SonsOfAnarchy-related stories
Posted Nov 7th 2009 3:52AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(S02E09) -
"I know the greater devil when I see it." - Deputy Chief Hale to Clay
The great thing about a show like
Sons of Anarchy is you never exactly know when you're watching its true boiling point. You might think the situation you're watching is the apex of the conflict, particularly the beef between Clay and Jax, but it always finds an interesting and surprising way of making it worse and makes you forget that it still has more episodes to go.
That's the true sign of a good series. It sucks you in and erases any and all concept of time. Unlike other TV shows that you can just have in the background to break the silence of your lonely place,
SOA demands your attention and gets it every time, at least for this season. You can't just leave it on and not not watch it (screw good grammar, if you can think of a better and more entertaining way to say it, be my guest). Anything that can stop and slow time, whether it's a TV show, a flying DeLorean or a hot tub deserves special merit in my book.
Continue reading Review: Sons of Anarchy - Fa Guan
Posted Oct 28th 2009 9:28AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
"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.
Continue reading Review: Sons of Anarchy - Potlatch
Posted Oct 21st 2009 1:55AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(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.
Continue reading Review: Sons of Anarchy - Gilead
Posted Oct 15th 2009 4:18AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(S02E06) "It's not your time yet, man. This is Clay's club. You either back down or get in line, before somebody gets hurt." - Opie to Jax
It was really hard to find a good quote for this week's episode. I watched the bastard four times before I found the one I did and I'm not entirely thrilled with it.
That's because this week's show was all action and little talk.
The tension between SAMCRO and the Aryans got turned up to 11 when they planted a car bomb in the shop that almost turned Chibs into a fried fish filet that would need a gallon of malt vinegar to be edible. This not only made for a perfect set-up against the club but also within it, driving an even deeper wedge between Clay, Jax and each of their alliances.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy: Falx Cerebri
Posted Oct 7th 2009 12:52AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(S0205) - "When relationships become a ledger of profit and loss, you have no friends, no loved ones, just pluses and minuses. You are absolutely alone." - John Teller
It's almost the mid-season for
Sons of Anarchy and that can only mean one thing: someone, nay anyone, can die. It's precisely the reason I asked
Katey Sagal in my last interview if she ever worried about her character being killed off. A show this violent and heavy always carries the air of collateral damage.
And episode five's "Smite" proved it when Chibs, played by Tommy Flanagan, almost got caught dead center of a car bomb planted in the club's garage by the local Aryans and may or may not have croaked in the ensuing explosion.
In the words of Jean Paul Sartre, "It's on, gopher."
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy: Smite
Posted Sep 29th 2009 11:02PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(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.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy: Eureka
Posted Sep 28th 2009 2:01PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Reality-Free, Mad Men, True Blood, Sons of Anarchy
Some shows are really creative with their use of music, and one that stands out for me is
Mad Men. In last night's episode (read Bob's review
here), the song that played over the end credits was "Sixteen Tons," and they couldn't have picked a better song. After signing that contract, Don Draper did indeed owe his soul not only "to the company store," but also to Betty and to a life he doesn't seem all that happy about leading.
Another show with great use of music is
Sons of Anarchy. In
his review of "Tears," Danny noted, "Letting Katey Sagal sing a solemn cover of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" was really a great move on whomever made that call." I couldn't agree more. The song just washed all of the sadness and weight of her rape over us in a big way.
Continue reading The Music of Mad Men, True Blood and Sons of Anarchy
Posted Sep 22nd 2009 11:55PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(S02E03) - "I'm talking about creating a temporary problem that allows you to flush out the permanent one." - Ethan Zobelle
The thing that surprised me most about this week's episode are the number of times it made me laugh. That's hard to do for a show that cracks more skulls per episode than a plastic surgeon.
It doesn't do so by sacrificing the things that make it great. It's still just as hard-edged, emotional and violent as before. You're just chuckling for all the right reasons, this time.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy: Fix
Posted Sep 18th 2009 10:00AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Interviews, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Here's an observation TV fans wouldn't expect: If you know your Shakespeare, you might have a good idea where
Sons of Anarchy is headed in its second season.
I paid a visit to the show's sweltering North Hollywood set last week as series creator Kurt Sutter (The Shield) and his cast were putting the finishing touches on the show's second season.
In fact, the show's writers were so close to revealing its final secrets to the cast that my PA and FX PR tour guides slammed a door in my face lest I wander into the writer's conference room and see the white dry erase board full of plot points for season two's final episode.
Evidently, if I'd have seen the final, bottom-right panel on that wall-wide white board, I'd have been chained to show star Tommy Flanagan's motorcycle and taken for a drag around St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank.
Continue reading Set visit: Sons of Anarchy revs up season two
Posted Sep 15th 2009 11:15PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
(S02E02) - "Unraveling the matriarch will destabilize them. They're all little boys who need a strong mommy." The thing I'm starting to love about this show is the way it switches gears on just about any incline. They are so swift and sudden that the law should go totally "nanny state" and require me to wear a helmet during each week's episode.
For example: in this week's chapter, we see the aftermath of Gemma's rape and the toll it takes on her as she tries to keep it from the club. Then the very next shot is of Tig, played by Kim Coates and some random fishnet whore slowly waking up with hangovers that could stun an elephant, together in a spent 69.
And I ain't talking about a broken down '69 Chevy.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy: Small Tears
Posted Sep 8th 2009 11:26PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Episode Recaps
(S02E01) - "I'm not going to swap one outlaw for another one." How do you turn a group of gruff biker outlaws who deal potent drugs to street trash and hardcore hardware to ruthless killers into a likable group of huggable stud muffins?
That's easy. You make a group of radical white supremacists into their enemies. It's the old "lovable by association" tactic of TV writing. Is the audience not buying your childhood version of Darth Vader? Then throw in a wise-cracking alien that sounds like Pee Wee Herman with Down's Syndrome.
However, in the case of the second season of
Sons of Anarchy, it's a pretty sweet power play for a show that already packed more punch than an Absinthe smoothie.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy: Albification (season premiere)
Posted Sep 8th 2009 11:05AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Interviews, Reality-Free
I haven't been here from the beginning, so I don't know the exact number of times actress and singer Katey Sagal has sat down to talk to someone from our humble site. But within the last year, someone Squadder has either called her up on the phone or bumped into her in person to chat her up about
the return of Futurama or her more serious but equally kick-ass role on
Sons of Anarchy.
I'm seriously thinking that we need to institute some kind of frequent visitor punch card that rewards stars with a free pizza, a round of drinks or half off a new muffler (not including labor) for their 10th interview.
Sagal was nice enough to talk to us yet again in anticipation of the new season of
Sons of Anarachy that premieres this tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central on FX. We talked about her character Gemma's place in SAMCRO and what she has to endure for the club, and why women are such big fans of the show.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy's Katey Sagal talks to TV Squad...again
Posted Sep 6th 2009 2:00PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Reality-Free, Press Kits Unwrapped
Normally, TV press kits come with more useless junk than an IKEA furniture kit. They usually come with T-shirts that are too small for the average TV critic's billowy build, toys that can turn the brightest human beings into easily-amused cats, and other assorted paraphernalia.
FX's press kit for the forthcoming second season of
Sons of Anarchy has none of these things. There are no bloody brass knuckle sets, fake handlebar mustaches or even a lousy T-shirt that reads "The bitch fell off" on the back, perfect for that upcoming christening or bar-mitzvah.
That doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, it's one of the most bitching press kits to ever grace my cold, ink-stained hands.
Continue reading Press Kits Unwrapped: Sons of Anarchy Season 2
Posted Aug 30th 2009 3:12PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: TV on DVD, OpEd, Reality-Free, Jane After Dark
I've been hearing about an awesome new show on FX since it aired last year, and finally got around to watching season one of
Sons of Anarchy this week for
Jane After Dark. Being a motorcycle babe myself, I love any show where bikes or gangs are the central focus.
But even if you've never mounted a bad chopper, there are plenty of reasons to love this badass show about the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Originals (SAMCRO). They run a legal automotive business while dealing arms, battling rival gangs, and working with the cops (sometimes) to keep their town of Charming, California a pleasant place to live. You can see all the irony at work here.
Continue reading Jane After Dark: Sons of Anarchy - bikes, guns, sex and Katey Sagal
Posted Aug 7th 2009 1:45PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, Animation, Interviews, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free
At last night's FOX party at the Langham Huntington's "Horseshoe Garden," I ran into (TV Squad reader) Katey Sagal, who was there in support of her excellent FX show
Sons of Anarchy. Before we could get into any questions about that show, though, I wanted to know about the contentious negotiations between 20th Century Fox and the voice cast of
Futurama that finally were wrapped up last week.
Her reaction? Slightly perturbed, but not surprised, given her industry experience. "Well, it's what always happens. We're starting our sixth season, and the actors felt that it was deserving of a sixth-season salary. And we weren't being offered that. We were united in our search for... we wanted what's fair, that's all."
When 20th put out a
casting notice looking for replacement voices, Sagal said, "I wasn't surprised. It's business."
Continue reading Katey Sagal talks about contentious Futurama negotiations - TCA Report
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