Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Review
Ron Perlman, Katey Sagal, Charlie Hunnam, Adam Arkin Star
Nov 6, 2009
Try to explain to someone the premise of Sons of Anarchy and expect to get alarming stares.
Here’s what it’s about. A motorcyle gang named Sons of Anarchy runs guns in Charming, a small town in inland California, while struggling to adapt to changing times. Nicknamed “Samcro” the club deals with Mexican gangs, the IRA (implausible as it sounds), Chinese triads and a gaggle of other crime lords. Oh and they dabble in the pornography business.
King versus Prince
There’s also the classic struggle between the old generation – the reigning monarch, Clay, played by Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and the prince Jax, the luminous Charlie Hunnam (Nicholas Nickleby, Children of Men), who wants change and he wants it now. To complicate matters the king is the prince’s stepfather and best friend of the son’s dead father. Got that? (Oh and the stepfather killed Jax’s best friend’s wife and naturally has hidden it from everyone except a furious Jax. No wonder the pair comes to fisticuffs often.)
Sons of Anarchy is vulgar and violent and very, very addictive. It’s often the week's top-rated scripted cable series in the key 18-49 demographic.
Adam Arkin as White Supremacist
This season introduced white supremacist Ethan Zoebelle played with an acidic and eery calm by Adam Arkin of Chicago Hope. He starts to erode Samcro’s business and pits the gangs against each other. He wants Charming all to himself.
As part of his plan, he assaults the mother hen, Clay's wife and Jax's mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal of Married With Children). She doesn’t tell anyone in the club that she was raped because she knows the retribution would destroy the club as well as the town as. She suffers in silence. (Incidentally Kurt Sutter, writer/producer of The Shield created Sons of Anarchy and is Sagal’s husband.)
In Charming the law enforcement is used to dealing with Samcro and not much else and so the Sheriff has an off-the-wall relationship with Gemma and Clay, turning a blind eye when he should be handcuffing the masses. To put it mildly, the bad guys are tangled up with the good guys in the most unexpected and unusual ways.
Charlie Hunnam, the New Brad Pitt?
And so to Hunnam, a rising star, hunky Brad pitt look-alike, who plays the brooding Jax, and so resembles a twenty-something Pitt that the writers worked in a reference to the Oceans 11 star earlier in the season. Jax is a poet, a lover not a fighter, although he does fight bloody well when it’s required because above all else he’s loyal to the club. His girlfriend is a doctor and he lopes into the ER in his low slung baggy jeans and black leather festooned with chains and emblazoned with vice president and only a few people turn their heads. That’s how used to Samcro they are in Charming.
90 Minutes of Anarchy
Next week’s episode is 90 minutes long, followed by three more episodes and the season finale. Where will Sons of Anarchy take viewers next? It’s already been to the prison yard, seen eyes poked out, vans exploded, crack trailers blown up, been on porn sets, witnessed tender moments at a Baptist church revival, cuddled with babies, witnessed multiple shoot outs, and been a fly on the wall while an IRA chief messed around with the daughter of a white supremacist leader and on and on it goes.
What’s left to tell? Keep your motor running and stay tuned.
Sons of Anarchy airs on FX on Tuesday nights
 |
