By ANDY GILCHRIST
Staff Writer
Television fans cannot seem to agree what the best network for original programming is. Many say HBO, with Game of Thrones and Girls being cited as their best. Others say AMC, due to the unprecedented success of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. But the network that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is FX. Every awards season, the channel is almost entirely left out, forgotten among more highly rated hits.
But many of FX’s shows are just as good as the more popular series, some even more so. One of those series is Sons of Anarchy, easily the darkest show on television. While its grim subject matter and bloody execution might be a turn off for some viewers, the writing, acting, and pacing of the show make it one of the most entertaining on television.
Set in the fictional town of Charming, California, the show follows the day-to-day adventures of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, a.k.a. SAMCRO. The club is currently led by the show’s main character, Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), a man torn between the dangerous and illegal operations the club thrives on, and the desire the go legit, to give up running guns and drugs, instilled in him by letters left by his late father, John. Jax is still the violence-prone biker he was when the show started, but leadership, fatherhood, and married life have transformed him into an introspective man who looks out for his family just as much as the club he heads.
Jax’s wife Tara (Maggie Siff) and mother Gemma (Katey Sagal) fight for his affection and attention, sometimes physically and always threateningly. While Tara desperately wants Jax to leave Charming and the club behind and move with her and their boys to somewhere safer, Gemma refuses to let go of her hold over him, her Lady Macbeth-like ways making her unable to let anyone she loves out of her control. Meanwhile, Jax’s father-in-law, Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman), has fallen further than anyone on the show. Having killed Jax’s father decades earlier, with Gemma’s help, to become club President, Clay has now been kicked out of the club and sits in prison for murder. In the new season premiere, Clay appears ready to rat on the club for his own safety.
But the show’s heart equally comes from the club’s other members. Clay’s best friend and former club VP Bobby Munson (Mark Boone Jr.) has recently lost faith in Jax and is hinting that he will leave the Charming charter. Tig Trager (Kim Coates) watched his daughter die in front of him and killed her murderer last year, experiences that still affect him. Chibs Telford (Tommy Flanagan), the severely scarred Scotsman, has recently been named Jax’s new VP upon Bobby’s resignation. Finally, Juice Ortiz (Theo Rossi) is trying to win back the club’s trust after being blackmailed by police into informing on them.
The series is often written off by critics and new viewers as simply being an ultra-violent motorcycle commercial, filled with blood, guns, and naked women. And they certainly have a point. While other shows, such as NBC’s Hannibal, may have more blood, volume-wise, Sons certainly isn’t for those with weak stomachs. Dozens of people have been killed, even more shot, on the show, which almost seems to take a perverse pleasure in torturing its main characters. Case-in-point: show creator and executive producer Kurt Sutter has a recurring role of Otto Delaney, a SAMCRO member stuck behind bars with no hope of getting out. Over the course of the show, Otto has had an eye gouged out, been told his wife was murdered, slit his wrists, and bit his own tongue out. In last week’s season premiere, he is shown being raped by a prison guard in solitary confinement, an act ordered by a U.S. Marshall whose sister Otto killed last year, which the Marshall promises will be done every day until Otto’s execution.
But the series is much more than just blood and violence; it is also an extremely well written and acted show. It has so many moving parts, each given ample screen time to develop and cross over with others, leaving very few dangling plotlines, which hurt several other shows. Storylines such as SAMCRO’s relationship to Charming and its people, federal authorities’ attempts to take down the club, the club’s battles with other biker gangs and criminal organizations, and the club’s criminal activities are weaved seamlessly through each character’s well-developed personal life and their relationships with each other.
It must be noted that the violence of the show is so extreme, so outlandish, that it barely seems to be real life at all. Yes, there are numerous fistfights and shootouts, but the violence on the show regularly goes way beyond that, almost entering the realm of the absurd. But this year, Sutter and his production team seem to be taking the show in a new direction. The season premiere ends with a child entering his school holding an assault weapon, with the sound of machine gun fire going off after he walks into the building. After years of extreme blood and gore, it is the most realistic and scary violence we can imagine that the show decided to use. Did the child use one of the guns the club helped smuggle? It may not matter, because this real world fear has penetrated Charming and everyone is coming for the Sons. By taking the show in a decidedly more real direction, the producers have opened up a whole new realm of possible storylines that could mean the best episodes of the show have yet to come.
Kurt Sutter has stated that he intends to end Sons of Anarchy after its seventh season, which means the actors and filmmakers have just two seasons to wrap up the whole story. We’re entering the final homestretch for one of television’s darkest and most memorable shows. Will the Sons ride off into the sunset or crash and burn on the side of the road?
