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This is an important time for Netflix. Last week brought us the reports about the company's fourth-quarter boosts in new subscribers and income and this week, we're all gearing up for the premiere of House of Cards, the streaming service's first major foray into original production and distribution (Netflix did shepherd 2011's Lilyhammer to its streaming interface, but the show didn't make much of an impact with audiences or critics). Never shy from big moves and big boasting, Netflix is ready to take its turn at remaking the television business model. In an interview with GQ, chief content officer Ted Sarandos noted that Netflix's up-front commitment to full seasons of series (compared to networks' more methodical pitch-to-script-to-pilot-to-series-order process that's happening as we speak) is in place "to become HBO faster than HBO can become us."

Grandiose aims aside, with House of Cards—and April's Hemlock Grove and May's not-fourth fourth season of Arrested Development—Netflix is going to test some of the assumptions about contemporary television viewing practices. The prevailing thought among reporters, critics, and even decision-makers within the industry is that we now love to marathon episodes and even full seasons or series all at once. How many stories have been written about these changing viewing habits over the past few years? I'm not taking shots at all those pieces because they're right on-point, but it's a little easier to look at declining live Nielsen ratings and increasing DVR ratings, or to read a data-light press release from Hulu or Netflix about certain viewer habits, and speculate (albeit in an educated fashion) that we consume TV differently now. We definitely do, but House of Cards is the first high-profile production to fully embrace those newer viewing practices and there are a number of different ways this could develop.

The tension lies between what is beneficial for us as viewers and what is beneficial for Netflix's bottom line, subscription base, and cultural cachet. Netflix is betting—based on their internal analytics, obviously—that viewers want to have all 13 episodes of House of Cards or all 14 episodes of Arrested Development available to them in an instant. In theory, this is great for us, because we get the television we want RIGHT NOW, and great for Netflix because it gives us what we want RIGHT NOW and we renew our subscriptions, tell our friends, etc.

Of course, it's more complicated than that. This week, Variety's Andrew Wallenstein presented a compelling case that providing all the episodes up front might not be in the best interest of Netflix or viewers. Wallenstein argues that with all the episodes available from the jump, Netflix customers will sign up for a free trial, purge through all the Arrested Development and Hemlock Grove they want to watch and quit within a week, presumably costing the company money. He also warns that the relationships viewers build with a show over the course of a season won't be as satisfying, or at least that they'll be much different.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with Wallenstein's hypothesis, but it further establishes that whatever happens with Netflix, House of Cards, and Arrested Development, we're in an important transitional moment for television production, distribution, and consumption. If these experiments are a success, in whatever way Netflix conceives of success, the company will look like a genius and maybe Hulu and Amazon Instant Video follow suit. Maybe more and more shows get released all at once and the broadcast networks, already a little confused about how "online buzz" can factor into their antiquated business model (see: the early online release of pilots), try way too hard to compete with the industry's new normal. Fans can watch at their own pace even more—and probably complain about spoilers on Twitter even more—and the long-standing fears about mass cable-cutting begins. Even television critics' jobs change, if just a little.

When you start going down that road of what-ifs, it's a slippery slope. Do I think Netflix is going to revolutionize television? Probably not. But even if Netflix's experiment "fails," it still feels like we're going to learn some new and informative things about television in the coming year. After years of dueling narratives about technology and new viewership practices killing or saving television, this event should give us some tangible evidence that neither is really true, which is ultimately more interesting anyway.

But, business matters aside, I'm curious about how House of Cards and whatever comes after it could change the way we talk about television. The popularity of episodic commentary has grown exponentially over the last few years; with the recap/review and its attached comments section powering sites like this one on a daily basis. If you regularly visit places like TV.com, chances are much of your social media experience involves television as well. It's complicated enough to have to deal spoiler-phobia all over Twitter and Facebook and in comments sections because of time-zone differences and DVR preferences. Doesn't having all of this first season available immediately exacerbate those social landmines?

Nevertheless, it all starts with us. Netflix is going to put all these episodes of House of Cards out there in a matter of hours—tomorrow marks the official release date, and the launch is set to take place at midnight Pacific / 3am Eastern—so now we, in some way, get to determine how the industry moves forward (or doesn't). I want to hear your thoughts on this. How are you going to watch these episodes (or are you)? Do you think there is a "better" way to watch a full season? And how do you think the all-at-once release model might impact the way we talk about these shows?

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Parenthood S04E02: "Left Field"

"For the next 12 months, I want you to behold the breast of knowledge, thrust yourself upon it, and SUCK."

This episode was dirrrrrrrrrrty.

After reading (and agreeing) with Cory Barker's assessment of Parenthood in his feature on shows that deserve better timeslots, this week I couldn't help but notice the characters taking advantage of being on at 10pm by sexing it up a little. And a little on this show means a lot.

It all started with that quote from Zeek about leaping onto breasts and sucking. Without context, it's a statement that could be more maternal than sexual and maybe I just have a mind descended from pilgrims who think breasts are dirty. But, starting with the last year's season finale, Drew is a sexual being, as we saw with his awkward-but-effective moves to bed Amy. Combine that with the Now-Distant Amy issue hanging over him like a dark cloud, the episode opening with Crosby and Jasmine doing it on the kitchen floor, and the creepy old man tone in which Zeek delivered that line (Sarah even addressed it as gross); everything points to it being sexual. And, therefore, out of place.

In fact, a lot of the innuendo (and not so subtle mentioning of sex) was weirdly out of place in the episode. It wasn't terribly explicit, but this is not a show that deals flippantly with sex. Unless it's "lovemaking" between consensual, married adults, it's usually a big deal and often leads to drama/catastrophe. Let's review:

– Sarah sleeps with an old high school boyfriend (Drew is crushed)
– Sarah sleeps with Amber's high school teacher (Amber is crushed)
– Haddie (eventually) sleeps with the slightly older, African-American counselor at the homeless shelter (Adam and Kristina are crushed)
– Crosby sleeps with Max's behavior therapist (essentially a Braverman apocalypse)
– Adam gets kissed by a hot receptionist (Kristina is crushed—you have to grade them on a curve)
– Adam and Kristina sleep together (a child is born)

But this season has made it a point to bring up sex as a less destructive force. In the premiere, Amber slept with that guy from American Idol and Adam went into freak-out mode. That was business as usual. But Amber spun sex differently for him later, saying that she's mature enough to handle it and that not every dalliance with grown-up naked time needs to end in emotional destruction. It was an awkward conversation where she dropped the phrase "very willing" but important all the same.

I applaud the show for being more open and realistic about sex, particularly among the kids that are becoming all growns up. It's one of the show's strengths that we actually see the teenagers grow into adults (sometimes maturing faster than their parents) and become fuller, more realized characters.

That being said, sex brought up by a Braverman seems dirtier than sex brought up by anyone else. Drew said he got a spam text about penis enlargement and I was like WHOA. Did Drew just say penis? PENIS? In front of God and everyone? It's a word that would be pedestrian on any other show but, because we deal so infrequently with Parenthood working blue, smaller forays into even the most banal adult situations feel racy.

Another example is the deal Adam and Kristina struck when agreeing to get the purebreed retriever. (I want to note here that I'm not often on Adam's side, but I was squarely with him on the matter of getting a $1,200 dog from those psychopaths; that would never be a good idea or investment, particularly when the dog would be for an autistic prima donna and a soon-to-be toddler. Toddlers are world-renowned as adorable dog torturers.) Kristina made the rookie mistake of saying "anything" was on the table for her end of the bargain, which Adam quickly related to Funkytown (their unsubtle name for scheduled doing-it). She agreed to his demand, but with the condition that "anything" does not include that "thing you like to do." What thing is so offensive that Kristina can't even bring herself to perform it? What kind of fetish is Adam into? Is it feet? Is that why he worked at the shoe place? It's all coming together.

Maybe Crosby and Jasmine having sex everywhere isn't a big deal (though his randiness seems to be turned up to 11 in this episode), and Amber saying she really likes "Funkytown" isn't weird (it's a catchy song), but Adam being into something so kinky, so depraved, that Kristina not only can't name it but also refuses to do it—you have to admit that it's a pretty smutty in a series dealing mostly with principle, loyalty, family, and modern morality.

But here's where things gets interesting. The entire episode was, more or less, lighthearted. While the dog thing caused some drama and Drew's break-up was sad, both were rather small in the long run (Hank made sure that Drew was okay—because he's the best). Julia and Joel's storyline was sweet but filler. Crosby's storyline was like a drawn-out episode of King of Queens except the characters were better looking. But the lighthearted fare was a red herring. In what could have been just a breather episode after the season premiere, Kristina got a breast exam and, like you would expect from a mammogram that happens two minutes before the end of an episode, received some bad news.

From such a light installment that literally had "Funkytown" in its soundtrack, this episode ended with some surprising darkness that came out of left field (OMG that's the title!). Just like how blue language on this show is shocking, an episode where everything is nonchalant and wraps up so neatly has the making of a story arc that could be long-running and emotionally devastating. It's jarring.

I'm not sure if I think this is an interesting place to take Kristina or if this is just Emmy bait, but how it arrived is at least interesting, no?

– The whole Victor storyline is sweet. It's good to humanize Julia in a way that she isn't a sadsack. I was a little disappointed with her during the Zoe saga. I very much enjoyed her finding the right solution as a mother instead of relying on Joel's vagina to figure it out for her. Julia's face when Joel told her she was amazing: priceless reaction.

– Along those same lines, Victor obviously has no respect for Joel. Kid is straight-up playing video games all day, not even lying down with his poor tummy, and then gets on the phone with Julia like she's a shift boss at the factory, fake sick voice and everything. Joel is supposed to be his dad, right? Where's his control in that situation?

– So Amy went away to summer camp and hooked up with another dude in a "nothing serious" kind of way. I feel bad for Drew since that's pretty slutacious behavior. Mostly because I'm not entirely sure what that would mean on this show (specifically this episode). Between The CW and ABC Family, I understand that "nothing serious" could be anything from chaste pining to BDSM.

– Hank continues to be the best thing that ever happened to this show. He's like a logical voice that has been mistakenly cast on The Real World. In this world of chaos, he's the only person who has any kind of perspective. "It's okay to be sad." How great is that for Drew? What troubles me is that his advice throughout, particularly with respect to sleeping with Amy's best friend to do it to her before she does it to him, means that there are cracks starting to form. Cracks of sensitivity. Cracks of being a sadsack. Remember how Zoe used to be awesome before she started hanging out with a Braverman? They're going to ruin Hank, too. But until then, we're going to get gold like when Hank tries the brownies and denies Sarah's Lorelai-like eyebrow flicks with an, "Honestly? Mediocre. Almost. But the thought, you had the thought in there." It's gold, you guys. GOLD.

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Boardwalk Empire S03E01: "Resolution"

On Friday afternoon, Time media critic James Poniewozik tweeted a few short impressions about the opening episodes of Boardwalk Empire's third season. The most interesting of those comments were Poniewozik's two related questions: "Whose story is this? WHAT story is this?"

Seen 2 eps so far of BOARDWALK EMPIRE s3. As always, strong individ scenes. But overall: whose story is this? WHAT story is this?

— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) September 14, 2012

For a prestige drama that has won some major awards, been nominated for a slew of others, and is now in its third season, those aren't the type of questions we should be asking. Alas, Poniewozik's tweet was right on-point. In its 24 episodes, Boardwalk Empire has consistently marveled on the visual front (thanks in part to Terence Winter and company's attention to detail and HBO's deep pockets), but even more consistently frustrated on a larger thematic level. The show wants to be great—and even thinks it is great—but impeccable set and costume design and wonderful acting don't mean as much with all those things build to an empty core.

The first season cast far too wide of a wide net, with its narrative that never caught much of anything interesting. Last season was much stronger once Michael Pitt's Jimmy took center stage amid a series of miserable life experiences—it's tough to top discovering your wife's dead body, killing your father, failing to kill your father-like figure, and getting hopped up on drugs to recall your incestuous affair with your mother in the "worst year ever" pool—but then the show made its first big move in having Steve Buscemi's Nucky kill Jimmy. And although Boardwalk would like us to believe that that shooting served as a pivotal point in a much more complex story, the point remains that the show built up one character solely to be dispatched by the lead, mostly to make him more interesting on the surface.

Nevertheless, Jimmy is gone now and gone with him is a center of the Boardwalk Empire universe, a universe that is vast and somehow always expanding further. Certain current-era cable shows like this one share a tendency to craft sprawling stories about two-dozen or more "important" characters without always making the individual units fit together. Game of Thrones, Treme and True Blood immediately come to mind.

And although it sounds insane, Boardwalk Empire is closer to True Blood than Game of Thrones and Treme because like HBO's vampire soap, Boardwalk Empire is a show almost entirely about plot. It's a "stuff just happens" show. Is it as hollow or stupid as True Blood? Of course not. But could Winter and his team serve to push a little harder to move away from the straightforward (yet sometimes narratively convoluted), blood-drenched violence and gangster imagery? Absolutely.

Thus, this is something of a make-or-break season for Boardwalk Empire. The awards buzz will probably never stop and HBO will keep the show around for a long time. But if I can borrow a line from the show, Boardwalk can't be half a prestige drama forever.

Unfortunately, the Season 3 premiere, "Resolution," didn't do a whole lot to convince me that anything is going to change on Boardwalk, even though the episode was all about the possibility of "the new."

Nowhere was this more obvious than with the introduction of Bobby Cannavale's Gyp Rosetti. When his car had tire trouble on the way into Atlantic City, a random Samaritan offered to help Rosetti with the rusted lug nuts. The Samaritan unintentionally confused Rosetti about the name of product that would solve his problem, so Rosetti returned the favor by beating the innocent, helpful man to death with a tire iron. In his second scene much later in the episode, Rosetti learned that he won't be able to buy Rum directly from Nucky anymore, which resulted in an overly masculine response full of curse words, personal insults, and egotistical posturing.

Clearly, Gyp isn't an educated man. He's a gangster in a nice suit, and that's all he wants to be (unlike Nucky, who won't stop until he rises above the criminal fray, even if illegal activity is all he can do to get to the top). Still though, there's something very fitting about Boardwalk replacing the Ivy League-educated, soft-spoken, complicated, and introspective Jimmy with the loud, aggressive blunt object that is Gyp. Cannavale is a great performer and I have no doubt that he'll do fine work throughout this season. However, Gyp is just another brash man to add to the fray of a dozen brash men, all of whom are shooting and yelling and screwing their way into... something. If there's one thing Boardwalk didn't need, it was another gangster.

In certain instances, "Resolution" suggested that change might be coming. Nucky's spent the last year building himself into the full gangster Jimmy claimed he had to be, and we know that because in tonight's first scene with him he outsmarted a petty thief into giving up his wheelman, then had the thief executed. When Nucky said, "Put a fucking bullet in his head," he appeared to mean it—and when another character told him, "You're a gangster, plain and simple," it felt like the show trying to convince itself of this half-truth.

Meanwhile, now locked into a loveless marriage with Nucky, Margaret is finding it pretty easy to throw lavish New Year's parties and tour the hospital wing that she (with Nucky's money) helped develop. There's no more feeble Mrs. Schroder left in Margaret. She's aware of her circumstances and has no qualms about spending Nucky's money or challenging the head doctor of the hospital on its poor care of pregnant women.

On the surface, then, things might be shifting for Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. But we know that's not the full story. Nucky decided to funnel all of his booze operations outside of Atlantic City through Rothstein so that he could try to cool some of the heat on his buddy Attorney General Daugherty (Christopher McDonald), in what's more or less a tit-for-tat type of deal that goes back to last season when Daugherty helped save Nucky's ass. Plus, Nuck's still watching a great amount of his money (and that land Margaret sold to the church) go to causes he doesn't really care about. So, Nucky might be a full gangster now, but he's still handcuffed by his grand political ambition and his wife.

And for Margaret, the more things change, the more they stay the same. She's part of the societal elite and making some waves with her charity, but she's found herself part of a loveless marriage yet again.

Buscemi and Kelly Macdonald are both quite good in their roles and their performances in this episode were just as good as they always are. Still though, it's hard to shake the feeling that as the two lead characters, neither Nucky nor Margaret is as engaging as they could be. And I think a lot of that comes from the show's unwillingness to go beyond the typical rhythms of the gangster genre (lies and violence, always).

Elsewhere in the vast Boardwalk universe there are the usual compelling, if slightly tangential stories. With Jimmy gone, Gillian has spent the better part of a year convincing Jimmy's son Tommy that she is actually his mother, only further complicating that intertwined family tree. (The best part? Gillian keeps reminding Tommy that Jimmy was his father, making it seem as though she and Jimmy conceived this child together and ow my stomach hurts). The good news is that Tommy's spending a whole lot of time with Richard, who apparently enjoys babysitting more than one might have expected. Richard wants Tommy to remember his real mother, which didn't go over well with the manipulative Gillian.

Over in Illinois, Michael Shannon's Van Alden (still going by an alias) is struggling to make it by selling irons. In what I think was the only truly comedic story in the show's history, Van Alden spent the premiere going from door to door in hopes of winning the New Year's contest bonus. He failed miserably but thankfully Van Alden had an assortment of cliché pep talks to give himself between each failure. The best part about these scenes was that Shannon played them completely straight, with the unknowing earnestness of the character helping highlight how silly and sad his situation is. By the end of the day, Van Alden somehow accidentally ended up helping Chicago player Dean O'Banion get out of a jam with Al Capone, suggesting interesting things to come.

Much like the Nucky and Margaret stories, these threads are well-executed, particularly by the actors. Gretchen Mol, Jack Huston and Shannon are always good on the show and that was no different in this episode. However, it's tough to totally figure out where Gillian and Tommy fit into a world without Jimmy or the Commodore (though the end of the episode suggests Boardwalk won't have trouble finding something for Richard), and now three seasons in, the Chicago stories have yet to really pay off in a substantial manner. We have a long way to go in the season but the show hasn't always proven it knows how to pull strands together to make a satisfying whole.

And really, that's the big issue here. There are very, very few individual scenes on Boardwalk Empire that aren't well-acted and beautiful to look at. Nothing was different in "Resolution." But it too often felt like just a collection of scenes that happened to be sequenced together in an episode-like unit. Certain critics have argued that this kind of long-form, "collection of stories" approach works better on a full-season level, removing some of the episodic satisfactions. However, for me, Boardwalk Empire is the opposite: Individual episodes are really enjoyable, but by the end of a half- or full-season, the show is just on to the next thing.

Hopefully that—and things within the show's world itself—will actually change this season.

– There's a through-line here about the first female aviator making her way across the Atlantic, which brings up predictable sexist discussions. Margaret was super-psyched about the flight and went to the beach to see the woman fly by. Maybe things are changing for Margaret and other women this year?

– Nucky has a new side piece, performer Billie Kent. She, like Lucy, doesn't like to wear tops. The more things change...

Since the show wants to cling to the gangster aesthetic, in each week's review I'll list the most powerful characters of the episode. Here's the inaugural edition:

1. Nucky: Mr. Thompson was the cock of the walk in "Resolution." He wheeled out a treasure chest of gold and the like at the New Year's party and just gave it away.

2. Gillian: It takes a special kind of gangster to manipulate a little boy into thinking you're his mother, not his grandmother, while still reminding him of the identity of his father.

3. Margaret: Nice to see that Marge didn't stop with giving Nucky's road away. She's helped build the hospital, and now it looks like she might help run it.

4. Rothstein: Becoming the sole distributor of Nucky's booze outside of Atlantic City without having to do much to get it is pretty swag.

84. Chalky: Michael K. Williams' Chalky White wasn't even in the premiere. What a disappointment.

What'd you think of the episode?

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Sons of Anarchy S05E01: "Sovereign"

After Season 1 of Sons of Anarchy laid out the backbone of the series in its debut, subsequent season premieres found themselves defined by specific moments. The gang rape of Gemma in Season 2 still stands out as some of the most brutal television I've watched. Season 3's opener took its time before a van full of trigger-happy thugs unloaded on Half Sack's wake and Jax made some dude taste pavement. Last season, a joyous wedding was capped by a shower of bullets in lieu of throwing rice, because that's the kind of stuff that happens at a biker wedding.

There's a common thread to a Sons premiere, and it's marked with considerable violence after many minutes of stage-setting, refamiliarizing the audience with the life of SAMCRO, and attempting to iron out the show's incredibly complex storylines. Tonight's "Sovereign" sticks very close to that model, which is a comforting feeling for longtime fans even if it doesn't offer anything terribly new except for new ways to show people suffering. Yes, an innocent woman being burned alive in a pit full of corpses was comforting. Sons of Anarchy is back, baby!

But before we get to that good stuff we need to look at what happened before. It's now more evident than ever that the Season 4 finale was just as interested in setting things up for Season 5 as it was with closing up Season 4. This year's bad guy* appears to be Damon Pope, played by that guy (Harold Perrineau) whose Lost dialogue was 75-percent "Waaaaaaalt!" The advantage of essentially starting this storyline last season is that we can get right down to the business of burning an innocent woman alive in a pit full of corpses. The disadvantage, well, the Season 4 finale was definitely the lowlight of an otherwise stellar season of Sons of Anarchy.

(* "bad guy" is obviously relative in this series, but if you've made it to Season 5 then you are probably more or less okay with SAMCRO's less-than-legal extracurriculars.)

So it wasn't long before we got an idea of how this Pope fella operates. The way this guy runs things, he makes the other Pope look like a prankster. It was his daughter that was manslaughtered by Tig in what can only be described as a rage-fueled-but-brain-absent decision in last season's finale, and Pope's not going to let that slide. He went after SAMCRO and cleaned up his own staff in the process, murdering Leroy (Tig's intended target) by chopping him into pieces, shooting his lieutenant Darnell in the head pretty much just to send a message (he went to the Gus Fring school of thuggery, apparently), and pouring gasoline on Tig's daughter Dawn (does that mean no more Rachel Miner?) for the aforementioned human BBQ. (If you want to get technical about it, it was actually Pope's right-hand man August Marks that did most of the killing under orders from Pope so Pope can keep his hands clean.)

But aside from his horrible actions, does Pope really give us the bad guy we want in this season? There's no doubt he's dangerous and his crew is a formidable opponent, but Pope himself lacks the charisma of past Sons of Anarchy villains. Lincoln Potter was fascinating because he was a chocolate-milk-drinking weirdo, Ethan Zobelle had the whole super-smart white-power thing going on, but Pope, apart from a penchant for human flambé, seems pretty run of the mill by baddie standards and will need to build a legacy of hatred through vicious actions instead of interesting character quirks and a commanding presence. Pope doesn't seem like a hardcore gangster yet to me, he seems like an actor playing a hardcore gangster. It's not a good start for Pope when I'm more scared of his buddy August than I am of him.

That will likely change when Pope finds out what Tig did. Instead of going quietly off to jail, Tig strangled an Oakland detective on Pope's payroll and killed the cleaner that was there to scrape Dawn off the sides of the pit. This is Tig at his unhinged best. Love this guy, and love Kim Coates' performance through that whole scene.

Elsewhere, the club is in shambles as Jax deals with all sorts of fallout and desperately tries to Scotch tape SAMCRO together. Clay, or the ghost of Clay, is haunting the headquarters looking more like a monster than the ferocious villain he was last season. It's satisfying that he's become the new Piney, burdened with tubes in his nose and unable to ride with the kids, but the guy still deserves a million papercuts and a lemon juice bath. I applaud the effort to repair his broken image, especially his confession at the table and his attempts to talk to Gemma, but after what he did last season, he's beyond repair in my eyes even though I had to reprimand myself for feeling sympathy for him for a millisecond there. He doesn't seem like a threat to Jax at the moment, and I think that makes him especially dangerous. His balls may be cut off, but his claws aren't.

Gemma, meanwhile, was a broken woman from Clay's dickishness and was spiraling down into a world of Jack Daniels for breakfast and drunken sex with strangers for fourth meal. But she still has a long ways to fall because she's holding the biggest secret (her involvement in JT's murder) now that the truth is out about Clay. And if I were her, I wouldn't feel too confident that Clay is holding that secret with her.

There's definitely a feeling of regime change here, with Clay and Gemma shells of their former selves and Jax and Tara doing everything but pose for a photograph in the shape of young Clay and Gemma (like they did at the end of Season 4). Clay's grip on power is non-existent, and Gemma, once a perfect example of strength, is at the weakest point we've ever seen her. It's obvious she and Tara are going to scratch each others' eyes out at some point this season, but the question will be how Clay finds his way back into the swing of things, because there is no way he can be done.

And what of Opie? The gentle giant said he's done with the club, even putting a "For Sale" sign on his bike. Ouch. But the real dagger came when he told Jax "I'm more afraid I'm going to turn into you." Double ouch! And you know what? He's right. Though Jax had the best for the club in mind, it wasn't the best for his BFF Opie. With Clay, the man who murdered Piney, still at the table because Jax needs him there to keep the CIA partnership going, there's no room for Opie.

It's a good start to Season 5 as the tenuous game of Jenga started at the end of Season 4 continues in Season 5 with all new levels built on top. But everything is one sneeze away from falling down, and when it does come down, it's Jax who is going to get crushed underneath.

– What is up with the new SAMCRO members from Nomad? We were led to believe that they busted into Wayne's apartment at the end there and roughed him up, but why? Is Clay orchestrating something we don't know about and ordered them to beat the crap out of Wayne? Who else would want Wayne beat up?

– I imagine the conversation between Jimmy Smits and Kurt Sutter about casting Smits as Nero Padilla went something like this... Kurt: "Well, when we first see Padilla, he's banging Gemma from behind in a sea of naked escorts, drugs, and booze, and— " Smits: "I'll take it!"

– I'm a big fan of Nero so far ("I'm a companionator. I bring folks together, I'm all about the love."), which obviously means he's going to end up being a huge pain in the ass.

– I'm really glad the CIA storyline wasn't that prominent in the premiere. I'm okay with it being used as a way to keep Clay alive and in the picture, but the more it stays in the background, the better.

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