Sons of Anarchy Coverage: Risky Business?

Episode Commentary: Straw

Whoa. The ending to the season six premiere of “Sons of Anarchy” was water cool talk wasn’t it? With the recent headline garnering events in Aurora and Newtown, you have to wonder if the show is treading in water it can’t eventually swim out of. Show creator Kurt Sutter has said the plotline revolving around a child (Tate Berney) who used one of the club’s illegal guns to shoot up a school, is necessary because it leads the show into its final act.

Guess we’ll just have to see about that.

Slow moving and somewhat run of the mill, the season premiere was anything but charming. Even the sex scene between Jax and the madame was a bit dry. For the most part, the show felt like a bunch of old friends hanging out and getting reacquainted and not a continuation of the breakneck drama it was a year ago.

To make matters worse, some of the scenes were downright bizarre. Right off the bat in the show’s opening scene, it’s obvious that Gemma’s grandson wasn’t crying, but a crying noise was clearly audible. Poor sound editing? You think? For a second, it looked like the kid was doing a voice-over in a “Godzilla” flick. A later scene involving Gemma and a prospect where he called her “mam” and she quickly placed his hand on her breast and said that now he couldn’t call her that anymore, was just plain weird. While the show often has small silly moments like this, many of the hiccups this episode were due to poor writing, especially in terms of dialogue.

And let’s not even start on the performance of Tara’s lawyer, Ally Lowen, played by Robin Weigert. She’s been on the show for years and usually been sound, but this episode, it looked like her yes were going to pop out her head. When did she forget how to act?

Away from the mistakes, this episode sets the scene for a bunch of new feuds. The addition of Peter Weller as former cop turned crime kingpin Charlie Barosky (Robocop) is an interesting one. The same thing goes for Kim Dickens, who plays the Madame Jax quickly sleeps with after knowing for just a few minutes.

With Otto, Clay and Tara rotting in jail as well and the continued influence of Lee Toric (Donal Louge) and the fate of Tigg in the balance, thanks to Damon Pope’s death, the multiple plotline structure will be a strong one this season, even if it didn’t start out that way.

Regardless, you have to wonder if this biker gang is still riding strong or ready to chug into the sunset. The first five seasons were some of the best cable drama of all time, but after a stalling plod of a season premiere, how much does this show have left in its tank?

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14263 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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