Goodbye Sons of Anarchy

I was on from Day 1 for Sons of Anarchy, which is very rare. I was drawn in by the story, even though I was extremely skeptical about a show about a bike gang. The cast is phenomenal and impressed throughout. I was already an enormous fan of Charlie Hannam since I saw him in Green Street Hooligans. Despite being much smaller then, you still believed he could fight. There was instant credibility lent with Katie Segal, Ron Pearlman, and the other guys who you couldn't name, like Mark Boone Junior, but you knew films they were in. I still think the first season is probably the best. The love story of Jax and Tara in it's fiery infancy. All the characters being defined and just scratching the surface of their depth and depravity. I know my friend Zach loved the second season adding Henry Rollins, Adam Arkin, and even Tom Arnold (to a MUCH lesser extent) to the mix as the new assholes ruining the little town of Charming was pretty awesome. I was actually struggling with season 3 where they were spending time in Ireland tracking down Abel's kidnappers, but there was TOTAL redemption in the season finale and I was all-in from then on. Things got crazy and when you look back it's hard to remember all the characters that had come and gone. It was just a great show basically from pilot to finale. I'm so glad they allowed so much leeway to Sutter and the writers & directors. It's something that could have only survived and thrived on Cable/non-network TV. You almost wish Sutter would take a run with something on HBO just to see where he would take it even further with NO restrictions. I think this show has made a lot of careers and hopefully will get the cast some work moving forward. I was always impressed by the closeness of the cast & crew and the finale afterword was just a love-fest of mutual respect and love. I actually really enjoyed the final episode as it was the ultimate at "tying up loose ends". I've long mentioned my absolute delight in the idea of a show, or even a sequel of a film, ending in everyone's death so any hope of it continuing is gone. That didn't exactly happen, but it's safe to say Sons of Anarchy is at peace and never returning. Well done EVERYONE associated with S.O.A., it was a great show. Bottom Line: Start watching SONS if you never have before. It's on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant video, and through all other kinds of outlets. You'll struggle to find a better action/drama series ever again probably.