Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie, Johnny Lewis
Creator: Kurt Sutter
Creator: Kurt Sutter
Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: B
Rating: B
I have to say I was almost instantly hooked on this show. I was a bit overwhelmed by the many differentdirections that the plot took throughout the course of the season – there are alot of characters and a lot of stuff happens – but I was always able tofollow. The show could have been simplified, but I think then it would have been something less. One early criticism of the show says that the early episodes lacked direction, and I can totally see this. The early episodes are in need of direction,but they figure things out pretty quickly.
The first season of Sons ofAnarchy takes us to Charming, California which is essentially ruled by the motorcycle club Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original, or SAMCRO,and its members and affiliates – notably club president Clay Morrow (Perlman), vice-president Jackson “Jax” Teller (Hunnam), Opie Winston (Hurst), Clay’s wife and Jax’s mother Gemma Teller Morrow (Sagal), Jax’s high school sweetheart Tara Knowles (Siff), and Charming Police Chief Wayne Unser (Callie). The series begins with the torching of SAMCRO’s gun assembling warehouse by a rival club, the Mayans, and the premature birth of Jax’s son, Abel, by his estranged, meth-addicted wife, Wendy (Drea de Matteo). With the warehouse gone Clay must find a way to restore the club’s activities – made harder by the fact that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is in Charming with the purpose of investigating and eradicating SAMCRO. Jax, meanwhile, is forced to juggle the club life and a new family life, made somewhat more difficult by the re-emergence of his high school girlfriend and the love of his life, Tara, a doctor working at the local hospital. Tara has returned to Charming because she was being stalked by ATF agent and ex-boyfriend, Josh Kohn (Jay Karnes), while living in Chicago. Opie, meanwhile, is struggling with living a straight life. His father, Piney (Lucking), is a co-founder of the club, and it’s really the only life Opie knows, but his wife Donna (Sprague Grayden) wants a better future for her family. Rounding out the plot is Jax’s discovery of a book written by his father and club co-founder, John Teller (voiced by Nicholas Guest), shortly before his death, lamenting the way that SAMCRO has strayed from its roots and causing Jax to question the leadership and future of the club. The whole thing has a nice little Shakespearian theme to it, while being about a motorcycle gang there is a Hamlet undertone to it that becomes more obvious as the series progresses.
While I do think Sons took a bit to take off it managed to capture me almost instantly. There's no dilly dawling or dicking around; it plunges you into things instantly and you just have to go with it. I had a moment of "what the hell is going on" at first, then let myself be emerged. The world is so immense in this show and there's so much detail to it. I spent half the season just wondering what all the different patches on the crews cuts represented, before googling it because I couldn't figure it out myself.
The aspect of the show that really saves it from being too complicated in this first season is the amazing abilities of the cast. There wasn't a single performance here that I didn't fully believe - although I also don't think I understood at least half of what Chibs (Flanagan) was saying. The performances in general are superb, with no one shining more than the rest and no one bringing the overall cast down. I have to give credit to Sutter and whoever else did the casting; it's really rare that you find a show that's so nicely balanced. Usually there's at least that one performance that isn't really as good as the rest or the performance that seems to be carrying the rest. My favourite performance would be Katey Sagal's Gemma Teller-Morrow, but that's mostly just because over the years she's really perfected the role of white trash bitch. I'm definitely looking forward to watching more of this show.
While I do think Sons took a bit to take off it managed to capture me almost instantly. There's no dilly dawling or dicking around; it plunges you into things instantly and you just have to go with it. I had a moment of "what the hell is going on" at first, then let myself be emerged. The world is so immense in this show and there's so much detail to it. I spent half the season just wondering what all the different patches on the crews cuts represented, before googling it because I couldn't figure it out myself.
The aspect of the show that really saves it from being too complicated in this first season is the amazing abilities of the cast. There wasn't a single performance here that I didn't fully believe - although I also don't think I understood at least half of what Chibs (Flanagan) was saying. The performances in general are superb, with no one shining more than the rest and no one bringing the overall cast down. I have to give credit to Sutter and whoever else did the casting; it's really rare that you find a show that's so nicely balanced. Usually there's at least that one performance that isn't really as good as the rest or the performance that seems to be carrying the rest. My favourite performance would be Katey Sagal's Gemma Teller-Morrow, but that's mostly just because over the years she's really perfected the role of white trash bitch. I'm definitely looking forward to watching more of this show.
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