Follow Up – Sons Of Anarchy

Sons Of Anarchy – FX – 10:00pm Tuesday – USA

Sons Of Anarchy is an FX drama about an outlaw motorcycle gang. Taking place in the Northern Californian town of Charming the show delves into the sordid lives of the club members as they go about their unlawful endeavours. Sons attempts to marry a sprawling family melodrama with the politics of bikie gangs to varying degrees of success.

President of the motorcycle club is Clay, played by Ron Perlman of Hellboy fame. Clay lurches around the place like a wounded giant, a once great outlaw resigned to his position in life and the sacrifices needed to pursue it. Clay’s vice-president and stepson is Jax, played by Charlie Hunnam. The first season saw Jax begin to question the less than moral decisions continuously being made by the club, which came to a head in the finale. The soon to arrive second season is bound to build on the friction between these two men.

The last time we saw Charlie Hunnam was as Lloyd, Steven’s British roommate in Undeclared. Sons is obviously a complete departure from comedy, but Hunnam carries with him the charm he brought to Undeclared. He also delivers an intense energy to his performance of Jax that bubbles just beneath the surface of everything he does.

The rest of the gang are rounded out by all manner of misfits and lowlifes. Of particular note is Kim Coates as Tig, a man so depraved that when his humanity eventually comes to the front at the end of the first season it’s almost heart breaking.

Unfortunately the business that goes down at the club is infinitely more interesting than the home lives of these outlaws. At the centre of the home front is Katey Sagal as Gemma, the wife of Clay and the mother of Jax. It’s quite unnerving at first to hear the voice of Leela from Futurama coming out this rough and tumble biker chick. Katey Sagal has to be commended for her performance though, Gemma is a horrible nasty character and it has to be said ‘mission accomplished’ to Sagal because she makes her all sorts of nasty and all different degrees of horrible.

One of the problems with Sons Of Anarchy is that because the guys are engaging in all sorts of criminal behaviour they tend to be at the very least slightly interesting and more often than not quite charismatic while all the women on the show are left a choice of being either depressed or a scrag. Most of the time the actresses just have to stand around looking solemn while speaking in hushed tones with the occasional outburst or slap to the face when the guys start to ‘care more about the club than their own family!’

Sons rollicks along while the show’s dealing with the club, gun running, murder cover ups, and bribery but grinds to a halt when it covers their wives, not seeing the kids enough, babies in incubators and fights about where the next pay check is coming from.

Creator Kurt Sutter has made a great dramatic exploration of a topic we haven’t seen much of before but unfortunately mixed it with a plodding family drama that’s been run around the block a few thousand times. With its second series just around the corner Sons Of Anarchy is going to have to try pretty hard to avoid the FX sophomore slump. FX brought the world the stellar first seasons of Rescue Me and Damages, but both those shows nosedived in quality during their second season. We can only hope that Sons can ride on where those others have fallen because the first season was a well written, often depressing but always fascinating drama series.