It’s rare that I get as involved with a television series as I have with Sons of Anarchy. I’ve been watching it on Hulu since the Pilot, and really, really enjoy it. There are 13 episodes in the first season, and FX ordered a second 13 episode season on October 6th. The season finale aired last night (November 26th 2008) but will not be available on Hulu until next week.
Sons of Anarchy is an FX television series starring Charlie Hunnam, Ron Perlman, and Katey Sagal about the lives of a close-knit motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in the San Joaquin Valley in Northern California.
The Sons of Anarchy is an outlaw motorcycle club with many charters in the United States. The Charming local is the original founding charter of the Sons of Anarchy, all other charters came after the one founded by John Teller and Piermont “Piney Joe” Winston.
The Charming charter is based out of a clubhouse adjacent to the Teller-Morrow auto mechanic shop. Led by Clay Morrow, the club protects and controls Charming through close community relationships, bribery and violent intimidation. The full name of the motorcycle club is Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original; on occasion, the show will abbreviate it as SOA, though more frequently the club is referred to as SAMCRO (a rough acronym of The Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original ) or Sam Crow. This nickname is also reflected in the original title of the show, Forever Sam Crow. The club’s leathers also refer to “Men of Mayhem,” Jax has worn a hat that says “Reaper Crew,” and their logo is a grim reaper wielding an M-16 scythe and holding a crystal ball. Another symbol of the club is the crow. (At least two female characters affiliated with the club have crow tattoos.) As for the motorcycles, the Sons mostly ride customized Harley-Davidson Dyna Glides, Night Trains and Road Kings.
Club members have “day jobs” in local industries, but they primarily make money by doing protection runs for local businesses (protecting valuable shipments from hijacking), and by importing illegal weapons and selling them to drug gangs in the East Bay.
SAMCRO keeps meth traffickers out of Charming, which puts them at odds with the meth-distributing white supremacist “Nords” gang, headed by Ernest Darby. Unlike their rivals, the Sons are relatively diverse and inclusionist, disdaining the Nords’ social perspective. The SOA also have to deal with a rival Oakland-based MC, the “Mayans” led by Marcus Alvarez, who control the neighboring territory of Nevada. Other groups in SAMCRO’s orbit include the San Francisco-based Chinese-American mafia and the Real IRA of Ireland, which supplies them with illegal Russian-made guns, and various affiliates in the state prison system, where many members of the club have been incarcerated at one time or another.
The club operates out of an elaborate clubhouse attached to the Teller-Morrow auto shop. The clubhouse includes a living area where Jax is currently camped out (since leaving his house to ex-wife Wendy following their divorce), a bar, a pool table and an elaborate conference table made of redwood that has a reaper logo carved into the top. The club also owns a secluded cabin in the woods and formerly had a warehouse outside of town where they assembled the illegal weapons. They are currently looking for a new warehouse space.
John Teller and Piermont “Piney” Winston co-founded SAMCRO in 1967 following their return from service as paratroopers during the Vietnam War. Six of the “Redwood Original 9″ members were vets; Clay Morrow was the youngest of the original members. Following John’s death nearly 30 years later, his widow Gemma married Clay.
John and Gemma’s surviving son Jax (another son Tommy died in childhood of the “family flaw”, a congenital heart defect) is second in the club’s line of succession after co-founder and sitting president Clay. Jax is recently divorced from Wendy, the mother of his son Abel, who is born 10 weeks premature as a result of his mother’s meth addiction. Jax is also connected to Tara, a doctor at St. Thomas hospital. The two were high school sweethearts.
The family drama is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet; indeed, star Ron Perlman has said, “I’m sure they’re going to stick to the structure of Hamlet all the way to the end” of the series. Clay is based on the role of King Claudius and Gemma as a Gertrude figure. Jax stands in for Prince Hamlet himself; his reflective questioning of the SOA culture, brought on by the birth of his son, references Hamlet’s melancholy over the death of the king. Additionally, Jax “communicates” with his dead father by way of his late father’s unpublished journal/manuscript; Hamlet, of course, literally communicated with the ghost of his father. Lastly, narratively the Sons are typical antiheroes.
To date the series has followed a cohesive plot that has been played out wonderfully. I would highly recommend watching the first two to three episodes on Hulu to see if the show is something you might be interested in.
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