I don’t really like people all that much

Martin,

So Sons of Anarchy: sitcom or soap opera?

Hold on, I’d better explain why I’m asking that question. I’ll be upfront: I think this finale demonstrated some of the glaring weaknesses at the heart of SOA. And so now I’m having to recalibrate my expectations of just what Sons is capable of. Because it’s capable of a lot – it can, as I’ve said before in recent weeks, demonstrate an exhilarating capacity to raise tremendous dramatic stakes, it can put together fantastic action sequences, and it can traffic in tremendous pathos (mostly on the strength of its cast rather than its writing, I’m finally realizing). But here’s the problem with Sons: it is, apparently, utterly incapable of messing with its formula.

Tell me you love me…

Travis,

Wow…what a crazy two weeks in SoA land.

I have mixed feelings about these episodes. Obviously, they’re sort of awesome…but in a sense, they’re also incomplete emotionally. So much has happened and so much has been revealed to and amidst our various characters, but so little of (aside from Clay being shot) it is new to us as the viewer. This, of course, isn’t really a problem–at least not in any traditional sense, but it does suggest an interesting sort of relationship between us as viewers and our material.

The hand of one of these sons…

Sons of Anarchy: “Call of Duty”

Martin,

So last week I enthused about how Sons of Anarchy follows this binge-purge pattern of laboriously introducing storylines, only to only bring them crashing together in narrative fireworks, only to…begin laboriously setting storylines up all over again. It can be a frustrating show, and sometimes, a show that seems addicted to filler. This was my general reaction to this episode: as happy as I am to see Andrea from the Sopranos back on the show, and as powerful as many of the scenes were (more on that in a second), we still return to a pattern of establishing moves whose payoff is unclear.

He will die…by the hand of the son.

“I’ll give you until after the Jetsons to decide…”

— Lincoln

Travis,

Wow…what a stunning episode. Although the plot still seems *so* zany, I thought this episode was really well executed, with some amazing acting from almost everyone. I was especially impressed by the subtle parallelisms that the were thrown in. Jax talks to a cop about retiring it all because he has a “bad back,” which serves as a sort of foreshadowing for Tara’s situation.

Relationships are overrated

Sons of Anarchy – episodes 8 & 9, “Family Recipe” & “Kiss”

Martin,

So I’m watching Deadwood right now, and was struck by how this extraordinary show (Deadwood, not Sons, which is a good and sometimes great show) began its second season with a bold declaration of how the heart of narrative, both historical and fictional, is a “lie agreed upon.” It’s a quote often attributed to Napoleon, whether apocryphally or not, something which gives it a nice irony: history is written by the winners, necessarily, but always at the cost of certain repressed memories that press upon the coherence of our narratives and undermine their pretense to normalization.

Strange Fruit

“That was tactical, this is criminal.”

— Eli Roosevelt

Episode 6: With an X
Episode 7: Fruit for the Crows

Hey Travis,

What an in-your-face couplet of episodes. We see the plot “thickening,” so to speak. I was particularly impressed by the sorts of moral ambiguity that was brought out of Roosevelt’s character. You could really see that he struggled with being used by Linc. I think it will be interesting to see how the Roosevelt-Linc relationship pans out when/if Juice commits suicide. (The sounds at the end of the last episode made it seem as if his suicide attempt was unsuccessful).

Time and money fixes everything…

“She taught me I was more than just a big cock.”

— Dondo

Travis,

I had to start with that…the 3rd best cameo (apart from Henry Rollins and Stephen King) in SoA history….David Hasselhoff. Classic. Classically terrible and oh so appropriate.

OK, now onto real matters. WOW. I love how this episode just revealed all of this stuff that we have curiously been waiting to find out about and did it as if it was no big deal (at least the revelation *itself* was no big deal). “Oh yeah, Clay killed JT.” “And Unser covered it up.”

Los tiempos von combiando

Sons of Anarchy – “Una Venta”

Martin,

There’s several great things going on in this week’s Sons of Anarchy, a few weak links, but the most important thing that characterized this episode was the character of Lincoln Potter beginning to work his tentacles into SAMCRO. So I want to start off this post talking about him first. The Sons have seen their share of feds and investigators before, of course, most notably the loathed Agent Stahl (and also the brilliantly creepy ATF agent Kohn, memorably played by The Shield’s Jay Karnes back in season 1); but Lincoln Potter feels like something new. I don’t think this is just displaced affection from his Deadwood character, but something about this character is geniunely fascinating. It could be the little quirks McKinnon gives the character; that little wave of the leg standing on the table is exactly the kind of thing we all do when we’re alone, but actors so rarely invest in their character’s unguarded moments. But it’s also the way he effortlessly is working his way into the club, insinuating nuanced instabilities and doubts and allowing the ramifications to play out on their own, even as he’s working a massively detailed investigation; indeed, his near omniscience about the club is a bit too perfect at times, even if it’s nice for the show to throw us an expository bone once in a while, as its complex plot developments tend to happen very quickly.  Still, this is the first time the show has given us a law enforcement antagonist who fully emerges as a sympathetic character; indeed, Potter has been so strong that it’s hard not to swing over to his side, for SAMCRO’s slide into decadence is happening very, very quickly.

Bad for the family

Sons of Anarchy – “Dorylus”

Martin,

After the off season of this show (plus a few missed episodes), we finally return to the adventures of SAMCRO in Charming, CA. I know I’m far from the only one who has reservations about the last season, where the show  frequently found itself spinning its wheels in Belfast, unable to form a compelling narrative out of the mess of characters, motivations, and sometimes murky backstory that all fed into Abel’s abduction. Sons of Anarchy has always been a show that’s at home in its context – like Justified, its strengths draw from the way the Sons reflect the community from which they spring, and the show’s heart lies in showing just how complex and twisted the relationships with that community is. Simultaneously self-appointed protectors and outlaw pariahs, Sons at its best is a modern-day parable about the violent heart of societies, the ways communities find to justify that violence, and the thin line that separates those who are in and those are out of such communities.

This is what she felt

Sons of Anarchy – “NS”

Great finale to a mixed season. Credit has to be given to Sutter and the writers for producing extraordinary drama out of (apparently) low stakes; once Abel was recovered, what seemed to be a long denouement has turned out to be the show returning to its real story, which is the club’s ATF case and pending imprisonment, the question of how Jax’s loyalty to the club would manifest, and the resolution of Donna’s death from season 1. Does that make the Abel story a misfire? In some respects, maybe; it’s questionable whether stones really did get unturned in Ireland, and in retrospect the two storylines don’t fully cohere. On the other hand, the confidence with which “NS” picked up very old plot arcs and handled them capably suggests that the real outcome of the Belfast episodes may still be in the future. I have to admit that my trust in Sutter as a storyteller has been restored a good deal after last night, but that possibility, while encouraging, also bugs me a bit – to what extent do season-spanning narrative arcs trump coherent storytelling on the week-to-week level? (Again, the LOST effect).