Shakespeare on a Hog: The Sons of Anarchy thread

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

lol er Jax

Hah would be a good poll really

nucky is way better imo. bc of the kessler interactions alone.

opie was such a rad dude

why did they have to kill him

It's crazy to watch the OG Queer as Folk and see the gap btwn wide-eyed teenage Hunnam and mega-boring "intense" adult Hunnam

also i think the shield was helped a lot by never letting us really forget vic and co were basically bad guys who occasionally did good because it was their day job. and also having dutch and claudette as occasionally flawed but good (both in skill and morally except for that cat thing) detectives in the same precinct was crucial, as well as glenn close's performance in season 4; they provided balance and grounding that kinda made vic's bullshit look like macho posturing even more. and the purgatory ending was sweet. and the fates of the characters was pretty realistic. and also a character like kavanaugh, who on the surface i think seemed to exist to make vic look better, was i think revealed to be a fucked up dude driven insane by his inability to pin down the genuinely guys he was trying to catch.

SoA doesn't have any balance at all, especially once characters like opie and tara and to a lesser extent piney were gone. also opie's reaction to finding piney's body was one of the best bits of acting in the show.

the best thing about hunnam's role is, idk, he's got that exaggerated slouch-walk down pretty good. i can see a motorcycle dude walking around like that.

reeeeeally liked opie's season 4 inability to move past donna's death tbqf. it seemed like we were set up for something else and then he just intentionally torpedoes his second marriage bc of it. which was one of the truer-feeling things on the show too.

Yeah that was one of the things that made that season kinda work

My recollection goes something like: S1 = interesting slog, S2 = great setup, lackluster ending; S3 = booooooring; S4 = again, geat setup, insulting final act

as aforementioned Sutter has a bad habit of keeping characters on way past their natural expiration date, to the point beyond fatigue, like the Fed played by the head of FX's wife, who clung on till (iirc) the end of S3

jax hardly even gets naked anymore i mean srsly what are we doing here

yeah she was the most transparent attempt at delaying the story sutter set up from the beginning by creating a totally abhorrent villain for everyone to rally together to destroy, turning her from an amusingly tough atf agent and into an insanely murderous bisexual nightmare. she basically went from an asshole marge gunderson and turned into natasha henstridge from 'species'

opie reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from the show, where they try to intimidate that judge into dropping some charges on something or other. opie's ready to go off and kill somebody, tig is unable to deal with violence at that second bc of guilt from donna's death, the judge's kid realizes his dad is willing to risk the kid's life in order to not acquiesce to the SoA demands, etc. all the better played bc this was done while they're wearing ski masks. anyway what does it matter, opie's gone, fuck this show.

Season 3 was corny as fuck (someone stole my baby!) but it wasn't boring

would be far more interested in an Opie/Bobby/Clay/Tara afterlife show than this season

although I was hoping that every remaining episode would have a closing montage of them receiving a delivery of another boxed body part

The Tig + Exchange from this ep was the only good moment of this entire season.

http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q686/tinyservants/Screenshot2014-11-11at115017PM_zps0569fecb.png

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101230120126/wildhogs/images/d/db/Wild-hogs.jpg

we should take turns watching this, in like 15 minute chunks

Not sure what to make of the love scene between Tig and the tranny (sorry, I don't know her name).

Tig has had about one or two lines for the last xx episodes, and he finally got the chance to emote and act.

I think Kim is a really good actor so I was happy to see him get some screen time. But...maybe he was overacting? Hard to tell if that was the best performance of the season or just kind of overdone. I think I'm leaning toward the first option.

Venus!

tig is probably just about the only character left who is worth a shit imo, and yeah coates is great. he's always memorable, even as a cackling CSI miami villain or chet from last boy scout.

I've never figured out why they don't give Coates/Tig more to do - I mean, I like Happy and the Scotsman and I know they're Jax's crew but Tig was always the most entertaining character.

in earlier seasons Tig had a lot more to do!

Was this the first Jax naked butt shot of the season?

Watching the first season again, I appreciate how calmly they deal with Tig's description of necrophilia.

i always thought Tara was prob the most compelling character and that in many ways the show was about her/seen through her perspective, as the person coming back into town and into the story at the beginning of the series who looks at the situation through the eyes of someone who used to live in the straight world. so for me the show worked up through last season on that level, and now one season of the aftermath of her death makes for a good denouement. if i felt that way about Opie (who was also great, obv) i'd probably be more bummed out/disinterested, not only has he been gone longer but his death is kind of settled business, can't remember the last time he was even mentioned in the last two seasons.

I wonder if there any Wild Angels references in the series. Or if Sutter has ever mentioned that movie.

man that Tig/Venus scene was the highlight of the whole season -- Coates is so great. Like, everyone else in that show seems to be going to great lengths to be 'Acting' whereas Coates is just *there*, he's right in it.

I still hate pretty much everything about this show now, but that scene at least made me feel like at least I haven't been watching for nothing.

this was the best episode of this show in years, right everyone? i mean it's not just because i have severely diminished expectations.

yeah that was pretty good. kinda back to first-season sturm und drang, gotta love that oedipal shit

fuckin love smits. he's good at crying

it's funny though
i look at this thread title now & go 'aw remember when we thought this show was good' lol

Juice in the interview room with Unser and the Sheriff was so great.

I love Smits too but I thought the crying routine was a bit overdone. There was one point where he was kind of jumping up and down slightly with a sad dog look on his face that was pretty silly.

But yeah, best ep of the season. Hope Kurt didn't shoot his wad too soon though - what are they going to fill up two more weeks with?

i liked Smits being the big emotional breakdown. he's kind of the new guy but he's already invested a lot of pathos into his character and all he's been through and you really feel for him in his "what the hell did i get into with all these crazy white people" weeping. and it just underlined that Gemma has done the unthinkable and that people that love her can never look at her the same way again.

yeah i like the unspeakable anguish angle

The look as he was listening to the phone -- and it was an excellent choice to show his end of the conversation without the audience actually hearing Jax's words -- and realized that the Gemma he thought he knew was hiding this all along was excellent. Just walking away from her, no confrontation, just being over.

okay mano

for all of this show's failings it's really good about letting dudes have a good cry when they want to cry, and not flinching from that

Yep. I was shocked at Jaxs breakdown.

I also really liked the jazz soundtrack to the car chase!

jax's murder of the other samcro president and its fallout have been really nicely done. very foreboding, a lot of creeping dread as the options narrow.

that was the same guy whose club they saved in Season 1, was it not? They patched them over? It is coming full circle. There have been so many mediocre seasons of this show, the first two seasons are so hazy in my memory.

jazz carchase was a+

damn .... so who is gonna die next week?