issues and he was afraid of what it would do to the club. As much as I  hate Jax (and I really, really do) that reason does seem noble, but it's not a very smart move. The longer secrets are kept from the club, the more disasterous it is for everyone. Members would undestandably want to take action based on those lies, and people would get hurt. To intelligent people, it is simple;  keep this club shit from spilling out into the streets and getitng outisders killed, deal with whatever issues you have as a club and take care of what needs to be taken care of as a club. This thing can only work if everyone knows what's going on . Notice how I said  "to intelligent people". Jax is NOT very intelligent.

   Let's fast forward to the end of last season, when the shit storm started. Clay had killed Piney because of the letters and Opie had shot Clay (understandably) for killing Piney. Clay and Jax decided to blame "black" . While this just started out as something to tell Roosevelt and send him off chasing his tail, this is not something that needed to be relayed to the club. This is a gangland type sitatuation. The only "black" they were dealing with were the Niners. How could the others not put 2 and 2 together? Jax underestimated Tig's loyalty to Clay. It's true that they had a bit of a falling out over the beating of Gemma and all the other shit brewing in season 4, but Tig's loyalty would never have died that easily. It had only been about 36 hours, after all. Pinning the attempted hit on the Niners was a pretty big lie to tell, and Jax should have expected that emotions would be high and that the rest of the club would want revenge for their fallen president. Jax also knew that Tig is a loose cannon, and acts rashly. A good leader knows the men he leads, and does things to ensure the best outcome.  Jax should have talked to his bros at some point. 

   OPIE KILLED HIMSELF 

     I've seen a lot of talk on the internet about Opie sacrificing himself so that Jax could live. That might have been what happened, but I don't really see it that way. I think that he went into prison knowing he would die. He gave Lyla way too much money and said "I don't love anything anymore". When he was in jail, there was still a lot of animosity between him and Jax. Opie was hurt, he knew he had been lied to and he had lost everything. Jax was never that great of a friend to Opie. In "Hands" when Jax told Opie that he wanted out of the club, Opie was furious. Jax had convinced Opie to stay in the club, and that had cost him his wife. Ryan Hurst did such a great job conveying Opie's anger in that scene. "You convinced me to stay, now you have YOUR family and it's okay for you to leave". I would have been mad too.  Add the pain of losing his father, and Opie unraveled quickly. It was apparent in the first episode that Opie had a lot of hard feelings. He went to jail with those hard feelings. I don't think it was ever about protecting Jax. Opie was just done with that shit, and that was his way out. To me,  Opie's smile before the final deathblow was not a smile that meant that he had kept Jaxhole alive, it was a smile of triumph. Jax and Clay's lies and the club had fucked with Opie all his life, now Jax was punished by watching Opie die. Opie probably did love Jax very much, but Jax was the man who encouraged Opie to stay in the club that had ruined his life. I would not sacrifice myself for someone who lied to me and fucked up my life so bad, so I don't see someone rational and smart like Opie as doing something like that for the guy who continually fucked him over.

JAX IS A DOUCHE AND IS STARTING TO REMIND ME OF JOFFREY FROM GAME OF THRONES 

   The thing that sucks is Jax is now taking his rage out on Tig. Seriously, what Jax said to Pope about Tig made me want to feed that little blond fucker to a bengal tiger. I actually hope that happens in the next episode, but I won't hold my breath. I mean for a guy to have lied to his club and then blame them for reacting to that lie is just beyond belief. Jax is not taking responsibility for that at all, and he probably never will. 

   Because the little douchebag threw Tig under the bus the way he did, I'm scared shitless for Tiggy. Opie's death hit everyone so hard, and left many wondering if we're going to start seeing everyone else get killed off. I think it's too early for that, but it still doesn't look good for Tig. To be honest, I don't watch the show for Jax, Tara or Gemma. I like Gemma but the fact that she has to be at the throat of pretty much everything that has a vagina gets on my nerves. I really don't give two fucks about Jax and Tara. Their kids are cute, but I don't care about those two. That couple is irritating and they make me want to puke as much as Beeeehl and Sookie did on True Blood and their constant drama reminds me of Ronnie and Sam on Jersey Shore. I watch this show because of the other characters. I watch for Tig, Juice, Opie (well not anymore) Chibs, Bobby and Happy. They're the interesting ones. Jax has as much personality as a wad of wet toilet paper. The only time I like that fucker is when he's naked. At least then I have something to look at and he's not talking. I hope Tig survives. He's the most interesting character I've ever come across, and he's fun. I mean there is a lot of humor that surrounds Tig and I enjoy the fuck out of talking about how he might be a transivite with everyone on Twitter. His sense of humor and his weirdness makes the show fun. I'll be furious if he gets whacked this season, because if you take Tig out of it, most of the humor goes too. We'll only be left with cat fights and Jax's family drama bullshit. That shit's already kind of like a soap opera/ reality show with all the drama, and without the weirdness of Tig and the personalities of the other guys in the club, they might as well change the name of the show to either All My Bikers or The Real Housewives of Northern Cali.