Sons of Anarchy

By Stacey Harrison A few recaps ago, I lamented that Sons of Anarchy seemed to be resorting too often to that tired cliché of action movies, wherein a character gets shot or maimed but never killed. This allows the story to mine some cheap dramatic tension without really delivering on any sense of danger. So when Chibs narrowly escaped a van explosion, only to slowly recover in the hospital, I wondered why they didn’t just off him. Really, Chibs hasn’t been much of a factor to this point, so couldn’t we have done away with him and raised the stakes […]

By Stacey Harrison As Gemma Teller, the tough-as-nails matriarch of a California biker gang, Katey Sagal makes you all but forget the years she spent on the couch, eating Bon Bons and emasculating Al Bundy on Married With Children. Now in her second season on FX’s Sons of Anarchy, Sagal is in the midst of a gut-wrenching emotional arc. In the season’s first episode, she was abducted and gang-raped by members of the white separatist group looking to run SAMCRO out of town. But instead of telling anyone, and letting the attack have its desired effect of pushing the club […]

By Stacey Harrison The Sons are still reeling from the vicious murder of Luann, and — not surprisingly — failing to turn their energies into positive action. Instead, Clay seizes the opportunity to denounce the club’s involvement in the porn biz, saying their gunrunning business can get back on track with the Chinese. This maneuver has the added bonus of pissing off Jax. Never mind that the ultimate source of the guns is Hamas. Jeez. Jax has other problems, though, after delivering the bad news to Otto in prison. Otto’s basically blind, but still is mad enough about Jax provoking […]

By Stacey Harrison Not to be too bloodthirsty, but it’s about time somebody died for real on Sons of Anarchy. After all these catastrophic injuries to minor characters who easily could have been written out, one would hate to think Sons was going the way of Heroes, not letting anyone really die. I have no objection to not killing people, just please stop gravely injuring them frequently enough that we never feel they’re in any real danger. Now this episode’s death, which had been rumored to be of a character that had been present since the beginning of the show, […]

By Stacey Harrison Nearly every episode, you see those mug shots of the Sons on the wall, hinting at their incarcerated past. But it all seems long ago and far away, with Clay and the rest of the senior SAMCRO leadership doing their best to avoid the clink. Well, with this episode, we get to see how they do when thrown behind bars where black, white and all colors of the racial rainbow are out to get them. Clay immediately crosses racial lines, drawing on his relationship with the Niners to make friends with the black inmates, seeking protection from […]

By Stacey Harrison Welcome to an hour of everything SAMCRO has worked for crumbling all around it. And the further downward spiral of a once-promising young doctor, made all the more troubling because she simply doesn’t see it. The gang is licking its wounds after the car bomb, with Chibs laid up in the hospital in critical condition. Honestly, though, I never really doubted he was going to pull through. If they were going to kill him, why would they have him hang on at all? And no offense to the actor involved, but a dramatic death might have been […]

Whatever else happens in my life, I can now say I’ve seen a Fat Elvis impersonator sing “Hava Nagila” at a bar mitzvah. I have this episode of Sons of Anarchy to thank for that, and I’ll always be grateful. That glorious interlude serves to remind us that these bikers are in many ways just working stiffs trying to get by. Bobby, for instance, needs to catch up on child support, alimony, kids’ oral surgery. Clay feels for the guy, or perhaps is just wary of the idea of walking into the club and seeing Sad Elvis every day, so […]

By Stacey Harrison Despite her long resumé, you could be forgiven for chalking up Katey Sagal’s casting as the head biker chick in Sons of Anarchy as nepotism, given her marriage to series creator Kurt Sutter. But the lady has brought it every single episode and is truly given a chance to shine in this wrenching hour as she deals with the aftermath of her vicious attack at the hands of the white separatists. She lies alone and naked at the scene of the crime as a beautiful, mournful version of “Ruby Tuesday” plays (sung by none other than Sagal, […]