The Grammatically Negligent – and hilariously grumpy – Review

Sons of Anarchy, if you’ve been paying attention, is not a show that I would be likely to review positively or enjoy. I don’t tend to like morally dark programs because I find them to be just as uninteresting as say 7^th Heaven was morally unambiguous in the other direction. And excessive violence tends to not sit well with me. Yet here I am telling you that this show is both good and enjoyable. (More after the break)

For those of you who don’t know, “Sons of Anarchy” deals with an outlaw motorcycle club with many chapters in the US and abroad; the show itself focuses on the original chapter who’s full name is Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, or SAMCRO (pronounced Sam Crow). It all takes place in a fictional California town that SoA essentially runs by paying off the cops, and keeping rival gangs and certain drugs off its streets. They do, however, run guns, and run protection for local truckers. The main character is Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), the VP of SAMCRO and the step son of it’s current president Clay Morrow (Ron freaking Perlman) who may have just been responsible for the death of his father. Oh and his mother, Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Segal in a bit of inspired casting) figures into this heavily as well. If this plot line sounds somewhat familiar, it should. It’s freaking Hamlet. With motorcycles. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Season 3 begins right where season 2 ended – Cameron Hayes (Jamie McShane), ex-IRA has kidnapped Jax’s son in retaliation for Gemma’s supposed murdering of his own son (she was framed by an FBI agent named June Stahl, played by Ally Walker). If that sounds complicated it is. The first episode continues to follow the plotline as SAMCRO tries to find Jax’s son, Jax slowly falls apart isolating himself equally from his girlfriend (and mother of his child) Tara (Maggie Siff) and from his brothers in arms. This is all going on while Gemma is on the lam in Oregon trying to escape the false murder charges – she also remains unaware of her grandson’s abduction.

The show works because it doesn’t let itself be purely defined by its shock value. Indeed there are very few scenes of actual violence per episode – not to say that this show isn’t violent. In three seasons there has been a gang rape, multiple homicides – some of them brutal – and other things. The show is actually best defined as a soap opera punctuated by scenes of graphic violence. This attention to emotional complexity and depth let us understand and even relate to the violence in a way that we wouldn’t otherwise. When Jax, at the end of the first episode, brutally beats one of the perpetrators of a drive by shooting that wounded multiple people including a child, it doesn’t pull any of the punches that you might find in another series. It’s more than just the bloody beating – it’s the sickening sound effects of the beating as well. Its shocking and it should be, but by knowing his motivations the beating becomes evidence of his love for his family, Tara and his brothers than just a crazy man overcome by grief. We can tell that because of the character’s, and the camera’s focus on his wife and the young boy who was wounded.

Like the “Sopranos” (and I don’t mean to say that the show is of this quality) the show makes monstrous acts by monstrous people recognizable because it couches them in completely recognizable terms. It’s somewhat eerie that the complex relationships come off as more understandable than some of the programs that devote themselves to it (Claire and Phil Dunphy from “Modern Family” I’m looking at you!). The tension and even growing trust between step father and son – even though Clay is an undeniably malevolent figure – or even Clay’s relationship with Gemma. The show lets these people do monstrous things and then acknowledges that they are capable of love and devotion. It’s that attention to detail that makes the show so morally interesting. We relate to these people in a way that makes us ask if we would do any differently given the same set of circumstances.

Also, Ron Perlman is freaking awesome.