Gemma has tired of the scenic Rogue River area and tries again to elude her guardians. This is not hard, as the two Oregon guys are keeping an eye on the road, and Tig is off doing who-knows-what. She tries a few car doors and gets lucky on #3, a big freaking' truck. Then Gemma tries hot-wiring it -- something that requires her reading glasses, which is an awesome touch.

Jax picks that exact moment to try calling his mom. We cut to Gemma asking the universe, "Really?" And as she goes to dig out the phone, the driver of the truck happens to come out and catch her. He drags her out by a thigh -- we quick-cut to Jax all, "Huh. Nobody's answering" -- and asks, "You stealing my car, bitch?" "No, I'm the valet, shithead," she snarls back. The guy's got Gemma pinned to the truck courtesy of a hand at her throat, and she swings back the hand still holding her hot-wiring knife and stabs the guy in the thigh. His screams attract the attention of the Oregon boys plus Tig, and Gemma turns to get back into the car. Tig asks, "Are you out of your goddamned mind?" She reluctantly concedes, "Maybe a little."

Cut to her motel room, where Tig is trying to impress how not-good her actions were. I love the staging -- she's in a desk chair, head down, slightly pouting, with her fists shoved between her knees, and Tig is on the end of the bed, looking for all the world like a very hairy Ward Cleaver about to tell the Beav that nice folks simply don't try to hot-wire cars and stab their outraged owners. That lasts for a second. Then Gemma rises and tells Tig that he knows as well as she does that he can't keep her there if she doesn't want to be. Tig throws a little guilt trip: "Why are you doing this to me? I promised Clay I'd keep you safe." But Gemma's got another road trip in mind, and tells the Tigger he can come with her if he's interested in keeping her safe. Tig knows when he's beaten.

So, after the day Tara's had -- getting dumped by her boyfriend, having to deal with Stahl -- she caps it off by heading in to do surgery on a toddler. Unfortunately, the good Dr. Knowles has a panic attack right as a fellow doctor makes an abdominal incision, and has to excuse herself. This does not go unnoticed by Margaret Murphy (AKA the administrator Tara beat up in season two).

When Tara heads back to Jax's place, he's busy trying to restore some order to the nursery. She offers to tag in, but he tells her, "I got it. You should go." Tara thinks not. She tells him, "I didn't come back to Charming to run away from Kohn. And I didn't stay because of what we did to him." Jax cleans up some diapers and shrugs, "It doesn't matter now." Tara continues, "When Donna was killed, those things you said to me in the hospital about my life being a series of hit-and-runs, that my face was the only one you saw --" "I shouldn't have said that shit," Jax interrupts. Tara protests, "It was the truth! I have created this ... very serious life for myself. And when I'm inside it, I barely know myself. I have these moments sometimes in the middle of a surgery, when suddenly I'm aware of, of ... my hands, doing these extraordinary things. And I think, 'Whose hands are these? What am I -- I doing here?' When I'm with you, I never ask that question." Jax doesn't want to be responsible for anyone else at this point, not in any way: "I'm not the answer. Look at me. Look at this!" Tara shoots back, "I am always looking at it! My brain never stops: 'Why am I here? Should I be here? Am I afraid to stay? Afraid to go? Afraid to be a mother?' Shit, it's endless. I drive myself crazy." And that is pretty much why she and Jax are a matched pair; both of them have the ability to observe their lives as they live them, and being unable to ignore the contradictions in their lives only exacerbates the ambivalence they feel.