The Televangelist: ‘Sons of Anarchy’ Season 4, Ep. 6

• FX
• This may be a Whodunit, but Miss Marple it ain’t

?There’s a bird in the Angry Birds arsenal that’s essentially a giant bomb. It’s a favorite weapon of players because it can crash through any barrier, obliterating everything around it and sending pieces off into the yonder offscreen. Kurt Sutter, creator and showrunner of “Sons of Anarchy,” is the Bird Bomb for this own creation. I thought he would be content to engineer a schism within the club, or just haunt certain members with dark demons of the past, but no — Sutter has instead turned his sights on every relationship every member has with almost everyone. And we’re only halfway through the season. Bird Bomb!

? There are some shows that have quiet, stage-setting episodes to move the characters into place for an explosive dive towards the season finale. But “Sons” gives us a slew of machinations (Clay asking Romeo to kill Tara, Unser warning Tara with a threatening note, Chibs reading Juice’s easily telegraphed nervousness about the club rules and the missing dope) with some character development (Opie and Lyla, Tig and his daughter), and wrapping it all up nicely with two explosive moments (Juice’s killing of Miles, and Jax’s assault on Ima). “With an X” may be one of “Sons” most well-crafted and intense episodes to date. And according to Kurt Sutter’s Twitter, he’s just getting started.

?As to the particulars of last night, I’ll start with Juice and the desperation of his dilemma, which felt very real. Imagine yourself in Juice’s position. All you want is to create an opportunity to sneak the brick back in. But now everyone knows it’s gone, there are precious few opportunities to do so. Meanwhile your club brothers, even though they are Prospects, are being put through an escalating number of tortures, some of which could kill them (I’m not sure I get the point of the Russian Roulette though. Death before dishonor?) and it’s all your fault! And just like any good thwarted crime, the perp stumbles upon something unexpected. In this case, Miles catches Juice unearthing the dope and holds him at gun point, where a desperate Juice kills him and plant the dope to save himself. Miles catching up to Juice was certainly more convenient than, say, Tig or Happy. For one, Miles had already told Clay no one other than himself, Juice and the Prospects were in or out of the shed all night. But Juice is certainly not off the hook, and Chibs, to whom he went for some tangential advice, most certainly suspects him of something. Add that to the chart!