‘Sons of Anarchy: Toil and Till’ recap: Bang! Zoom! Yawn?

Every now and again, I fear I am not the target audience for “Sons of Anarchy.”

“Toil and Till” is another too-long, too-loud episode of FX’s favorite testosterone drama, and I don’t know what it says about me that in an episode with a body count that approached 20, I was far more invested in the sarcasm and verbal hair-pulling that came during a slow-drive chat between two recovering drug addicts.

This week’s “Sons” suffers from a little post-premiere hangover, and is weighed down by the opening salvos of a Jax-Henry Lin feud we seem doomed to endure for the next few episodes. I understand that the show has written itself into this position, where Jax would logically want and need to unravel Lin’s life because he blames him for Tara’s death, but we know Lin had nothing to do with it.

So, at least to me, anything Jax does in furtherance of his plot to rip Lin apart just feels like a stand-in until he inevitably figures out what Gemma did.

“Sons” often struggles when it tries to play Jax as manipulator, even if his string-pulling involves a lot of shotgun shells and car crashes. I know the show is trying to make Jax more drawn-in murderer than rogue-ish antihero, but there’s nothing fun about watching the Sons get into a shoot ‘em up. We’ve seen it too many times before.

It doesn’t help that Lin has always been a bit-part gangster in the series’ history. Sure, he’s been around, but he lives on the fringes of the gang landscape, and has never proved himself to be a terribly dangerous adversary.

I know the show can’t move a guy like Marcus Alvarez into this spot because it would put Jax in direct conflict with Nero too soon, but if we’re going to have Jax manuevering against a character for an empty reason, it might work better with a character we care about.

At least the reappearance of Uncle Jury and the Indian Hills charter adds a little juice to the A-plot, especially with the closing-scene revelations that Jury shared a bond with the young man Jax murdered and framed for the gun shipment fiasco. That could be an interesting clash down the line, as Jury is one of the few maybe, sort-of, sympathetic characters we have left.

The best parts of “Toil and Till” are far removed from the gun smoke of the California hills. Nero (see: The Man) and Wendy had a nice connection over their shared damage on the drive to Nero’s school, and it was good to see her accept and evade his advice line by line. Characters on “SOA” all too often take up mentorship from the first person to give them advice, and it was nice to see their playful exchange end with something more like mutual respect.

The “nanny and the gardener” joke cracked me up, and maybe this is just wishful thinking, but did anyone else sense a little flirtation between the two? I know Wendy is done with men, but considering how onerous Jax and Gemma have become, I’d kind of like to see them get their hearts broken. (You know, aside from that time Tara got murdered.)

It was also good to see Unser move forward with the police consulting job and take up Juice as his latest lost cause. Dayton Callie played the scene with the new sheriff’s captain well, leaving Unser resigned but maybe a little bit happy for the first time in a long time. The subtle way he’s blaming himself for Tara’s murder, by picking up the case file without really outwardly expressing remorse, is a nice touch.

I’ve long hoped the show might find a way to balance its sometimes deft touch for character moments with its need to turn action scenes into “Grand Theft Auto” advertisements.

But then I spend two scenes watching Tig order Rat to “think gay thoughts,” and remember what I’m watching.

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