Sons of Anarchy
Sons of Anarchy is an American action crime drama television series created by Kurt Sutter for FX. Originally aired from September 3, 2008, to December 9, 2014, Sons of Anarchy follows the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in California's Central Valley.
Sons of Anarchy
United States
English
7
92 (list of episodes)
- Kurt Sutter
- John Linson
- Phil Laudicina
- James D. Parriott
- Paris Barclay
- Dave Erickson
- Jon Paré
- Regina Corrado
- Liz Sagal
- Craig Yahata
- Chris Collins
- Grace Whitehouse
Paul Maibaum
- Paul Fontaine
- Etienne des Lauriers
- Lauren Pendergrass
39–81 minutes
- The Linson Company
- Sutter Ink
- Fox 21
- FX Productions
September 3, 2008 –
December 9, 2014
Charlie Hunnam stars as Jax Teller, who after discovering a manifesto written by his late father and motorcycle club founder, begins to question himself, his relationships, and the club. Themes throughout the show include love, brotherhood, loyalty, betrayal, and redemption. The series explored vigilantism, government corruption, and racism. The show's plot depicts an outlaw motorcycle club as an analogy for human transformation. David Labrava, a real-life member of the Oakland chapter of Hells Angels, served as a technical adviser and also played the recurring character Happy Lowman.
Sons of Anarchy's third season attracted an average of 4.9 million weekly viewers, becoming FX's highest-rated series at the time and surpassing its other hits, The Shield, Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me. The season 4 and 5 premieres were the two highest-rated telecasts in FX's history.[4] The sixth season aired from September 10, 2013, through December 10, 2013. The seventh season of the series premiered on September 9, 2014. On November 3, 2014, FX announced that the seventh season would be its last. The series finale aired on December 9, 2014.[5][6]
In November 2016, FX announced the development of a spin-off series, Mayans M.C., that was broadcast from 2018 to 2023.[7][8]
Elements[edit]
Concept[edit]
The Sons of Anarchy (SOA) is an outlaw motorcycle club with many charters in the United States as well as overseas. The show focused on the original and founding ("mother") charter, Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original,[12] often referred to by the acronym SAMCRO, Sam Crow, or simply "Redwood".[13] SAMCRO is located in San Joaquin County, California, in the fictional town of Charming, which appears to be near Stockton. Its nickname is reflected in the original title for the show, Forever Sam Crow.[14] SAMCRO attempts to control and protect Charming through close community relationships, bribery, and violent intimidation. They are vehement about keeping "hard" drugs and drug dealers out of Charming; they also attempt to keep the peace between the various racially-divided gangs located in nearby cities.
Founders[edit]
High school friends John Teller and Piermont "Piney" Winston co-founded SAMCRO in 1967 upon returning from the Vietnam War.[15] After the birth of John's sons with his wife, Gemma, they settle in her hometown of Charming. Six of the "Redwood Original 9" or "First 9" members were Vietnam veterans, with only Lenny Janowitz, the club's third member and original Sergeant-at-Arms, alive at the end of the series. The other First 9 included Chico Villanueva, Otto Moran, Wally Grazer, Thomas Whitney, Clay Morrow, and Keith McGee.
Attire[edit]
Club members wear denim or leather vests known as cuts with a three-piece patch on the back that includes the club's name, logo, and territorial location. The SOA logo is a traditional Grim Reaper holding a crystal ball with the anarchist circle-A symbol, and wielding the Reaper's traditional scythe, the handle of which has been replaced by the M16 rifle. Only full members can wear the "full patch", and many of them also have it tattooed on their backs or aspects of it on their arms. Other smaller patches, called flashes, have specific meanings, such as "Men of Mayhem", which is worn by club members who have spilled blood on the club's behalf; "First 9", worn by the original nine members; and rank flashes for the club officers.[16]
Whenever conducting club business, the members always wear their cuts; one notable exception to this is during the course of season 4, when a number of SAMCRO members are on parole and must cover their cuts in public to avoid identifying as members.
Female characters—such as Tara, Ima, and Lyla—are seen wearing t-shirts that sport the name Sons of Anarchy or SAMCRO, but nobody outside of the club wears cuts or is seen wearing clothing with the symbol or Reaper image.
Some of the show's clothing was created by LA company Victorious 22.[17]
Motorcycles[edit]
SAMCRO rides customized Harley-Davidson Dyna motorcycles. Each rider customizes his own bike to his individual style; however, they all paint their bikes black and most sport T-bar style handlebars. A member's bike usually sports graphics such as the Sons of Anarchy letters, the club's Grim Reaper logo, or the circled "A" club logo. In later seasons, several members switch to more touring-oriented models. During the final season, Jax refurbishes and rides his father's 1946 Harley-Davidson Customized EL Knucklehead.[18]
Activities and affiliates[edit]
Some members have day jobs in local industries; most work at the Teller-Morrow garage as mechanics and assist at the club's other business ventures, such as running security or accounting at the porn studios. They primarily make money by illegally importing firearms and selling them to various gangs, and making protection runs for local businesses by defending valuable truck shipments against hijacking. During Season 4 they start to mule cocaine for the Galindo cartel in exchange for cash and protection. Throughout the series, they also manage porn studios and an escort business in an attempt to earn legitimately.
SAMCRO keeps meth traffickers and drug dealers out of Charming, which puts them at odds with the meth-distributing white supremacist Nordics (Nords), headed by Ernest Darby. This earns them respect and admiration from the townspeople, who believe the Sons do more to protect their town than its own police. SAMCRO also has to deal with a rival, Oakland-based motorcycle club Mayans led by Marcus Alvarez. Other groups in SAMCRO's orbit include the Oakland–based Chinese mafia Lin Triad, led by Henry Lin; the Italian American Cacuzza crime family; the Russian mob led by Viktor Putlova; the Real IRA (aka RIRA) of Northern Ireland, which supplies them with illegal Russian-made guns; the "One-Niners", an African American street gang to whom SAMCRO sell weapons; and various affiliates in the state prison system, where many members of the club have been incarcerated at one time or another.
Properties[edit]
In the series premiere, the Mayans torch the facility the SAMCRO used for storing and assembling guns, forcing the club to buy land for and build another facility. The Clubhouse is located on the "compound" that includes the Teller-Morrow mechanic shop. The Clubhouse itself includes a living area with multiple apartments, a fully operational bar, a pool table, a kitchen; a workout room; and the "Chapel", the SAMCRO meeting room with an elaborate redwood conference table that has the club logo carved into the top, where the members meet to discuss club business and vote on major decisions. The club owns a secluded cabin in the woods that is often Piney's retreat, and various warehouses outside of town. The club also rented an old soda fountain/candy shop that is used as the clubhouse in seasons 6 and 7 after the Teller-Morrow shop and original clubhouse were destroyed in an explosion. They also owned the warehouses out of which they ran their porn studios Cara Cara and Red Woody, and Diosa and Diosa Norte, the club's two escort agencies.
Shakespearean influence[edit]
Sons of Anarchy has been called "Hamlet on Harleys".[19] Similar to Hamlet, Jax's father was usurped by his father's SAMCRO "brother", who then married Jax's mother. Jax's murder of the innocent Jury in season 7 mirrors Hamlet's murder of the innocent Polonius in that it ultimately leads to his downfall.
Sutter has said of the Shakespeare element, "I don't want to overplay that but it's there. It was Jax's father who started the club, so he's the ghost in the action. You wonder what he would have made of the way it turned out. It's not a version of Hamlet but it's definitely influenced by it."[20] Ron Perlman believed they were "going to stick to the structure of Hamlet all the way to the end (of the series)."[21]
Numerous episode titles refer to Hamlet including:
Production[edit]
Crew[edit]
The series was created by Kurt Sutter. Sutter was also the showrunner, the series' most prolific writer, and a regular director; he directed each season finale. Sutter had previously worked as an executive producer for the FX series The Shield. The Sons of Anarchy's other executive producers are father and son team Art Linson and John Linson; Jim Parriott served as an executive producer and writer for the first season only.
Paris Barclay joined Sons of Anarchy as an executive producer in the fourth season, after directing episodes in the first and second season. In addition to serving as Executive Producer in the fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons, Barclay directed three episodes each season, including the season 4 and 5 premieres, the top two highest-rated telecasts in the history of FX.[4]
Jack LoGiudice served as a consulting producer and regular writer for the first season. He became co-executive producer for the second season, then left the series to work on The Walking Dead.
Dave Erickson also worked as a consulting producer for the first and second seasons, and then took over as co-executive producer for the third season. The series' other regular writers are supervising producer Chris Collins and co-producer Regina Corrado. Shawn Rutherford joined as consulting producer for seasons 6 and 7.
Sutter drew regular directors from The Shield including Stephen Kay, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Guy Ferland, and Billy Gierhart.
Filming[edit]
Although Sons of Anarchy is set in Northern California's Central Valley (with some scenes in the Bay Area), it was filmed primarily at Occidental Studios Stage 5A in North Hollywood. Main sets located there included the clubhouse, St. Thomas Hospital, and Jax's house. The production rooms at the studio used by the writing staff doubled as the Charming police station. External scenes were often filmed nearby in Sun Valley, Acton, and Tujunga.[24] Interior and exterior scenes set in Northern Ireland during season 3 were also filmed at Occidental Studios and surrounding areas. A second unit shot footage in Northern Ireland used in the third season.[25]
Other media[edit]
Comic book[edit]
In 2013, Boom! Studios began publishing a Sons of Anarchy comic book. As of September 2015, 25 issues have been published.[87] Issue 25 is the final issue. A new comic book prequel, Sons of Anarchy: Redwood Original, was released on August 3, 2016.
The comic series were published as Legacy Edition Collections as well: Sons of Anarchy Legacy Edition Book One,[88] Sons of Anarchy Legacy Edition Book Two,[89] Sons of Anarchy Legacy Edition Book Three.[90]
Novel series[edit]
Sons of Anarchy: Bratva, the first in a planned series of SOA novels to be written by Christopher Golden, was published in 2014.[91]
Potential prequel[edit]
A prequel series, detailing the origin of the club, is planned. Sutter stated in an August 2014 interview that the prequel would focus on the "First 9" members of the club and be set around the time of the Vietnam War. He added that the prequel would likely consist of a miniseries or "maybe 10 episodes or two 8 episode seasons". At the conclusion of the prequel, Sutter plans to release John Teller's manuscript, titled The Life and Death of SAMCRO.[92] However, the prequel is in limbo after some problems between Sutter and Disney arose.[93] Sutter was quoted saying that the possibility of making the First 9 "doesn't look that hopeful" since he was fired from FX and the studio owns Sons of Anarchy.[94]
Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect[edit]
Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect was an episodic adventure video game developed by Silverback Games and published by Orpheus Interactive.[95][96] The game was originally slated to have ten episodes and to be released on Microsoft Windows, OS X, iOS, and Android.[97] The first episode was released on February 1, 2015, for iOS only, and was met with mixed reviews.[98] It has not seen an update since, and, although a season pass is being offered, no further episode was ever released.[99] On April 7, 2016, refunds were issued to everyone who purchased the game or the season pass, and the game had been removed from the App Store.[96]
Despite the apparent cancellation and refunds, the game's publisher has not officially said anything about the development state of the nine unreleased episodes. Silverback Games has distanced themselves from the project, claiming to be "just a consultant" and having no knowledge of the state of the game or of Orpheus Interactive.[100]