Review: Sons of Anarchy

For the past couple of months I have been watching Sons of Anarchy – I have just finished Season 6.  Eagerly awaiting Season 7 to come onto Netflix for free, but might be waiting a while.

Each season only has 13 episodes and during most of the time I was watching this series, I was not very well so was spending a lot of time on sofa resting and watching TV.

My sister suggested I watch Sons of Anarchy and has she had good taste in TV shows I decided to give it a god. She warned me it was a bit violent, and it’s true, it is violent, though I found that as seasons went on the violence got less and less, with more time being spent on characters and relationships between characters.

Sons of Anarchy is based in a small town in America called Charming and revolves around Jax Teller, the Vice President of SAMCRO – the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redmond Originals.  Jax is beginning to struggle being part of the club and the violence that goes along with it. 

A few episodes in to the first season, his ex-wife who is also a drug addict gives birth to their son, Abel. Due to his mum’s drug addiction Abel was born with his insides upside down. His life is touch and go for a moment but after a few surgeries Abel survives.

As well as dealing with the birth of his son, there is a relationship blossoming between Jax and his ex-girlfriend Tara, who left Charming when they were 19 but after five years has now come back.  After she left, Jax married Wendy, the mother of his son, but when Jax and Tara get back together Abel is brought up believing Tara is his mother.

The other main characters in Sons of Anarchy are: Gemma Teller –Morrow (Jax’s Mum and Wife of Clay), Clay Morrow (President of SAMCRO and married to Gemma), and Wayne Unser (the Chief of Police). Then there are the other club members Tig (Clay’s Sargent at Arms), Chibs, Opi, Bobby, Juice and Piney. Throughout the season’s new members come and some meet Mr Mayhem and are killed off.

Wayne Unser also loses his job of Police Chief and is replaced by Eli Roosevelt in Season 4.  His relationship with the MC is very different to Unser’s, who used to turn a blind eye to what they were doing.  But with the FBI snooping on the club, things heat up for the club and some of them end up in prison at different times.

It is quite a violent programme at times and too much sex as well, but it is interesting.  The characters are well played with some being very annoying and others drawing you to them.

For me the annoying characters are:

Tara – she just irritates me so much. She is moody and possessive of Jax and later on becomes very possessive of Abel and Jax and Tara’s other son Thomas.  In Season 6 she tries to divorce Jax and run away with the boys as she doesn’t want Gemma, their grandmother anywhere near them.  I think she keeps forgetting that only one of the boys actually belongs to her.

Opi – again he moans and complains all the time, he is never satisfied.  He is Jax’s best friend and meets a very messy end while in prison.

Clay – at the beginning I liked Clay and Gemma, but as the seasons have gone on they both get irritating and grow insignificant when Jax takes the role of President.  Clay loses his position due to his dirty tactics of trying to kill people and actually killing another member of the club. I am surprised he didn’t get killed after this but they kept him alive for their deal with the Irish relating to gun running.  He does end up meeting Mr Mayhem at the end of Season 6.

As mentioned the Sons do business with the Irish (mainly the IRA) and this is another annoying thing about the series – the really bad Irish accents.  The IRA have men stateside and listening to their accents is very excruciating.  The main man of the Irish operation in the states is Jimmy O’Phelan who is played by Titus Welliver.  His accent was so bad I wanted to yell at the television every time he was on, also you couldn’t make out what he was saying and his facial expressions needed looked into as well. Why can’t Americans do good Irish accents?

During Season Three the Sons go to Belfast, with even more bad Irish accents being heard.  There was also bad geography here too. They travel from Larne to Belfast on their motorbikes. They seem to have gone the scenic route, but it’s a weird route as one minute they are going towards the centre of Ballymena, but end up in Carnlough and straight after that they are in the Falls Road in Belfast.  In reality these two are about an hour away from each other in car!

In Season Four a new Irish character is introduced, Galen O’Shay whose accent annoyed me as well. However I found out that the actor who portrays this character is actually from County Kerry in Southern Ireland so his accent should sound real but it just sounds so fake.

I mentioned characters who annoyed me, but there are characters who I liked:

Chibs -  played by Tommy Flannagan (Scottish actor). He is very supportive of Jax and his club mates, must be the Celtic charm! His Scottish accent is lovely too. He just comes across as being warm and sincere. When Jax becomes President of the club he makes Chibs his Sergeant at Arms but then becomes Vice President when Bobby steps down.

Tigs - played by Kim Coates. Tig is a serial womaniser but is also so funny at times with his facial expressions and one line quips. As mentioned before he is Clay’s right hand man, but ends up seeing him for who he really is, a scumbag.   There was one scene in Season Five where I just wanted to cry for him –he is made to sit and watch his daughter Dawn be burnt to death by Damien Pope, a rival of the clubs, he wants to show Tig what is like to suffer after Tig ran down his daughter over a case of mistaken identity. It was awful to watch him suffer like that.

Nero – Gemma is no longer with Clay and she has hooked up with new guy Nero who is played by Jimmy Smits.  I love his character, he is so funny, charming, compassionate and he seems genuine a well. He is from Mexico and has got that Latin American Charm I love.

One thing I do like about Sons of Anarchy is the love and comradery by the Sons.  They are all there for each other, except when someone like Clay commits a crime so big they can’t forgive them and turn against them.

So now have finished Seasons 1-6 and only have Season 7 to watch, but it’s not on Netflix yet so may take a while before I can watch it.  I am wondering if by the end of Season 7 any of the Sons of Anarchy will still be alive, or most of them be dead – in 6 Seasons we have seen the death of 8 SAMCRO members as well as family members!