Posted on 12/12/2014 4:57:31 AM PST by Kaslin
The year is winding down with some good TV news: The amoral biker-gang drama "Sons of Anarchy" has ended its seven-year run on the cable channel FX, after a final season drenched in pointless sex and violence. Jax, the leader of the gang, shot a bunch of his enemies dead and then drove his motorcycle straight into the oncoming grill of a semi truck.
The show wound down into a relentless deathfest. Jax shot his mother dead, because she stabbed his wife in the neck with a barbecue fork. Most of the cast was slaughtered. And for what? It all seemed like a long slog of sensationalism for its own sake.
The Nov. 11 episode opened with an unbelievably graphic sex scene lasting a full two and a half minutes, depicting seven different couples. Adam Buckman at Media Post reported "this montage featured five heterosexual couples, and two homosexual -- one of which featured the transgender character ... and the other one featuring a jailhouse rape being simulated by guest-star Marilyn Manson."
Producer Paris Barclay explained that on the set, they called it the "f---tage." In an interview, Yahoo's Kimberly Potts told Barclay the transgender sex scene was "the most honest relationship moment in the whole series." Barclay described the awe and wonder of it all.
"When we did the first read-through, everyone responded in such a hushed and reverent manner to just the reading of it, just the lines. ... We knew that we had something great," Barclay declared. When they filmed the scene, "the entire crew applauded for at least two minutes. I mean, literally, with tears in our eyes. Everyone. I'm sitting there watching them applaud, in the middle of 'Sons of Anarchy,' a love scene which involves probably the most degenerate club member, the necrophiliac ... and this transgendered woman who really, for the first time, explains where she came from emotionally and what it's about."
Welcome to Hollywood, where the weirder it gets, the more people cry on the set about the "honesty."
Once the sex and the tears were over, the plot veered back into senseless violence. The show's primary antihero, Jax the gang leader, ripped out a man's eyeball with his bare hands. The eyeball was shown dangling from the socket, blood erupting from the wound, as other gang members kicked and beat the victim. Someone hacked off the victim's fingers with a knife, as the victim screamed in pain. A close-up displayed the severed fingers in a pool of blood. Jax then shot the man point-blank in the head.
It's a given that some in this industry will believe the finale proved a moral point, that the murderous gang leaders all arrived at punishment for their sins, making "Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter a moralist. It's quite the opposite. The whole point of the show was vicariously enjoying the sadism, the sexual calisthenics, even the school shooting that opened season six -- and since that wasn't enough, Sutter included two rapes and a man drowning in a bathtub of urine.
Sadly, brain-damaged TV critics compare Sutter to Shakespeare, which should have the Bard spinning like a top in his grave. Our "tastemakers" repeatedly adore savage antiheroes and demonstrate a boundless appetite for the grotesque.
You are right. Sopranos is superior on several levels
The homeless girl represented the grim reaper which was their logo. I rewatched the very first episode and it started with 2 crows on the road eating a piece of bread right before Jax rode by. After the ending I assumed it was I580 where Jax’s father was killed and the crows represented he and his father. And remember Gemma had crows as pets.
The crows were also part of their logo. I actually GOT the symbolism.
Thanks for clearing that up. I got the crows part, but even though we watched the whole series, I had forgotten the beginning. When you get old that happens,.....a lot!
Started off ok....but the show became a cartoon.
I had forgotten too but my excuse is 7 years is a long time. lol
I actually started watching the series again simply because there is not one of the shows I watch on right now.
Ah! Well take makes sense. I know we watched it from the beginning, but you’re right that was a long time ago.
Thanks for posting this thread. I was almost gonna start binge-watching SOA in Netflix. Kinda glad I didn’t invest the time.
The replies on this thread tell me I would have liked much of the series, maybe even most of it. But there are better alternatives.
So what am I watching? Call the Midwife. My wife said; “You do know this is a chick flick series, right”?
And it is, but apart from all the screaming labor scenes in every show, there is good acting - good drama.
But if you like immoral behavior and violent biker and drug gangs with no redeeming themes and the worst of the worst on display, this is the series for you!
I’ve tried netflix but couldn’t find any movies I liked and the ones I did, they didn’t have them so I gave up before I even ordered one
Well Brent, there are only just so many episodes of “Matlock”.
I rarely watch movies on Netflix, but its GREAT for TV series.
You don’t know how much better any TV show is unless you watch it without the annoying, stupid, insulting, boring and stupid (yes I meant to use stupid twice) commericials.
I thihk I'll pass. I never watched the TV series "24" and all of those are on Netflicks too so I think I check that out.
I'm kinda fond of Sleepy Hollow though
Three series -- all superior to "Sons of Anarchy" -- that you should watch: Justified, The Shield, and The Americans.
I hate commercials and if they think ads will make me buy their stuff they are greatly mistaken. I admit there are some ads that are quite entertaining. One comes especially to my mind. It’s one for Progressive soup and it shows her with a can phone and she says to the Progressive soup cooks “I’m watching you stew people”
Yeah...and Andy Griffith was a diehard RAT!
‘Bout time for Old Country Buffet to open somewhere...
So did I. It wasn't that bad then, but it felt like it was nothing more than a nighttime soap with guns and bikes instead of mansions and limos.
I missed out on how Juice got in the bad graces of the SOA. Can you fill me in? It must have been really bad breach of the brotherhood mentality.
I predicted that Jax would kill himself on the cycle on the same stretch of road where his father died in a cycle crash. I knew he had to die for atonement for his sins and that seemed to be the only way he would do it.
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