Oh, poor Tara. In tonight's episode of "Sons of Anarchy," she realizes that she has reached the end of one road -- that her desperate, ill-conceived plan has blown up in her face and that all viable options have dried up. Even the immunity deal previously offered by the D.A. is now off the table because "there are other things pending."

Ah, yes. You can check out, but you can never leave. ...

Moreover, Tara has lost herself in the process. She spent so much time studying at the knee of Gemma that she essentially became like her Old Lady "coach." Tara's miscarriage hoax, in fact, was very Gemma-like: Sneaky, ruthless, devious and nefarious.

Now, Tara looks in the mirror and wonders what her love of Jax -- and her association with Gemma and the biker club -- has turned her into.

"Look what you've done to me!" she yells at Jax after catching him in bed with Collette and pulling a gun on him. "What happened to me?!"

SAMCRO happened to her. And now she's paying the price.

As the episode begins, we see that Jax hasn't gone ballistic on Tara. He's more level-headed than what we might have expected. That's because Tara isn't just another thug he can punch out, or kill. She's the woman he has long loved. The mother of his children. And it's possible that he realizes he has played a role in driving her to this betrayal.


So, he's not taking the kids, for now. He's allowing Tara to leave the house with them, but he's also putting a 24/7 tail on her and orders her not to leave town.

"If I don't put some distance here, someone's going to get hurt," he says.

And so, as Jax looks to finalize the deal that will turn over the guns operation to Clay and the Irish, Tara tries to figure out just what went wrong and how.

She vents her anager at loose-lips Wendy, who is hitting the drugs again. And she meets with her other failed ally, Margaret, who is so freaked out by a possible violent run-in with Jax that she's taking three weeks off and heading to Sedona.

At this point, Tara is still feeling defiant, not defeated. How defiant? She viciously backs her vehicle into Juice's bike to keep him from following her. And when Gemma drops by the house to tell her that she should just apologize to Jax and leave, Tara stands up to her and tells Gemma that she will never bolt town without the kids.

And that's when Gemma has to remind Tara exactly who she's dealing with.

"Have you any idea of who your husband is -- what he's capable of?" Gemma snarls. "My son loves deep, but hates deeper."

After barging in on Jax and Collette (and punching the blonde in the face), Tara is at the end of her rope, But she's got one last card to play: She visits Patterson, hoping the D.A. can revive the immunity offer that will allow Tara to rat out the club and go free.

"I'm ready to talk," she declares.

Of course, Patterson, by now, has another deal in the works with Jax to take down the Irish. But recognizing that Tara is in trouble, she offers protection.

"If you fear for the safety of you and your boys, I can help," she says.

But Tara believes that it's all very hopeless.

"No you can't," she replies. "No one can help me."

Some other developments and random thoughts:

-- In the other main story line, Galen is back to wreak more havoc. He not only demands that Jax and the guys help with the plan to spring Clay during the transfer trek, he wants Jax's assistance in convincing the Italians to keep buying their guns from the Irish. The latter negotiation takes on a scary tone when Galen kills a member of the Chinese crew basically for sport, which sends the angry Chinese after the SAMCRO boys. Are you starting to have doubts over whether Jax can really deliver Galen to the DA?

-- Apparently everything is now hunky-dory between Nero and Jax. They had a vicious, knock-down, drag-out fight last week and then quickly kissed and made up. Just boys being boys.

-- Early on in the season, a lot of fans, including me, felt that we hadn't seen Jax express enough remorse/sorrow over the school shooting. Tonight's episode included a short, but effective sequence that found Jax gazing wistfully through the school's gates and then dropping in on the church there and watching two school boys make their way through the building. I don't always appreciate the show's music-fueled collages, as they sometimes feel like a crutch, but this one was a nice touch.

-- Gemma on the only two options Tara has to tell her sons: "Mommy moved away, or mommy passed away. Your call." Chilling.

Contact Chuck Barney at Facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.ChuckBarney, or Twitter.com/chuckbarney