Fun Town
"Fun Town" is the third episode of the first season of the FX television series Sons of Anarchy. It was written by Kurt Sutter, directed by Stephen T. Kay and originally aired on September 17, 2008 in the United States.
| "Fun Town" | |
|---|---|
| Sons of Anarchy episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 3 |
| Directed by | Stephen T. Kay |
| Written by | Kurt Sutter |
| Production code | 1WAB02 |
| Original air date | September 17, 2008 |
| Running time | 45 minutes |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
| |
This episode marks the first appearance for Jay Karnes (Josh Kohn), an ATF agent from Chicago, Illinois. He dated Tara Knowles, but they split and she returned to her home town of Charming, California to escape him.
Plot
SAMCRO visit Fun Town, the local carnival. Clay and Gemma have sex in a photo booth and the rest of the crew rough up a clown. Later, they come across Elliot Oswald, a local businessman, who briefly chats with Clay, Gemma and Jax, who gives Oswald's 13-year-old daughter, Tristen, tickets for a ride. As the fair draws to a close, Oswald says he cannot find his daughter, and she is later found in the nearby woods raped and beaten. The following morning, Elliott approaches Clay and asks for help finding the perpetrator, offering money. Clay refuses the money but insists that if the rapist is caught, Oswald must carry out the punishment himself. The Sons then begin their own criminal investigation and Juice comes up with a suspect; Johnny Yates, a former Nords gang member with a history of sex crimes. Tara receives a threatening phone call from Josh Kohn, a Chicago-based ATF agent, telling her that he is looking for her. Tig gives Juice some sleeping pills, that they plan to use on the local police who are watching their clubhouse, to stash. However, Juice mistakes these pills for Speed and takes one. He is later found unconscious in the clubhouse. Comically, Tig and Bobby put him in a diaper and leave him to be found by David Hale outside the police station. Gemma eventually gets to the truth when she chats with Tristen's mother, Karen, at the hospital. It emerges that the girl knew the identity of her attacker all along but has been keeping quiet on the advice of her mother. Karen comes clean and reveals that the rapist is a fairground worker. Gemma tells Jax of the rapist's identity and, that night, he and the crew force their way into the fairground. After a brawl with the carnies, during which Tig bites off a man's ear, they retrieve the rapist before the police can. They then take him to a secluded spot and hand him over to Oswald. Clay gives him a knife to castrate the rapist, but he finds he cannot go through with it and flees. Undeterred, Clay picks up the knife and does it himself (wearing gloves). He then keeps the knife bearing Elliott's fingerprints and takes the rapist's testicles as a grisly souvenir from the body. He is then buried in the woods after bleeding to death. Jax asks "What the hell are we doing here?," to which Clay replies "Just taking out some real estate insurance." The next day, Clay uses the evidence to blackmail Oswald into not selling his land around Charming to property developers, as the town's growth would challenge SAMCRO's reign. However, Jax is unhappy that Clay acted without consulting him, saying "You want me to be your number two and protect this club, I’ve got to know where you’re taking us." That night, Michael McKeavy arrives in town with the latest True IRA weapons shipment from Ireland. Clay informs his longtime supplier that there will be a delay in payment until the new warehouse has been built. McKeavy then says that he will now have to find a new supplier. After this, McKeavy and Chibs travel "up north" to find new buyers, likely the Russian Mafia. At the hospital, Wendy regains consciousness after her overdose. Tara approaches her and suggests that Gemma supplied the drugs, but Wendy refuses to accept the allegation. Instead, she reflects upon her situation as compared to the doctor's. "The two women who loved Jackson Teller", she laughs. "Could we be at more opposite ends of the shit spectrum?" Josh Kohn turns up at the police station, identifying himself as an ATF agent and asking Hale if he needs help bringing down the Sons of Anarchy, much to Hale's delight.
Reception
In a review for the episode, Film School Rejects said "What we are really seeing with Sons of Anarchy, as I explained yesterday, is the slow build to the big burn."[1]
The scene where Clay emasculates a rapist was voted #18 in Rolling Stone's "20 Best ‘Sons of Anarchy’ Moments".[2]
References
External links
- "Fun Town" at IMDb
- "Fun Town" at TV.com
