Monday, March 2, 2015

SONS OF ANARCHY - THE FINAL SEASON: END OF AN ERA



And so it goes that eventually even some of the better shows on television must come to an end. What’s nice is when a series that many have come to love goes out on top rather than wait until half of the cast goes off to star in feature films or passes away. Rather than bring in characters that make no sense or put the main star into something that has nothing to do with what the series was originally about, there are some series that go out big. Such was the case with SONS OF ANARCHY which ended with season seven. Now that season has hit the shelves on DVD.

If for some reason you never watched the show then you’d be in for a big surprise. It was one of the best dramas to air on any network for a long time. If you missed it and want to go back and watch it now just be aware that it pulls no punches and definitely pushed it to the limit with its content, be that drug usage, extreme violence or raunchy sex scenes. But what would you expect in a show about a biker gang that deals weapons, shoots its competition and tries to get out of the gun business and into porn?

For those who did miss it the story revolved around a young biker named Jackson “Jax” Teller (Charlie Hunnam), a young man whose father was one of the original nine members to form the biker gang known as the Sons of Anarchy. The Sons have built a reputable business for themselves in a repair shop known as Samcro. In reality it serves as a front for their real bread and butter which is selling weapons via the IRA to street gangs and other criminals.

Jax is a new father when the show opens and his father is long gone, dead as we find out at the hands of his best friend and the wife he once loved. Jax’ father found that the Sons were moving in a direction that he thought would bring about their end. He wrote about what he intended to do in a manifesto that he left behind for Jax but before he could bring it about he was killed. As Jax slowly unravels what actually happened, which took the better part of the series, he was faced with what to do about the information that he had. He also found himself divorced when his wife became a hard core addict.

As the story of Jax unfolded before us we became acquainted with his mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal) the den mother for the group and Clay (Ron Perlman) her new husband, the leader of the Sons and the man responsible for Jax’ father’s death. We also meet the other members of the Sons and as they developed over each season we actually came to feel a certain fondness for each one, setting aside the fact that these were killers and outlaws. Maybe it was that certain bad boy in each of us that made us like them or the fact that the actors involved made us see them as more than cardboard cutouts but in the end if something happened to one of them it felt like a family member had that situation tossed at them. When one of them would die or get hurt it bothered us as viewers.

The story progressed over seven season with problems for the club changing with each one. Jax married again, had a second child and had his second wife murdered by someone he didn’t expect which led to a gang war. One season his son was kidnapped and he learned more about his father’s past while the club went to Ireland to retrieve the child. And each season the law enforcement agencies from the local police to the FBI lost in their battles to put an end to the Sons. Through it all Jax was bound and determined to take the club out of illegal operations and put them into something more legitimate. Those new businesses might have been escort services and porn but they were less illegal than the gun running.

In this final season all stops were pulled. With the loss of Jax’ wife in the previous season he became unhinged, set on a path of vengeance and moving the club forward to the goal he had set from the start but in a much more rabid progression. Gone were the days of slowly moving things along and now Jax was determined that he would make a life for this group, this family of his, that would keep them all safe. And the best way he could come up with to see that happen was to unite various groups with the Sons and destroy anyone who could be detrimental in seeing their peaceful existence happen.

One of the most upsetting things to happen in this season was the body count. Without revealing who, what or when I can say that if I had been a cast member in this season I would have worried that I had a job from week to week. Characters that we loved as well as those we hated were being killed week after week. In the end it advanced the story in as normal a way as could be expected from the situations at hand but still would shock you from week to week.

That’s about as far as I can go with information about this season without giving away details that those who wait for each season to be released on DVD to watch. Trust me, giving away a plot detail to those people is not a pleasant sight to see. Suffice to say that while this season felt different from the rest, it did bring together all lose ends and close out the series with a fitting finale.

Extras include a behind the scenes look at the final season, a short gag reel, a piece about the tattoos of the characters, a look at the final season guest stars and a piece on the motorcycles of the show. While each of these is nice I would have loved something more in depth, perhaps a retrospective of the show, to be included with this the final season. But that wasn’t my decision to make. Maybe that will be included in the special edition box set which has already been released.

In the end this will mean that Tuesday nights are now free to watch something else after seven seasons of SONS. Occasionally I know I’ll be going back to watch past seasons and pick up on things I missed the first time around. And for those who missed it that first time you have the chance to find out what everyone was talking about when it was on the air. It’s rough and raw for a TV series but the story is Shakespearean in its depth. And that’s why it was as good as it was and had the fans that it did.

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