Them's Fightin' Words

“So what did you get up to last night dude?” Barbarian asked me around Saturday lunchtime.

“Not much man,” I replied, “just got drunk with J-Rab and watched Sons Of Anarchy.”

“What the hell is Sons Of Anarchy?”

“It’s a badass biker series we’ve gotten into recently, there are four seasons so far, the fourth one just started, I should give it to you, you’ll dig it.”

“I dunno man, bikers are a bit lame…”

“Huh. Yeah. I guess they are a bit lame…” I replied, because let’s face it, Barbarian had a point.

The idea of a gang of dirty men who wear matching leather jackets and ride around together getting into trouble with the law is a little cheesy, but Sons Of Anarchy throws some awesome curveballs and basing it all on a biker gang is actually a really solid foundation for a series.

The protagonist of the series, Jackson Teller (played by Charlie Hunnam, don’t worry, you probably won’t know him) is the Vice President of the motorcycle club Sons OF Anarchy that pretty much runs the fictitious town of “Charming”.

Local police have a long standing understanding with the club that the club keeps drugs and prostitution out of the town and the police turn a blind eye to the club’s gun running activities.

Of course, things start to slowly unravel when the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) sends a team of special agents to Charming to investigate the Sons, and what started out as a bit of a haphazard, disconnected plot starts to come together quickly in the final episodes of the first season for a season finale that punches you right in the gut.

The beauty of the series lies in the tension between Clay Morrow, the club’s stoic, often brutal President (played expertly by Ron Perlman) and Jackson Teller who, while he’s no stranger to kicking the shit out of anyone who fucks with him or the club, also has issues with the morally questionable decisions Morrow makes for the club.

Another huge drawcard for the series is Jackson’s mom, Gemma Teller Morrow (played by Katey Sagal. Remember her? She got famous playing Al Bundy’s wife Peggy in Married With Children) who single-handedly holds the entire club together by being a total badass.

She inadvertently provides a lot of hilarious moments in the series because she’s so goddamned hardcore she makes even some of the men in the series look like scared little girl scouts. She shoots straight and seldom misses, making her an easy character to like, once you get past her apparent bitchiness.

Sure, it has its short comings. The most obvious of which is the way the club constantly gets sent on little quests to get what they want and though the quests are largely successful, the Sons generally end up fucking up something else in the process, thus leaving them in a worse position they were in to start with.

It’s a pretty standard plot device, but Sons is guilty of doing it in almost every episode with the end result that the club slips further and further into the kak until what started as a pretty tame series escalates into tragedy by the end of the first season and then starts dialing that up even more in Season Two.

If you can get your hands on it, definitely watch it, I’m interested to hear if it grips you the same way it’s gripping J-rab and me. Oh and a word to the wise, when you first start watching the series, you’ll hear Sam Crow mentioned at least five times an episode, but you won’t have any idea who the fuck he is or what the fuck is going on.

It’s not Sam Crow, it’s SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original). It’s the acronym everyone in the series uses for the club. That tiny little piece of information will make watching the series a SHITLOAD less confusing.

Big up to GPJtheODG for recommending Sons though. If anyone else out there is into a sick series at the moment, let me know, I actually prefer watching series to movies, I become way more invested in the characters and they are a lot more original than the shit that Hollywood is churning out these days.

-ST