C'mon, Tuesday Night...

'YOU BOYS LIKE MEX-EEEEEE-CO? WHOOOOOOOO!"

So after the first two seasons - and the cliffhanger second-season ending I definitely didn't see coming - I'm pretty geeked up about the season 3 premiere of Sons of Anarchy this Tuesday (10 p.m., F/X). It's pretty clear to me that the Irishman who stole Jax's baby is headed to Mexico... since he'd have to sail the whole way around South America to get back to Ireland.

Once the Sons pursue him, that puts them on Mayan turf. I gotta believe Alvarez is gonna place a call to the chapter in Tijuana or Culiacán or Tamaulipas or wherever. Then again, Clay and SAMCRO know that Alvarez got hoodwinked by the Zoebelle and his white-supremacist homeboys, and could use that to their advantage.

There's also the Clay-Jax dynamic, which needs sorting out. They made peace with one another by way of Gemma's tragic situation, but it's still bubbling under the surface. We'll have to see.

Come onnnnn, Tuesday night...

Sons of Anarchy S02E13: 'Na Trilóbloidí'... My Pathetic Attempt at Blogging the Season 2 Finale

Are these episode titles Latin? I'll be honest, I just don't wanna do the research... [Editor's note: I did the research... it's Gaelic for 'The Troubles']...

And now, my pathetic attempt at live-blogging the Sons of Anarchy season 2 finale:

• 10:10 p.m. - Lookin' good so far. Kind of surprised that Zoebelle is an FBI rat. Didn't really see that coming. I can see the practicality of his guns-for-drugs plan, but this doesn't make as much sense... can't wait to see what the Mayans are gonna do while they're visiting.

• 10:12 p.m. - I really hate these Windows 7 commercials. Really.

• 10:15 p.m. - To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed in Henry Rollins' role this season. He plays the stone-cold Aryan hard-on well enough, but I think he had the depth to put a little more meat on the character, and he was really just sort of a dumb thug the whole season.

• 10:17 p.m. - That father and son outside the store are dressed exactly the same. That's kinda creepy.

• 10:23 p.m. - DAMN! So that's why cons volunteer to work in the library. Good for you, Otto. You deserve a little payback.

• 10:27 p.m. - NICE. Lt. Dangle guesting on The League. F/X is leading the way hands-down for quality cable shows, and the Always Sunny/League combo is probably the best hour of comedic television since Seinfeld and, uh, whatever came after Seinfeld... also, Nip/Tuck is just too awful. Ever since season three, it's all been downhill. When I tuned in for the season 4 finale, a.k.a. "Rent" With Scalpels, I'm pretty sure I puked in my mouth a little bit.

• 10:45 p.m. - "Where are we going?" "Forward, sweetheart." Yeeeeah. Git 'er, Gemma.

• 10:47 p.m. - OHHHH, nice move, Stahl. Not only could he not shoot her, but he just gave the gun up? What a puss--BWAAAAAA!!! Crotch punch on a girl! She deserves it, but still, that's a party foul. She shouldn't have killed his ass, though.

• 10:55 p.m. - Would Zoebelle's daughter REALLY not have heard a motorcycle coming up the block? I want this nasty little bitch to get her comeuppance, but c'mon now... also, Half-Sack, this is a NEED-TO-KNOW SITUATION for the club.... Aw, man, I thought she was comin' to the Irish kid's house. This is gonna go badly...

• 10:57 p.m. - Oh shit. EVERYBODY'S armed! ... Is Stahl just gonna let this slide? Gemma: "Bloody day for both of us." True dat. Half-Sack, pleeease phone this shit in.

• 11 p.m. - Nope. I guess she's not gonna let this slide. Unless she wants to set it up so it looks like Edmund killed the girl. That way she can get herself off the hook... here it comes. OH SHIT! She's gonna set Gemma up for the whole thing?? Edmund's dad is gonna go after the Sons on this. Gawd-DAMN, I hate this Stahl bitch!

• 11:02 p.m. - Dammit, Half-Sack, what did I say? NEED TO KNOW. If you'd have called this in, some Sons backup might have been able to help handle this. Now it's all bad, and you're leading the trouble straight home...

• 11:12 p.m. - Why do I have a feeling that Jax-Chibs-Opie is going to be the breakaway faction if there's a season three?

• 11:14 p.m. - HALF-SACK! NOOO! I'm gonna miss him, for sure. He was the source of many of the show's funniest moments.... Surely this Irishman's not gonna kill a baby on F/X...

• 11:15 p.m. - This Justified show should be called Shane & the Sheriff. Walton Goggins and Sheriff Bullock as a couple of loose-cannon rednecks? I'm down for that.

• 11:21 p.m. - Nice. Hale left Zoebelle out to dry.... 11:22 p.m. ... And now they're just gonna leave him? Not let ANYONE go in and deal with it??

• 11:24 p.m. - "Well.... we.... adjust and we adapt." Is Zoebelle gonna be back next season? I think he's probably had just about enough of Charming.

PREDICTIONS FOR NEXT SEASON:

• Gemma is going to take refuge with another charter. Either that, or she's gonna let Unser keep driving her until he dies from the cancer.

• The Irishman is gonna take Jax's son to Mexico. A chase through Mexico could make for a nice two-to-three-episode arc. If Unser takes Gemma that direction, it might could all come together very neatly. I can see a tie-in with the Mayan charters south of the border as well. I can't imagine they're too happy about having several members gunned down because of the Sons/Zoebelle beef.

• At some point next season, Clay's arthritis is going to get the better of him. He's going to have to officially pass the crown. I can see a nice slow-mo shot near the end of season three with Jax leading the crew away as Clay and Piney lean back on a Teller-Morrow bench and clink a couple beers together.

• Hale unconsciously settles into Unser's old role. He comes to appreciate the good the Sons do, in spite of their other negligible activities. I can see him passing by in the squad car during that slo-mo shot I mentioned above.

Sons of Anarchy S02E11: 'Service'

His is much better-looking than the plastic one I used on Halloween... oh well...

Okay, so I skipped nine episodes when I had intended to blog the whole season, but what can I say? I just... didn't have much to say, I suppose. I will say that these last couple episodes have finally gotten me emotionally involved in this season the way I was most of the first one and during the first episode of this second one. It was gut-wrenching to watch Tig following the truck, knowing what was going to happen but hoping it wouldn't.

The spectre of the the Nation coming to town had all kinds of nasty implications, and they have indeed done some nasty, evil things, but I just haven't been as involved in this season. I care about what happens to Jax, but even Tara is hard to generate a lot of sympathy for.

As the weight of keeping her rape to herself has continued to push Gemma further and further down a dark hole - she was right a couple of episodes back... she should have brought this up earlier, just like she told Chibs at the end of last night's show. I'm not gonna say she's directly responsible for much of the bloodshed that followed the season premiere, but you saw how quickly the Jax/Clay rift healed when she finally got it out.

Speaking of getting it out, I can't believe Clay gave Tig those shrooms. He should have known better. I knew the second he ate 'em that he was gonna end up spilling the secret to Opie - who took it in remarkable stride, by the way. I thought he showed quite a bit restraint with Tig and the ATF, and a good shaming was just what Agent Stahl needed. She just blew into this little tow, fucked the deputy sheriff, tried to tear the town's tightest-knit, most dangerous family apart, and got an innocent woman killed.

Regardless, it's great to see the fam more or less back together - except for crazy-drunk-ass Piney, who it appears is still with the program - and to see them finally taking Jax's advice and doing some PLANNING... and it didn't take too much planning to figure out what the Nation was up to and how to hurt them. I'd like to see Zoebelle's daughter get some comeuppance; she helped put this whole thing in motion in the first place.

Love me some Titus Welliver. He was great in Deadwood, and even though it's tough to get though that thick-ass brogue sometimes, I like him here as well. The preview next week of every gang in northern L.A. pointing gats at one another looks great. Two episodes left!

Is Anyone Else Feeling That 'Sons of Anarchy' is Dragging a Little This Season?

Less pensive, more action...

 Maybe it's my fault for watching the whole first season over two days, but it kind of seems like the new season of F/X's Sons of Anarchy is dragging quite a bit.

 

***ARRRR-SPOILERS AHEAD, MATEYS***

 

There is a lot up in the air, to be sure: Darby helping out Henry Rollins and Alan Arkin's kid working the white-power/meth angle in Charming (and isn't it interesting that these neo-Nazi mooks are perfectly happy to sling drugs to their fellow crackers in Charming?), there's the Sons' gun-selling mess with too many gangs. There's Peg Bundy's Big Secret.

But I don't know. Maybe things will get ratcheted back up soon, but I'm just not really feelin' the B story about Bobby taking over the porno books. Hopefully this splinter between Jax and Hellboy will get going soon.

Sons of Anarchy S02E01: 'Albification'

'Look da fuck out, Peg Bundy... it's about to be some shit...'

(WARNING: SECOND SEASON TOPICS DISCUSSED AHEAD)

My sister got me the first season of Sons of Anarchy for my birthday. I hadn't watched it when it was in its original run, having finally gotten some free Tuesday nights with The Shield being over. But I'm always down to check out a promising new TV series, and Sons was pretty sweet. Not only that, but the producer/creator, Kurt Sutter, was an exec producer on The Shield, AND he brought the One-Niners gang with him to the show, technically putting the two shows in the same fictional universe.

This, of course, has me slobbering for Shield cameos. Clearly, Vic Mackey's not going to show up on an ICE bust.
That would be too obvious. But I would love for Sutter to reintroduce Tavon, from the Shield's third season, as a new cop in Charming. It would make for some pretty sweet drama.

Then again, there's plenty of drama as is... especially for poor Peg Bundy, who was the victim of a horrifying, brutal gang-rape on the season two premiere. All I could think of the first time I watched it was that Sutter and Katey Sagal are married, and how exactly would you bring this scene up? "Heeeey honey, so look, this season, you take care of the baby some more, stir the pot with Hellboy aaaaaaand oh yeah, you get gang-raped by Henry Rollins."

"Wha...?"

Actually, I think the introduction of Rollins and Alan Arkin's kid as the League of American Nationalists (or, in Clay Morrow's words, "Nice car, shiny suit, all your teeth... you must be the top of the Aryan food chain.") as a threat to the club's monopoly on Charming is a brilliant plot move. When the last season ended (don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it), you were left hating at least two members of the club. The situation the pair fomented is definitely going to run throughout season two, but the League storyline does an interesting thing: it introduces a group that's worse than anyone else. Darby is a hardhead criminal, and Rollins' AJ Weston character basically calls him out as a Nazi poser ("I'd button your shirt... you haven't earned it."), and despite Clay and Tig's big sin, these League guys represent a threat to the whole club... to Jax's vision of it AND Clay's. It's something the club can unite behind.

I'm curious as to how Gemma is going to handle the gang-rape, in terms of telling Clay. If she just comes out and tells him, I gotta believe it's all-out war, and then the League storyline is over after a few episodes. I gotta believe she's going to cover it up until either she's found out, or found  way to make it suit her purpose. 

Notes:

• I still don't like Deputy Hale. He's just too Mayberry. Needs a new haircut, or maybe unbutton that top button... loosen up or SOMEthing.

• Henry Rollins is the perfect Aryan shithead. He just sits there all tattooed and scary-looking, and talks in a very reasonable-sounding voice.

• Arkin's kid, however, is not all that convincing. First off, he doesn't look the part, and he just seems too nice. Maybe they'll shatter that façade in upcoming episodes.

• Half-Sack: "You guys didn't really mean you want me to-"/Clay: "GETOUT!!!" BWAAAA HA HA HA... Half-Sack gets all the best lines ("Yeah, that's real great, guys... just shoot off the one good nut I got left. Thanks.")