Looks like trying to cover up for things that won't stay buried is going to be a big problem this season; the first scene we get in "Small Tears" is Unser finding Gemma, beaten and bleeding, and nearly the first thing Gemma says to him is that she won't go to the hospital. She's been gang raped, in a professional, bizarrely courteous fashion that doesn't make her situation any less horrible, but instead of wanting revenge, she's already thinking long term. Once Clay and the rest find out what happened, it'll be all out war, and nobody can control that. So, with Tara and Unser's help, she tries to pass the whole thing off as car wreck.
But just like Jax's attempts to pin off the Mayan murder as the work of the Niners, the tricky thing with lies is that they go in unexpected places. When Alvarez finds a corpse showing nine fingers, he decides it's time to go to war, and the only thing Clay can do to balance the equation is by offering Laroy and the rest the guns he wouldn't sell Alvarez. It's a temporary patch on a situation that's only going to get worse—because what happens when Opie figures out Jax covered up his kill? Not to mention the fight between the two rival clubs that's going to inevitably land back on SAMCRO's head. Hell, that's already happened: when the Sons hand the promised AK's off to the Niners, the Mayans are waiting in ambush, and Bobby gets a bullet in the shoulder.
The Mayans had a tip-off from the knight in white whiteness, Zobelle—and while Zobelle and Weston were less involved this week than last, we got more of a glimpse of how the two of them work together. Weston is upset when he realizes that Gemma hasn't told Clay or the others about the rape, but Zobelle is less bothered than impressed; he, at least, realizes that things in Charming might be more difficult to control than he expected. That Weston doesn't get this, and that Zobelle is keeping the Mayan contact in the dark, tells us all we need to know for now about them. Zobelle is the brains here, and Weston is the muscle; even more importantly, Weston is the True Believer, with all the short-sighted stupidity that entails. I don't have any doubt that Zobelle is a racist asshole, but he's smart enough to know it's worth dealing with the "lower races" if it'll get him what he wants in the end. Weston, clearly, wouldn't agree. So there's another lie here, and fingers crossed it'll lead to some much deserved ass-kicking down the line.
Still, while all this craziness is going on, business remains business, and when Luann, the town porn director, has her equipment confiscated by the Feds in a revenge play by Stahl (still a little pissed off at how Luann's husband, Otto, beat the shit out of her last season), Jax steps in to lend a hand. Money's tight, so they can't pay her back on the loans, but they can offer her some new space and protection against Georgie Caruso, the new dick on the block who keeps trying to steal her talent away for his own films. I knew Adam Arkin and Henry Rollins were up for guest spots this season, but I didn't know Tom Arnold was going to be on the show; he only gets a couple scenes as Georgie, but he's sleazy and dumb, so good on him.