The Sons of Anarchy season 6 premiere had no shortage of horrors. Every terrible thing that happened in the first 85 minutes though, was quickly eclipsed by something even worse: a school shooting. With Sandy Hook still fresh in everyone’s mind, tackling a school shooting in a television series is a risky move. It’s so easy to look like you’re exploiting the events that ended many lives and ruined even more. However, as a long-time fan of Kurt Sutter‘s work, both on Sons of Anarchy and The Shield, I was confident that he was doing this for a reason; that instead of looking to cash in on a national tragedy, he was trying to make a very specific point.

In my review of the premiere, I talked about how such an event was likely to shake Jax and the club to the core and change both SAMCRO and Charming forever. Kurt Sutter himself seemed to confirm this in the latest edition of his YouTube show, WTFSutter. In it, he talks about the larger narrative and how naïve it is to think that there would be no repercussions from the club’s gun running.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=p13WHCTq9zI

All of this combined is why I was expecting a very different episode from the one we got this week.

Instead of a town shaken to the core, the shooting is treated as a mild inconvenience. It’s mentioned in passing. “Hey, you know that kid who shot up that school…” as if they’re talking about some confused senior citizen who ran his car into a farmer’s market and smashed a bunch of melons. Jax, of course, immediately understands the implications of having one of the guns the club sold being used to carry out this unspeakable act, but instead of questioning himself and his club, instead of grieving for the children not much older than his own, he goes straight into survival mode.

The first thing he does is enlist Nero and his men to get the shooter’s mother out of Charming and up to the cabin and away from the police and reporters. Perhaps it’s naïve of me, but I don’t think Jax brought her up there to kill her. I really think he just wanted to have her hide out until the heat died down and they could figure out a plan. However, once she goes rogue and Nero shoots Arcadio, Jax feels as if she’s too much of a liability. So it falls to Juice to fulfill his “no questions asked” promise and kill her as well. Of course, what Jax doesn’t find out until afterward, is that she had two more children who are now without a mother, thanks to Jax’s self-preservation.

In the video, Sutter does say that the shooting leads to a bigger narrative arc that flows through the remaining episodes of the series. My hope as a fan is that Jax’s behavior in this episode is merely a delayed reaction; that the true weight of what he has done will come crashing down around him. Dead children have to have consequences beyond added attention from a retired U.S. Marshall. Having an event like this in a television series has to be a game-changer, or else, what was the point?

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Sons of Anarchy has never been a show that’s pulled any punches when it’s come to violence. Gun running, murder, IRA enemies, drugs — there has been no shortage of action and bloodshed over the first five seasons. The season premiere, however, sends the series down a completely different path, with a horrific act of violence that is sure to change both the makeup of Charming and SAMCRO forever.

It’s easy to ignore the beautiful little blond boy in an episode packed with Otto getting violently raped in prison, Tara brutally beating a fellow inmate, Lila getting tortured, Tig murdering a dirtbag and Jax cheating with a madame, but by the end of the episode, the boy clearly shows that ignoring him is a mistake.

With his blonde hair and omni-present notebook, it’s easy to see him as a stand-in for Jax as a child, or even Jax’s children in the future, reading the thoughts he so painstakingly records for them. The boy seems quiet, innocent and introspective.

At the end of an action-packed, violent episode, we are confronted with an act of violence so heinous, that it actually manages to top the preceding 90 minutes. We end the season premiere with the boy revealing that not only is he a deeply disturbed self-harmer, but his rage extends outward, causing him to perpetrate what looks like a truly horrific school shooting. How does a boy like this get a semi-automatic weapon, and what does this have to do with SAMCRO? I’m sure the second question will be answered fully over the next several episodes, but the first one is easy to answer: Arcadio (Dave Navarro).

Arcadio is one of Nero’s (Jimmy Smits) men. We don’t know much about him, but we do find out at the end of the episode that he’s involved with the boy’s mother. Due to his line of work, it was probably pretty easy for the boy to obtain the gun. This simple fact is sure to have devastating effects on SAMCRO. First, the club has further strengthened their business relationship with Nero by partnering up in the brothel business. Because the two groups have been so tight lately, and have joined each other on enforcement jobs, it’s entirely possible that the gun the boy used to shoot up the school originally came from the Sons. Obvious legal implications aside, this is going to have severe moral implications for Jax.

Jax probably thinks he’s doing right by the club by moving the business more over to the sex side from drugs and guns, but

So what does this mean for SAMCRO? They’re barely holding on as it is, members and now even their wives, can’t seem to stay out of jail, and now they’re destroying the very town they love above all else. With the threat of Clay’s betrayal looming over them, it seems like it’s just a matter of time before the other shoe drops and the club ceases to exist all together.

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