The Galindo Cartel in Sons of Anarchy arrived with a major twist, which ended up stopping Jax's plans for the club and brought more problems.
Jax and the rest of the Sons of Anarchy club came across a variety of enemies over the course of seven seasons, among them the Galindo Cartel, who arrived with a big surprise that ended up changing Jax’s plans for the club. Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy gave the audience a look into the world of motorcycle clubs by taking them to the fictional town of Charming, California, to follow the title club, led by Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam). From the beginning of the series, Jax had a specific mission for the club, but he encountered many obstacles and enemies over the years.
After finding the manifesto written by his late father, John “JT” Teller, at the beginning of Sons of Anarchy, Jax changed his views and plans for the club and started working towards fulfilling his father’s original vision for SAMCRO, but he had to confront his stepfather and President of the club, Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman). Clay usually made decisions for his own benefit instead of the club’s, and among his most controversial decisions was making a deal with the Galindo Cartel, which ended up being worse than initially thought as it completely changed Jax’s plans to save SAMCRO.
Sons of Anarchy: The Galindo Cartel Stopped Jax’s Plans Of Saving The Club
The Galindo Cartel was introduced in Sons of Anarchy season 4, where Romeo Parada (Danny Trejo), Lieutenant of the cartel, made a deal to regularly buy guns from SAMCRO, but Clay made a secret agreement with them to mule cocaine for them, which enraged Jax as that was what his father didn’t want for the club. The big twist in the Galindo Cartel’s role in Sons of Anarchy was that Romeo and his partner, Luis Torres, were undercover CIA operatives, and this not only stopped Lincoln Potter’s SAMCRO investigation but gave them something to use against the club: Potter’s RICO case.
When Jax tried to get the club out of the deal with the cartel, Parada revealed his undercover status to him and used the RICO case to stop Jax from ending their deal, also arguing that he needed SAMCRO in order to get to Galen O’Shay, the then leader of the True IRA. In Sons of Anarchy season 5, the RICO case was discredited thanks to Otto Delaney's murder of Pamela Toric, allowing Jax to drop out of the deal with the cartel. After Parada and his people crashed a meeting between SAMCRO and the True IRA that resulted in a shootout and the death of members of the cartel and the IRA, Parada officially ended his deal with SAMCRO, but it left bad blood between the Irish and the Sons.
Moving drugs for the cartel and the fracturing of the already fragile relationship with the Irish were massive obstacles in Jax’s efforts to take SAMCRO out of the guns business and establish them with legit businesses, and ultimately led to bigger tragedies, such as Otto murdering Pamela Toric, which in turn led to Tara’s downfall and Otto’s death. The deal with the cartel also stopped Jax from avenging his father and killing Clay, though he eventually did so but also had to kill O’Shay and his people, unleashing even more violence and problems for the club.
Did Jax Really Save SAMCRO At The End of Sons of Anarchy?
By the end of Sons of Anarchy, it seemed like Jax had succeeded in taking the club out of the guns business and redirecting them to other business ventures such as Diosa, with Jax then peacefully facing death as he sacrificed himself on the road, but the spinoff series Mayans MC confirmed that Jax’s plan might have not been so successful. SAMCRO was revealed to still be dealing weapons, with Happy Lowman explaining that the transition was taking longer than expected. Jax went through a lot to take the Sons of Anarchy club out of the guns business and other dangerous businesses, but in the end, the club might not be meant to be part of anything else than that.