With “The Shield” entering its final season and “Nip/Tuck” heading to a conclusion in 2010, it’s high time that FX found itself a new signature drama or two…and given that “Dirt” has been cancelled, “The Riches” hasn’t gotten a third-season pick-up, and “Damages” is more popular among TV critics than actual viewers, they really to step up their game and hunt up a new series that can be embraced by a larger audience.
Enter “Sons of Anarchy,” a show which is somewhat Shakespearean in spirit but ultimately comes off more like “The Sopranos” if members of the Mafia were replaced with motorcycle-straddling toughs. Not that that’s a bad thing…especially not when Drea de Matteo’s in the cast of this show, too.
I was able to check out the first episode of the series when I was out in L.A. at the TCA Press Tour, but it was late and I was exhausted, so although I walked away from it feeling that it was too dark for its own good, I also felt like I wasn’t giving it my all as a critic, so I vowed to watch it again when it made its formal debut on FX. Now that I’ve done so, I admit that I found myself enjoying it a little more this time around…but it’s still pretty damned dark.
Not that the darkness is all that surprising. After all, “Sons of Anarchy” is the creation of Kurt Sutter, who’s done just about everything there is to do on “The Shield,” having produced, directed, written, and story-edited on that series, not to mention the fact that he played the role of Margos Dezerian. So, basically, the guy knows dark.
Setting aside the darkness, however, the bigger concern is whether or not the saga of a biker gang can be made into a series that the average viewer can latch onto.
It could happen. It is, after all, a family saga…and the heart of the show is Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), who’s a very likable guy even when he’s wearing leather. When we first meet him, a convenience store clerk is flirting with him as he buys a book for his soon-to-be-born son, but it comes across less like Jax is trying to make a move and more that he’s proud of his impending fatherhood. The encounter amounts to nothing, however, as they’re quickly interrupted by an explosion at a nearby warehouse where the Sons are storing illegal weapons that they’re selling.
The Sons are a scraggly bunch, and they don’t exactly work within the law, but they have their own moral code. They might sell guns to gangs, but they don’t want anyone dealing meth in their town. Jax has some issues with the actions of the Sons at times, often looking at the actions of the group’s president and co-founder, Clay (Ron Perlman), with uncertainty, but since Jax’s father was the other co-founder, he tries to give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s pretty clear, however, that Jax’s doubts are growing…especially when he happens upon a manuscript, written by his father, entitled, “The Life and Death of Sam Crow. How the Sons of Anarchy Lost Their Way.” D’oh!
Now, if we want to make the Shakespearean aspects really come shining through, then we should probably mention that Jax’s mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal), is now married to Clay. Voila: we’ve got a Hamlet / Claudius / Gertrude thing working. There’s also an Ophelia to this saga as well, but she comes in the form of Wendy (Drea de Matteo), who’s Jax’s junkie ex-wife and the woman who’s carrying his child, which is always a nice combination…and as if to prove she’s just as crazy as the character who inspired her, she proceeds to shoot up, even though she’s seven months pregnant. She promptly O.D.’s, gets hospitalized, and has to have the baby 10 weeks early, and with the combination of being born premature, a tear in his abdomen as a result of the drug use, and dealing with existing family medical issues (a congenital heart defect), it’s touch and go for the kid…so much so that Jax can’t even bring himself to see him at first. As if that doesn’t make for considerable tension around the hospital, the doctor handling Wendy’s situation – Tara – already has a history with Jax and the Sons, and although much of that history remains unexplained at present, it’s made quite clear that Gemma can barely stand to be around her. Meanwhile, the gang is dealing with the fallout from that aforementioned warehouse explosion and the politics surrounding it.
There’s a fair amount of action toward the end of the episode, as the Sons extract their revenge, but the most interesting parts about “Sons of Anarchy” are the interactions within and the mysteries surrounding the various familial relationships in the series. The domestic situations – particularly the ones surrounding Jax and his son – are easy to get emotionally invested in, and by the end of this first hour, I was curious enough about the direction of the various storylines to vow to stick around for a few episodes and see how it develops. If Sutter can get us so caught up in the personal relationships that they’re inextricably intertwined with the gun-running goings-on of the gang, then “Sons of Anarchy” might well be around for the long haul.
