'Sons of Anarchy' Season 4 Brief Thoughts

"Wait, Linc Potter is June Stahl?!?"

Wait, other Corgi, another plot line involving a hit on another old lady that looks to go terribly wrong? Walp, it was nice knowing you, Tara Knowles. You sure were purdy like...

Spoilers for 4th season of Sons of Anarchy are ahead, but if you're only 2 or 5 episodes removed, there's not much I can spoil for you after the jump!

I've been in the camp as of this season that agrees that Sons of Anarchy needs to come to a conclusion after it's fifth season, but creator Kurt Sutter has already come out and says he has material for three more seasons. Sheesh! At this rate, Kozik, Filthy Phil, and Ratboy will be running the club.

My allegiances to the five season cap seemed odd, because unlike other critics, I didn't call Sutter on his story rehash, but the impending hit on Tara (and possibly her children, oh my!) reads too much like Donna's unfortunate end in season one and cheapens to villainous transformation of Clay. Remember when times were simpler and the bad guys were The Mayans?

Okay, we get it...Clay orders the hit through Romeo's contact, but to really get the point across, next week's teaser shows parts of the hit in progress while Jax and the kids are involved. Now, that may be different from Donna's gangland execution, but the internal strife of the club is such a cop out when they try and weed out the perceived pawn pieces, AKA the old ladies. And really, after showing most of next week's shootout, does anyone really believe Jax, Tara, or the kids will be killed?

Come on, Kurt. My money is on someone getting injured, but because Tara's a doctor and she fixes things like that, all will be fine and the focus will return to one of the 50 peripheral characters we don't really care about dying.

Marry me, Tara! You won't die before you're 30!

As for the rumors of Clay's demise at season's end, do you think this show can continue for three more years without the impact of Ron Perlman? That out seems far too easy, as Clay has now surpassed the evil of anything we've seen on SOA, short of dead Irishmen or one of the eight "cartels" that will undoubtedly poke their heads up in the aftermath of this current skirmish.

This isn't to say that this season has been bad; in fact, it comes close to what we saw in season two with Henry Rollins and LOAN. But at some point you have to call a spade a spade and wrap this puppy up before it gets too drawn out and it's reputation becomes tarnished. All beautiful stories eventually come to an end, Kurt, and nothing gold can stay. Take a cue from Breaking Bad, and go for the five act play.