Shakespeare on a Hog: The Sons of Anarchy thread

yeah no kidding

in-character racism really gets to me too

closeup of dead niner bikers stacked like cordwood was a real nadir

sometimes i'm like "wait why do i watch this show again?"

I haven't actually finished the last two seasons - I keep making it halfway and just going "nope, don't give a shit" and then trying again the next season.

Stark how much better it was with Ron Perlman even after his character became the supervillain.

yeah there's no counterweight to jax anymore & it makes the show much more leaden imo

jax's accent seems like it's slipping more this season too

i noticed that as well!

i feel short-changed that Happy is finally in the opening credits but he's given fuck-all to do.

and the cannonfodder/red-shirt new MC brothers -- it's just a question of who kills them and how

yeah they may as well have a coundown clock for those new dudes

& is anybody loling over their starburst/fanta girl/might morphon power rangers colored bikes? i find them v hilar

can i spell today? no, no i can't

yes!!

Last time I loved this was Season 4, that was a riot! It has been a case of rapidly diminishing returns since then. i don't suppose it helps that Sutter is an insufferable, idiotic prick and the worse this series gets the higher the viewer figures seem to go.

can't really notice Jax's accent slipping on account of 90% of the dialogue being in whispered voices now

regarding the lack of national news coverage: this show has always seemed like sutter wanted to set it in a postapocalypic/dystopian future like the mad max movies but changed it to modern day for whatever reason. like the way you rarely see anyone that lives in charming that isn't a cop or in a gang. the universe of the show seems so desolate.

i don't suppose it helps that Sutter is an insufferable, idiotic prick and the worse this series gets the higher the viewer figures seem to go.

― xelab, Sunday, October 19, 2014 4:18 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what is this based on? not saying its not true just wondering

I don't know about that, but certain things made more sense when I realized he played Otto and all the terrible tattoos are real. Unfairly judging a book by its cover and a couple of interviews but he seemed like a creative writing MFA who really wishes he'd been a badass biker instead.

He's been a confrontational dick towards certain critics on Twitter. Not a good look.

otto's downward spiral character arc was one of the best things abt the show

I'm glad you didn't say the absolute best, because that was Clay's pussy sermon IIRC

http://i.imgur.com/skPEQp3.jpg

This show is so dumb.

the dumbest thing abt this show is how they have had a bunch of cool likable and/or charismatic characters and killed almost all of them off. the fact that opie and bobby and clay and tara are gone and juice is still around is indicative of a bunch of producers who don't know their own show.

imo

did Abel kill Gemma's birds?

I like Juice, but at this point I just want everyone to die and the show to be wrapped up.

http://i.imgur.com/OWQp5sv.jpg
"I can sense you're a decent man."

"
The Magical Negro is typically but not always "in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint," often a janitor or prisoner.[6] He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist.[7][8] He usually has some sort of magical power, "rather vaguely defined but not the sort of thing one typically encounters."[7] He is patient and wise, often dispensing various words of wisdom, and is "closer to the earth."[4] The magical negro will also do almost anything, including sacrificing himself, to save the white protagonist, as exemplified in The Defiant Ones, in which Sidney Poitier plays the prototypical Magical Negro.[4]

The Magical Negro serves as a plot device to help the protagonist get out of trouble, typically through helping the white character recognize his own faults and overcome them.[4] Although he has magical powers, his "magic is ostensibly directed toward helping and enlightening a white male character.
"

i have been basically hatewatching this all season

Tig is pretty much the one good thing about this season.

Like, I get a smidgen of hope when he's even in the frame ... when did this show get so dire?

idk

it's really fuckin bad though.

yeah, I'm having a real "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" existential crisis about watching it

otm

everything that comes out of gemma's mouth now sounds so forced & stupid & ignorant & fuuuuuuck i hate these ppl

also can we talk about abel the little wooden boy

he creeps me out

Honestly, outside of Jax banging Courtney Love or Abel-as-burgeoning-sociopath, I am at a loss for what this show could do to improve

Yeah, Abel is sooo creepy, if he doesn't kill anyone, even a small to moderately sized animal by the end of the season, I will be surprised

i'm in it for the abject human misery at this point

also the sex on the hood of a cop car

want to state again how apparently kurt sutter hates women

i think it was most blatant for me when jax fakes out that porn girl, pretending he's gonna seduce her, and then bashes her face into her makeup table and points at her bloodied face and says "whore." i recognize that the show tries to come off like there's a valid reason to have that scene, but it only exists bc she was created to be such a terrible person who just tries to fuck everyone and waves a gun around at the drop of a hat. like she was created for the pleasure of watching jax break her nose.

watching it now makes me question every reason i had for watching it in the first place
so much of it is repugnant

the soul kinda went out of the show when opie died, bc i thought his character was this really great, broken, tragic figure who gave the show a necessary gravity as well as him being dangerous and lovable and charismatic.

tig is the best character left, kim coates owns that role. it's a little one-note but he has such wonderful moments.

the dumbest thing abt this show is how they have had a bunch of cool likable and/or charismatic characters and killed almost all of them off. the fact that opie and bobby and clay and tara are gone and juice is still around is indicative of a bunch of producers who don't know their own show.

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Thursday, November 6, 2014 10:37 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this happened on boardwalk empire too.

to be fair sutter clearly loved clay morrow, he just wrote him into a corner really early on and it became increasingly ridiculous that he was even still alive. tara was destined to be killed from day one. opie's death was one of the only genuinely emotional moments of the whole thing imo, even though it definitely deflated the show somewhat.

i def think this show has gone way downhill (does anyone not?) but i still watch every episode and would helplessly watch several more seasons of this bullshit..at its core is really strong pulpy storytelling, plus its willingness to follow through on depicting the sociopathy of its characters is compelling to me. i also like what it has to say about a life of crime-in that every member of sons of anarchy seems miserable and stressed out all the time but you still get what is appealing about it and why they do it.

and yeah gemma has been getting way too many *pauses for applause* moments for awhile now. she's still a great character though. i am really excited for this show to be over.

i was really troubled by the porn girl storyline too. there was a feeling of anticipated audience identification that was really unsettling.

does no one else like nero? is everyone just sick of jimmy smits?i think he's excellent in that role and his character is pretty interesting and compelling. he would be the character i would be most bummed to see die at this point.

i love nero. smits is a legit good actor imo. not as noticeable as coates, but i like him just as much

his whole "gemma, let's move out of this crazy town, you and me!" thing is so "it's my last week before retirement" though...he's dead for sure.

true

it's the same as jax's "we're gonna leave this place"

bodybag is the only vehicle

i think SoA as a show was kinda painted into a corner from day one, relying on this family secret bullshit and jax's dead father and what not.

sutter's a graduate of the shield, which was also a show that painted itself into a corner from episode 1 but had a lot more push and pull with the tension and interesting toying w/the audience identification w/vic mackey, us both rooting for him and hoping he'd get caught in the act, despite it getting a little ridiculous at times (so many people popped in and out of adjacent rooms in the police station trying to spy on each other and confront each other, there were so many wires and cameras going, it was like 24's ctu headquarters crossed with 'oh no frasier's trying to cook a chicken and juggle two dates he accidentally set for the same night, hope niles and daphne can keep him covered.')

also i don't think motorcycle gangs are quite as cool or interesting as sutter thinks they are.

otm

the reality has way more meth & a lot less dialog

the soul kinda went out of the show when opie died

Yeah I checked out at the end of s4 because thefinale was so annoying, but assoon asI heard about Opie I checked back in just to watch that episode. Best perf the show ever had.

And comparing this to The Shield (which is fair game since Sutter was on staff there) really underlines this show's flaws. Sutter just does not have nearly as interesting a grasp on sustaining tension or resolvng conflicts without silly contrivances. (Also Shawn Ryan seems way less odious as a human.) In all the seasons I watched he never even managed one satisfying season arc; S2 probably came closest.

we should actually poll Nucky Thompson vs Jaz Teller for least interesting 00s lead character in a drama