Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Premiere
FX
Towards the end of the violent gang rape, Henry Rollins says to Gemma "I’m sorry ma’am, we’re almost done" as if they’re a crew of decorators just finishing up for the day. Good manners cost nothing and even though they’re a group of white separatists raping the local motorcycle chapter leader’s old lady, common courtesy is the glue that holds their fragile society together. Henry would like her to pass on a message to her old man. Gemma is all "don’t you guys have pagers?" but listens up anyway. "Tell him to stop selling guns to niggers and wetbacks… or we find you and do this again" Yipes. It is ugly and unremitting. Sons of Anarchy is back.
"Henry would like her to pass on a message to her old man. Gemma is all ‘don’t you guys have pagers?’ but listens up anyway. ‘Tell him to stop selling guns to niggers and wetbacks… or we find you and do this again’ Yipes. It is ugly and remitting. Sons of Anarchy is back."
The inclusion of the rape feels a little bit forced. You’ll likely overlook this because it is going to lead to some biblical revenge from Gemma but let’s look at the logic. The League of American Nationalists comes to Charming, looking to open up a cigar shop. Ethan Zobelle (Adam Arkin) is the respectable front man. He and his muscle AJ Weston (the aforementioned Henry Rollins) have a sitdown with Deputy Chief Hale about doing something about this beastly problem of gang activity in the town. The league, he says "represents an influential group of businessmen who are tired of criminals undermining local enterprise”. Who could argue with a reasonable premise like that?
“I’m really not so bothered by pretty boy Jax, his pretty girl old lady and their everyday tale of the love between a gang member and a doctor.”
Well, Deputy Chief Hale for a start. He’s down with the anti-gang stance, no doubt, but not so much with the spic/nigger hating. When Ethan and AJ politely ask Clay that evening if they wouldn’t mind awfully desisting from arming African-American and Latino American gangs he tells them he’d really rather not if it’s all the same with them what-what. The crackers leave. That very same night Gemma is abducted, beaten and raped. So a group of white separatists (not supremacists as Ethan is at pains to point out) gang rape a white woman, the wife of a career criminal backed by a motorcycle gang because he didn’t suck their dicks at the first time of asking? That doesn’t quite add up for me.
Still, as villains go Ethan and AJ seem suitably appalling and I am excited by how this could turn out. I’m really not so bothered by pretty boy Jax, his pretty girl old lady and their everyday tale of the love between a gang member and a doctor. Clay (Ron Perlman) is still impressively malevolent. He pins the murder of Donna on a Mayan piece of shit who Opie and the boys kill to death in some shitheap somewhere. Jax has opted not to tell Opie it was actually Clay who ordered his botched assassination that led to Donna’s death. Piney and Hale know the truth and it takes all of Jax’s powers of persuasion keep them schtum. It’s gone away for now but you just know it’s going to return.
"Sons kicks off with a bang in its second season and there’s quite a few threads running concurrently that will cause plenty of trouble down the line. You can tell Kurt Sutter worked on The Shield. He learnt from a master."
I look forward to it. Sons kicks off with a bang in its second season and there’s quite a few threads running concurrently that will cause plenty of trouble down the line. You can tell Kurt Sutter worked on The Shield. He learnt from a master.
The best thing about it: The League of American Nationalists — the new thugs on the block
The worst thing about it: Tara and Jax are just blehhh.
The verdict on Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Premiere: You wanna be anarchy. No dogsbody.
Marks out of 10: 7.5