‘Sons of Anarchy’ season 6, episode 1 review: A difficult pill for Jax (and us) to swallow
We would be lying here if we were to sit here and say that enjoyment is something that we got out of the “Sons of Anarchy” season 6 premiere tonight. It is not necessarily an episode that is meant to be enjoyed. How could it when there is something so horrific that takes place at the end as the buildup to a school shooting? We have had a few weeks to really process this storyline and think about it since creator Kurt Sutter first discussed it at TCA, and now that we are finally able to talk about it, we are still unfortunately divided about the choice to go there in the aftermath of Sandy Hook.
The obvious negative to introducing this storytelling wrinkle right now is simple: It’s uncomfortable. You cannot watch this episode and go to bed feeling good about life. It’s dark, depressing, and up there with a certain Gemma scene from season 2 as one of the hardest things that we have ever had to stomach while watching the show. We’re sure that many activists groups are going to come out and sound an alarm over it.
We are not saying that they are right and Sutter is wrong; we just do not feel like we are as a critic in the right position to sit here and tell someone like a Sandy Hook parent, or a parent of a young kid in school, what they should think or feel. What we would say, though, with this story is to look at the intent. This is something that Jax Teller never wanted or intended to happen, and it was handled in a way that, while horrific, did not actually show any children being shot on-screen. The point here was never to glorify, such as the point with the dogfights in the past was to expose cruelty. This is reality, and sometimes, we don’t like to look at reality in the face. It’s frightening, and it is never designed to make us comfortable. Jax had never wanted his children to be involved in this, and having this sort of event happen thanks to SAMCRO’s own actions will haunt him more than any singular event we have seen so far. We imagine even more so than the death of Opie.
We are going to continue thinking about this one for a while, and we imagine that you will do the same. The episode was sharply-written, gritty, and mesmerizing television. Peter Weller and Donal Logue were both fantastic, Sutter continues to do almost everything that he can for the show as an actor (including something we never saw coming for Otto), and seeing the separation between Tara and Jax was heartbreaking. Even Tig’s beatdown, as he still mourns the loss of his daughter, did not hit us on the same emotional level.
The best analogy that we can create here is when you have a great day at work, and then you get in a car wreck on the way home. You suddenly forget about everything else. That is why, when it comes to “Straw,” we can only imagine the gunshots at the school ringing through our ears. It was a bold choice that we respect from an artistic point of view, but the true measure of its worth will come in the weeks ahead as we see the world of Jax Teller further start to unravel.
If you want to see a preview for next week’s “Sons of Anarchy” episode, we will have it shortly at the link here.
Photo: FX