At the end of tonight’s season premiere of “Sons of Anarchy,” all that was running through my head besides “OMG” was Ron Burgundy’s famous quip, “Boy, that escalated quickly… I mean, that really got out of hand fast.” And yes, invoking “Anchorman” to describe the horrible scene at the end of tonight’s episode, entitled “So,” is a little crass. But it’s not exactly inaccurate, either. If the majority of the episode was an inhale, then the final few momens were the exhale that huffed and puffed and blew the season open properly.

Having inherited all the narrative weight from the end of Season 2, the show couldn’t jump in to new action without dealing with the old. That meant a nearly comatose Jax and an on-the-run Gemma. However, there’s a fine line between accurate psychological representation and dramatic excitement. The brief chase from the docks back into gangland is a nice example of build-up with little follow through. Again, it makes sense, but it feels…off. Intentionally so, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it per say. (Reminds me of Season 6 of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which tried to dramatize 20-something inertia and generally failed to sustain interest, even if the beats themselves played out truthfully.)

Showing Jax as having lost his way makes complete and total sense, but doesn’t necessarily lead to a riveting hour of television. Nothing concerning his character rang false, but after a season in which the lack of interclub communication caused nearly 95% of SAMCRO’s problems, it was a little disheartening to see Jax thinks that he has to rescue his son on his own.

Jax’s disconnect did serve a larger, more powerful role, however. In his lack of words and actions, he reminds the various crews gathered for Half-Sack’s funeral of the similar downward spiral suffered by his father, John. Clay tells Jax that the two represent the past, present, and future of the club, a club that has its spiritual heart in Charming. But as we’ve seen, Clay’s age, arthritic nature, and stubborn ways dishonor the past and limit the present. Unfortunately, without Abel, there’s seemingly no future for the club.

In preparation for Season 3, I watched the previous season in a marathon sprint last week. One of the season’s standout scenes seems not a foreshadow for the problems now residing within the show. In “Gilead,” the prison-centric midseason ep, Agent Stahl tries to rattle Jax by showing him pictures of the True IRA selling guns to Zobelle. But Jax doesn’t take the bait, noting that he derives strength from his son that precludes him from acting irrationally. Well, if Jax didn’t act irrationally in the aftermath of the funeral home drive by, then I’m a two-fingered, perverted account. (Although I type using the hunt-and-peck technique, I have all my fingers, thankee sai.)

Gemma’s plot was all set-up, and thus not worth spending time on. I will say that her initial scene with her father (suffering from dementia) was quite touching, especially when paired with Tara’s statement of purpose to stay committed to Jax, despite his overt efforts to send her away from the black hole that he’s become. I do worry that Gemma will stay separate from the story too long, but I also worry that the show will find a way to reintegrate her in a way that feels inorganic. It’s a tight thread, but one the show must accomplish given the story it’s chosen to tell. Hopefully, the resolution to that storyline will also mean the end of Agent Stahl’s presence on the show. I love me some Ally Walker, but she’s played her part on the show. Given that the FBI seems to have suddenly realized she’s got a nasty habit of having people die on her watch, it should be only a matter of time before she departs the show. Hopefully she leaves slightly less bloody than Kohn.

A hail of bullets about a show that itself ended in a hail of bullets:

• I’m guessing we’re not supposed to recognize the man from the van that Jax tried to mate with the pavement. Because having an international manhunt atop a matriach-on-the-run problem, “Sons” needed to give SAMCRO another battle in the omnipresent War for Charming. (I assume he’s part of True IRA. He sure as heck didn’t look like one of the Mayans. But I could be wrong here.)
• Dug the Clay/Tara interactions, even if I kept waiting for Clay to plant one on her the whole ep. But it makes sense he would bond with her: she’s the closest thing to Gemma around, her protege in many respects. (Even though Tara seemed disillusioned by Gemma’s “God wants me to kill that blonde” stance at the end of Season 2.)
• Clay goading Jax into violence parallels with his desire to appeal to Opie’s baser instincts to secure his loyalty last year. Clay probably won’t ever change, and Jax is terrified that he can’t, either. But that fear doesn’t stop his demons from rising to the surface every once in a while, either.
• I haven’t yet mentioned Hale. Poor freakin’ Hale. I know that Chibs survived the car bomb last year, but I’m pretty sure Hale’s dead, which will send his brother into a rage that will lead to quite the interesting election. Some politicians try to get unions to back their cause. I’m guessing Jacob will be recruiting a different kind of organization to wipe the club off the streets once and for all.
• Were it the more effective dramatic choice, I think Kurt Sutter wouldn’t hesitate to kill an infant on this show. (He killed a ten-year old in the drive-by, after all. A nameless one, but a kid all the same.) But to have the club track down Cameron and find the child dead….that just wouldn’t give the type of catharsis needed for this story line. Senseless shit happens all the time in this show (see: Donna), but that storyline would just yield utter chaos. Still, it’s good to see Abel alive in Belfast, even if he’s not wearing his ubiquitous hoodie.
• So why aren’t the Feds ensconced in a fugitive’s father’s house, again?
• Speaking of Cameron: I have a hard time taking his character seriously, because he is the spitting freakin’ image of Karl Pilkington. This ruins his character almost irreparably, in my eyes. I need to work through it. Hopefully the fantastic actress Paula Malcomson, seen briefly at the end of tonight’s ep, will help me forget as that storyline develops.
• Totally thought Gemma created Half-Sack II: Electric Boogaloo with her stabbing action in the motel parking lot. Oh well. Speaking of Half-Sack, it was nice to see a reminder at his funeral of just how many ex-military men join these clubs. After all, SAMCRO was founded by Vietnam vets, and we see the continuation in the club’s present with people like Half-Sack leaving the Middle East and coming home to be prospects.

What did you think of the season premiere of “Sons of Anarchy”? Leave your thoughts below!