Any talk about the Goldblum / Kroll merger would be incomplete w/out mentioning their matching Ruxin faces — you know, that squinty disapproving lemon-pucker thing?  I only wish Ruxin Sr. had a chance to weigh in on all things unclean.

Apologies if I missed this in the write-up or the comments, or am misremembering things, but: when Jax is shown the bodies of the guys that (supposedly) tried to kidnap Tara, they're black-haired Mexicans.  However, last week, when the kidnappers unmasked while driving away, the ones we're shown are gringos (and…

I think Gemma threatened her, which (eventually) lead to Tara semi-assaulting her & threatening her at gunpoint.  That all happened in S2, IIRC.

SHIELD SPOILER ALERT

Yeah, after Google told me that was the guy Sonny Barger was playing, I figured it was some sort of coy nod to Barger's tangential involvement with / approval of the series.

Juice set up his laptop as a dual-boot machine; he loves his Linux.

Did you miss the scene between Romeo & his #1 after Clay tried to cancel the hit the first time, where they discussed only taking out Tara?  (This assumes that those were Romeo's guys, of course.)

Man, & I nearly forgot about the Niners bar shoot-out, & the confrontation in the chapel.  Also: that cut-to-commercial shot of Clay's hand coming towards the camera was brutal / brilliant.

This might be the best episode of the entire series to date.  I'm trying to think of one that might top it, but while other episodes have had plenty of "great" moments (the botched hit on Opie in S1, Henry Rollins' death in S2, the end of Stahl & the Glasgow smile in S3, among others), this was, for me, the most…

Not nearly enough equipmunk love.

Kurt Sutter's on record all over the place saying he's planning on seven seasons.

IIRC, there were more than a few in S3 (thinking specifically of the Delaney episodes, and the Ryan & Rick Motel Hostage Crisis) where they tried to turn the screws on Castle & Friends, in a non-myth fashion, with mixed results. And the machinations to include the captain in Beckett's mom's death conspiracy (and then…

Not sure if there's been much cliche-subverting.  At best, maybe the writers don't run directly into them at full speed, but they've been gladly trading in them since the beginning, and with very little subtext.  Self-awareness and knowing winks don't make for subversion in and of themselves.

From the Agree To Disagree Dept:

Also, anything to keep Oswald (Patrick St. Esprit) involved in the show is fine by me.  & the idea of Clay trying to get his hooks back into the town's infrastructure makes all sorts of sense.

Yes! & the way he tossed his brown-bagged beer as he ambled down the stairs! BRO-LO!

What did Raffi say right before he gave what-ups to Brian & Tall Guy in the library?  Everything Raffi does is awesome, but those little tossed-off asides are some of his best bits (cf. "Sometimes when I puke I shit.")

The bug-eyes she gave Mac after he "confessed" that he had salsa on his shirt would've had me doing an epic spittake, if I were drinking something at the time (or I had mistakenly swallowed some blood capsules).

"The boys are all grows up."

Mr. Evil —