I love a good story; a well-written script, therefor, applies. I love some shows because of their well-written scripts, and even more because of their well-cast line-ups. Sons of Anarchy is just the well designed melting-pot that keeps me coming back every season.

I recently re-watched the first three seasons, and even knowing what was ‘going to happen next’, I found myself consumed again. I love a show/movie or actor/actresses that can make me believe.

The thing is, I can’t help but be lead. A well written trail into another life is like the rats to the pied piper. The silver tongues that sway the minds can’t lead me far enough. I get lost without visuals and in creating my own, I get even more lost. It fascinates me, but sometimes I just want to be entertained.

Gemma, the Matriarch of the group, is gang-raped in an episode and after a few episodes of bearing the secret’s burden on her own and a select few, she decides to tell her husband and son what happened.

The episodes leading up to the final few minutes of the episode where she lays her heart bare set the scene with epic finesse. Seeing her reach her boiling point of trying to be a solid rock for her boys while dealing with the cruel secret she means to keep tugs at the heart strings just enough to empathize, but not to the point of tears…not yet.

The same woman who delivered the poignant line in Season 1 that ‘the only thing worse than everyone knowing, is no one knowing‘ in regards to Tristen’s rape, was trying to keep her own horror away from as many ears as possible. I had forgotten about that line which delivers a truthful punch because of the power behind the words; the power of truth. Yet, by Season 2 she was trying to stifle her own truth. It was provoking to watch the melt-down that ensued as a result; the pinnacle of which was the result of well-written, well-executed on-screen drama. And truth.

Homeless Girl

The previous episode Gemma takes Unser to his support group’s revival service at church and intends to make herself scarce while he attends, but notices a homeless girl that she had given money to in a previous episode. Gemma gets out of the car and asks if she knows the girl and the girls says that everyone knows her. When she enters the church, the gospel singing draws Gemma in and she attends as if to think to say that if they accept the homeless woman, surely they would not deny her. Gemma, the woman who said that ‘Jesus is just a guy who cuts my lawn’, seemed to have lifted her spirits ever so slightly in the pew next to Unser. What we do hear from the choir is also as poignant as the moment: “…all my sickness will be over when I lay my burden down…”

The truth is hard. Just as change is hard. Truth invokes change. In the very least, action.

Just what do you do with the truth you realize? What do you with the truth you are given? How do you act and react?

The burden of truth is akin to Pandora’s box; open it and receive hope, but so do you gain the cruel uglies of the world. It is not easy, but again, why does anything have to be easy? You give the truth and you open yourself up for the hope of better, love, realness. You give the truth and you open yourself up for help. Open yourself up for love and hope, and you make yourself vulnerable.

Why is being vulnerable so wrong? Because you risk getting hurt. And as what is will always be, we protect ourselves first.

But the burden lies in knowing when and/or with whom to be vulnerable.

Gemma needed time; she thought she could hold it in forever, but it was only a matter of time. The truth can eat away at you and fester if it is not released. A fighter can’t allow their soul to chip away. Gemma was bound to break down or stand up eventually.

The short journey to unveiling that evil truth was just hard enough to touch the heartstrings well enough to send the wave of tears that was at the apex of her disclosure. As she pulled up the courage and told her story and the looks of sorrow and empathy crossed the faces of her husband and son, I couldn’t contain myself. I cried like a baby; I felt for her and her plight. The strong Matriarch had had her feet swept from under her and the only way to get back up was to let others hear the truth.

As her world would crash around her over the next episodes and seasons, I would cry again with/for her. I can’t help it. I feel for others. I am hardly lacking in empathy.

And I think that is at the heart of why I can’t grasp the idea that others lack it completely.

I refused to see that truth about me and truth of the matter; my problem now only lies in what to do with that truth.