I needed a whole night to process this episode, still need a second watch.

Opie: All the awards to Ryan Hurst. Please. Now. Thank you. When he came up off that floor, the man's entire face changed. When Ryan said we wouldn't recognize Opie by the end of the season, I didn't think he meant physically.

When he came in and just dropped to the floor, my eyes watered. When he went from "Pop" to "Dad", I was an absolute mess. He was like a little boy lost crying over his father's body, my heart was in pieces. But when Unser came in told him the truth, Opie flipped. That quiet sensitive look in his eyes was gone replaced by something scary and dangerous. The Beautiful Mountain Man is forever changed. Hair down, blowing in the wind under his helmet. Opie will be in full on beast mode next week. I can not wait.

Gemma: I like to think Gemma played Wendy because she knew Jax and Tara would be gone. So she didn't tell Jax about Wendy being there, the reason for Tara's break down, because she didn't want Jax to know Wendy was there. She's isolating Jax and Tara from Wendy. So she can tell Wendy that she'll let her see Abel on her time table, keep Wendy happy and on the other side of town just long enough for Jax and Tara to pack up the boys and go.

I also got the distinct impression, especially from the preview and Gemma wanting whoever to stop Opie from killing Clarence, that the Son Gemma chose to kill Clarence is Tig. It seems like since the whole "get the guy closest to him to kill him and make it seem like an accident" play worked so well for her the first time, why not run it again. Especially since the guy closest to him this time was the one who stood between him and the bullets.

Not a bad plan really, she protects her two boys-Jax and Opie. Clarence is dead. And maybe she gets a new man who adores. Win/Win/Win if you ask me.

Wendy: Maybe it's just me, but her reason for coming back played worse than I imagined. She has her tubes tied, so she doesn't want anymore kids. She lives in another town so she really doesn't want the kid she has. What she wants is to continue to allow (from her pointing out that she still has rights) Tara to raise her son, deal with all illnesses, the tantrums, puberty, and make all the hard decisions regarding Abel. But every once in a while she'll pop in remind Abel that she's his real mother and then pop back out. Oh. Hell. No.

The way she did it, how she did, and her attitude with Gemma, just came off to me like she was screwing with Tara. There could have been a better time for her to do this. She could have and should have seen that Tara was not in the right mindset to deal with something like this. She is a counselor after all, one of her psych classes should have prepared her for this.

For Tara this has to be worse than Wendy trying to take Abel back. Telling Tara that Abel has a right to know his mother. Wendy has just downgraded Tara to glorified babysitter. She didn't even really ask Tara, she pretty much laid out what she was going to do. It was just not the time for that. Badly done, Wendy.

Tara: Maggie was once again fantastic. The way her anger built up was something. If she wasn't confined to that bed, I don't think Wendy would have made it out of that room. As I'm almost sure that vase, in Tara's mind, was Wendy's head.

The scene with Jax, where she gave him what he needed. I don't know if Tara believes Jax or if she wants to believe Jax. But it was clear that she knew what Jax needed from her and she gave it to him. Such a beautiful scene.

Unfortunately after Wendy's visit, I think Tara's going to wake up a different person. Jax and those boys are all she has. She sacrificed a lot to become a surgeon and now that's gone. She sacrificed a lot for Jax and their family, she is not about to let that be taken from her.

Jax and Tara: The final scene with them was beautiful. Jax's face when Gemma told him what happened, it got me. What's happened to her is just killing him. And he just seems scared to death that she's going to give up on him. When he crawled into bed with her, it reminded me of when Tara crawled into bed with him in the season 2 premiere. He just needs her so much that it kills me.