It's so great to be angry, isn't it? Somebody gets up in your face, starts slagging off, and it's like the fist in your hand forms itself, like the fingers are joined as a conscious entity separate from rational thought, and if you aren't careful, if you aren't really careful, that fist goes to work. Being happy is good, but being angry, feeling that rage all through you, that's being protected; that's not having to worry about feeling guilty or scared or ashamed. When you're mad, you don't have to think anymore. All you have to do is swing, and whatever happens next, well, that's just in some other universe.
Charming has its share of pissed off people, and by the end of "Smite," it doesn't look like anybody will be calming down soon. Gemma's still suffering the effects of her gang rape, and it's not helping that she keeps seeing the creeps who did the deed walking around town. This time it's the woman who tricked her into leaving her car—a young lady named Polly who happens to be Zobelle's daughter. Gemma catches Polly leaving a van in the hospital parking lot, and while she gives chase, she doesn't accomplish anything besides hitting Tara in the face hard enough to bloody Tara's nose. The problem is, Gemma hasn't been thinking clearly since the event, and while it's not her fault that the van Polly leaves behind goes largely unheeded till it blows up at the end of the episode, the fact that she's too distracted by her own vulnerability and fury to pay attention to what's going on means that Zobelle's plan is actually kind of working.
That van explosion was amazing, wasn't it? Beautifully set-up, too; you see Polly futzing with it, it gets a casual mention between Zobelle and Weston, and then it's largely forgotten till a tow truck dumps it off at the Sons' garage. And then it's an agonizing three or four minutes before it blows up. A well-paced, wonderfully subtle piece of suspense, and another part of why this show is just so damn good.
We'll have to wait till next week to see the fall-out from this (and what happens to poor Chibs), but Clay and Jax were already pissed enough as it was, doubtful this will ease tensions. Clay is all for retribution after Otto gets an eye poked out by some of Zobelle's prison buddies, but Jax, as always, wants to take things slow. The lines are getting drawn up through the club, with Opie and Tig still firmly on Clay's side, and Bobby surprisingly siding with Jax. The problem here is a fundamental difference in philosophy, and while it's easiest to see Clay as the wrong-headed one, I'm thinking it's Jax who needs to get his head on straight. Not to come around to Clay's way of thinking, exactly, but to pin down exactly what changes he actually wants for the club, and how expects those changes to come about.