Very cool show…. hope it lasts

First, you have the irony. Agent Cone was laying there dead who wanted to be with Tara more than anything else in the world. His crazy actions designed to get her back actually push Jax and Tara back together. His dead open eyes bear witness.

Second, as the post-shooting scene develops, you see Tara’s emotionally cathartic response to the horror. Her high school boyfriend (who doesn’t have a soft spot for their first mad love) who has just saved and protected her again, is literally “there for her”. The deep connection which they have is reawakened and strengthened beyond measure as they realize that there is nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. The pent up passion (which starts tentatively and then goes fast) they’ve carried for years for each other is released in a tidal wave which ignores everything else around them. Nothing else matters as they surrender to their feelings for each other.

It is a very primal scene relating to protecting one’s mate. Giving her a sense of security and safety in his presence. I personally believe that this is one of the fundamental desires of a female for a male partner which obviously makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.

As to the sex scene – I didn’t even see it as shocking much less silly. To me, it made complete sense. Not in a traditional romantic sort of way of course, but it made sense in a consuming, drug-like, need to connect kind of way. It’s obvious these are two people who remained in love with one another despite moving on. She tried to escape the MC life and he felt his life was bad for her. But now her life has just brought hell down on both of them. The shock and enormity of what happened stripped away everything that separated them and all that longing and need was released along with a kind of fatalism. I was struck by how lost their lovemaking felt. It felt like two people drowning together; surrendering to the weight of everything they had failed to escape. They’re wedded now by this horrific crime and it was a consummation of the dark pact between them. It didn’t seem gratuitous or shocking at all — it seemed dramatic, raw and painful. People use sex as a drug and escape in times of overwhelming stress and this was ignited by shock and fueled by years of suppressed longing, rising hysteria, and despair.

To me, it DID enrich the storyline. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.