TVSquad

"Pull the trigger man. That's the only way this leather is coming off my back." - Jax to Alvarez, the head of the Mayans who orders him to give up his club jacket

Jax is supposed to be the hero of this little modern day Shakesperian epic, but he's starting to look more and more like the enemy in each episode.

I don't mean that he'll be the one in the end who has been scheming the whole time behind SAMCRO's back with the white power. This is a well-crafted, slow paced, high caliber drama, not a badly written Schwarzenegger movie with a thrown together twist ending (cough, Total Recall, cough).

Jax is more of an enemy of himself. He might have good intentions at heart, but his moves are nowhere near his brain. Maybe his loyalty to his family runs deeper than he ever imagined. Logic and family hardly make a decent cocktail. Anyone with a brother-in-law can tell you that.

(S0207) - "This club needs a healing brother, and you got to be the one to deliver it." - Bobby to Jax

The tension between Jax and Clay has never been thicker. You could make a birthday cake with it ... a big, tasty birthday cake of hate.

Tonight, it finally came to a head, and who knew that Agent Stahl would be the one to cut them down to slices? It looks like she finally got them ... or did she?

Kurt Sutter's episodes are always deeply complex and very clever, and last Tuesday's episode really put Jax and Clay in a corner. He should write every episode, if he were superhuman and incapable of suffering from total exhaustion.

(S02E04) - "If you come across something that don't make you miserable, enjoy it." - Chief Unser to Tara

Was I the only human being on the planet who was completely snowed by the BS claim that SAMCRO was headed out of town to do a charity blood drive for Charming? The thought of any shady dealings never crossed my mind for a second. I probably wouldn't even have any doubts if they devised a charity scheme that's more their speed like a "Ride Joust for Diabetes" or a "100-Yard Coke Line Snort for Macular Degeneration."

It's not a sign of my stupidity. Believe me, I've got much more convincing signs of that. For instance, I drive a Pontiac, a brand new Pontiac ... with a 30,000 mile warranty.

It's a sign that the characters are becoming more endearing and real and they play on your emotions more than if they were just flat images on a high definition television screen. They are flesh and blood and bone, and all the little synapses and thoughts that make them human beings are connecting. They have made the audience, or at least the audience that sits in my living room each week, part of their family.

The level that FX's Sons of Anarchy's second season has to reach to top their outrageous first might seem unfathomable. But the man helming this ship is writer, creator and executive producer Kurt Sutter - the man who helped steer The Shield through seven strange and unpredictable seasons of treacherous waters that were once deemed unchartable for the likes of basic cable.

It's tight control on what appears to be complete chaos. Sutter and company are a fleet of reckless Sledge Hammers who are willing to blow up whole buildings to get the job done. Trust him. He knows what he's doing.

FX's white hot biker drama kicks off Tuesday and it brings all of the blood, guts, bullets and glory that the first season did in buckets. And that's just in the first five episodes.

(S01E01) "Just pretend it's carve-your-own steak night at Sizzler." - Jax

FX is taking a fairly big gamble with Sons of Anarchy. With their trademark drama The Shield ending its seven season run this fall and their other two big hits (Damages and Rescue Me) pushed to 2009 because of the WGA Strike, the network is in dire need of some fresh buzz. The one thing they have going for them? Even FX's previous flops (Dirt, Starved, Over There, Thief) were better than a lot of other things on TV and Sons of Anarchy certainly fits that mold. Once the fall season is in full swing, the only network competition will be CSI: NY, as I don't see Lipstick Jungle or Dirty Sexy Money getting in the way. Sons has the potential to do well. It'll just rest on creator Kurt Sutter and how he plans to make the show appealing beyond this pilot episode.