Sons of Anarchy wraps one of TV's best "overlooked" dramas at 10 tonight
Is it a sign of the times that one of TV's best dramas is an emotional, sympathetic take on a weapons-dealing, murderous motorcycle gang?
Regardless of the reason, FX's
Sons of Anarchy has emerged as one of TV's most engaging dramas, regularly earning ratings that cut into the audience of bigger broadcast networks, but somehow unappreciated when talk turns to the tube's top shows.
I've got to think it's the subject matter. Like the tales on creator
Kurt Sutter's previous gig -- FX's in-your-face cop drama
The Shield -- SOA shocks the audience with a litany of explicit scenes designed to make you feel for the kind of characters TV usually ignores or lampoons.
We've seen club matriarch Gemma Morrow
raped by the club's rivals and forced to hide it for most of the season (Emmy nomination for star
Katey Sagal perhaps?); ruthless club leader Clay Morrow (
Ron Perlman) is struggling to cope with a hit that went bad and took out a club member's wife; young upstart leader Jackson "Jax" Teller (
Charlie Hunnam, unrecognizable as a Brit with spot-on Yank accent) knows what Clay did but must hide it from the club.
And, in another sign of the times, they're all facing a gang of murderous white supremacists led by
Adam Arkin and
Henry Rollins -- playing the only characters these days who could be considered less sympathetic than a band of gun-running, porn producing, borderline racist bikers.
It's certainly Macbeth on motorcycles, tapping our love for outlaws to make heroes of the kind of guys most of us could never hang with in real life.
I've turned into a bona-fide fanboy over this amazing season, writing about Sagal's amazing work before a lot of folks did and touting Sutter's
profane, refreshingly candid blog as a way to see what Hollywood writers really think about the industry.
Today's made-ok-for-work sample, featuring Sutter sounding off on dinks who try to sue him saying he cribbed their ideas for SOA: "Here's a little fact y'all should be aware of -- any semi-literate, s--- throwing monkey can have a f---ing idea, it's the EXECUTION of the thought that matters." Love. It.
As the season comes to a close at 10 tonight, Sutter revealed
during a fan chat that FX is expected to okay a third season (small wonder, since the show has been beating NBC's
Jay Leno Show in some viewer categories). The Sons have managed to drive a wedge between Arkin and Rollins' characters, uniting to take back control of Charming, Calif.; but fans are expecting payback for the villains who assaulted Gemma, and i have a feeling Sutter going to give it to us.
Can't wait until 10 o'clock rolls around tonight.