The show is dark, but with enough lighter moments and comedy to keep one from getting too depressed. At least that’s my opinion. I gave up on *Breaking Bad *mid-way through the second season because I found it too depressing. I’ll agree that it was a very well crafted program, but it was too depressing for me and by the time I gave up on it, I hated every single character on the show. Not so with SOA.
The white thing in the road was a chunk of bread. I think it was the same chunk of bread that that the homeless lady was nibbling on because it had the dark streak in the middle. The only symbolism I can imagine is that it establishes her “presence” at the scene of Jax’s departure.
Kenny Johnson (Lem) was also in the first season (or maybe second, but early in the run).
Jax went out selfishly, just the way he lived his life. Why drag the truck driver into his suicide. Just write a note and eat a bullet. Nope, he’s got to fuck up someone else’s life one last time. SAMCRO members were a bunch of friggin’ idiots to follow that selfish dope for so long. Blank Slate’s idea would have been better for the human race. Skim all these dummies off the top of the gene pool.
ETA: Even if it was a callback to JT’s death, JT was killed via bike sabotage. Jax did his on purpose.
The bike sabotage stuff was crap, just like Jerry said. A bad bike doesn’t cause you to go into the wrong lane on a lonely highway just as a semi is coming along. And a mechanic biker does know every sinew of his own bike, just like Jerry said. John did exactly what Jax did for the same reasons. And they were selfish. Jax was very talented and could have done anything with his life. He chose the outlaw life at every opportunity.
I agree that it was Christ imagery. Nothing about “Handsome Jack” was Christlike. He was entirely selfish. Just like Gemma. They were the Anti-Christ family.
I guess we were supposed to think (through the religious imagery) that Jax died to save the club from its sins. He managed in one day what he had been trying to do for the last few seasons - get them out of guns and into legitimate business and get all the “bad guys” off their backs. If he thought it would be smooth sailing for the club after that, I believe he was sadly mistaken. I don’t see Chibbs making any better decisions than Jax did. The Sheriff is not going to just throw up her hands. The other gangs aren’t going to give SAMCRO a pass just because Jax was a martyr. And none of the other guys had much of a problem with guns, anyway.
I did appreciate that he took out the rest of his enemies without a word, though. If you’ve got to kill someone there’s really no point in explaining it to them.
Every time Nero was on the screen I was thinking “run”. I’m glad he, Wendy and the boys got out. But I don’t think it’s a given that they all live happily ever after.
I thought Jax might live until he said “I’ve got this”.
I was reminded of the end of The Devil’s Rejects in which characters who by any reasonable standard are scum who’ve hurt a lot of people for no reason get a long, drawn-out, music-backed, cinematic if not semi-heroic death.
Wasn’t there an APB on Jax? I understand Unser dropped the assault charge, but Jax still carjacked a guy while fleeing the cops. I don’t see how he can plausibly waltz in and out of the DA’s office.
On balance, this series was an overall negative. I doubt I’ll be rewatching these episodes.
Well overall I really enjoyed the series. I’m glad to see Chibs and Tig didn’t get killed off. I was mostly okay with the finale and how things played out with Jax. Sometimes it was over the top but hello… that is this show and it rarely did subtle very well.
My biggest complaint was the extremely poor CGI at the very end. That was a seriously cringe worthy special effect.
Oh, and I don’t know if I’ve said it before but that “Afterword” show is seriously the worst thing ever put on t.v. It’s just painful to watch.
Yeah, he dies for his brother Sons but also for his flesh and blood sons, because he knows that’s the only way to keep them out of the life.
I also agree it was a fairly lame “Lookit me! I’m teh Christ!” moment (made more so by the lackluster compositing effects) that doesn’t even really feel like it fits because all his troubles come from his own sins. But then again, didn’t we all know he was going to go full Jesus? Mise-en-scene-wise, you need a visual representation, a gesture to reinforce the finality of the action. Hard to beat the lower-case-t maneuver.
And since this might be the last Sons of Anarchy thread (at least for a while), I just want to say that I cannot believe Gemma Teller Morrow and Turanga Leela are the same person.
Ultimately, I gather that in the biker culture presented on this show, only bikers count as real people. Everyone else exists to be exploited for whatever gains can be had. When Jax goes to his death, it has nothing to do with the various people he’s killed or hurt or even his own mother or really even his own kids - it’s because he killed Jury White, another biker.
This might be interesting to watch, as might a show about Oprichniks, but Jax getting a somewhat ennobling end irritates me, especially with the added bonus of his endangering the trucker just so he can have his Christ-like exit.
I think I will prefer to believe Jax survives (because the truck driver had plenty of time to see the police lights and come to a full stop, reducing the force of the collision) and spends the rest of his life in a prison hospital, partly paralyzed and brain damaged, monotony broken only by getting the occasional ass-rape.
The APB happened after he confessed everything to the DA and after Gemma and Unser’s bodies were found.
I had my eyes covered when Chibbs was supposed to execute Jax but looked when I heard Jax say “You okay?” to Happy after Chibbs shot Happy in the arm instead. I said to my husband “Did Happy even flinch?!”
I’m just happy that Kurt Sutter let Nero and Wendy ride off into the sunset with Abel and Thomas. Nero and Wendy were the only characters with any redeeming qualities.
I think the best part of the episode was when creepy little Abel was twirling that SONS ring on his finger.
I was referring to the earlier APB Unser arranged after Jax punched Unser at TM. While that was in effect, Jax ran from cops and stole a car at gunpoint. It’d be out of Unser’s hands at that point. Although Unser and Gemma were found, I don’t recall any mention of specifically linking this to Jax - there was more than enough to go after him based on his public murders of Barosky and Marks. Althea puts out the APB after getting a phone call, but it’s not really clear when she says “multiple homicide” if she is referring to Barosky, Marks, Marks’s associate, Gemma, Unser, or some combination thereof.
In addition to my preferred ending described above, I will choose to picture Wendy being shocked when she finds out Unser and Gemma are dead, and that Jax almost certainly killed them (there could be a ballistics match with Barosky and Marks) and, coupled with her feelings of guilt for inadvertantly helping this to occur, she very specifically shields the boys from any SOA knowledge or influences, which includes having her own tattoos removed and distracting Abel with a Tickle-Me-Elmo or whatever long enough to get the ring from him and flush it down the nearest toilet.
Ahh, thank you for clarifying. It seems the viewer needed a shit-ton of “willing suspension of disbelief” about the law enforcement during this series.
Like why, if there was a multi-cop car chase occurring on a two-lane highway for such a long distance, why wasn’t the other lane closed down? That was my first thought when the transport truck appeared.
On reviewing the final scene, I notice that the highway changes from four-lane to two-lane and back depending on the shot. I wouldn’t have thought an interstate freeway would be that variable. No wonder America’s infrastructure is in such a sorry state.
Plus the trucker yells “JESUS!” as Jax moves into his path, which I hadn’t noticed the first time.
There is no spot on I-580 that is only two lanes that I know of, and certainly not for an extended length as depicted. Of course, there is no town in San Joaquin County called “Charming” either.
Apparently because Charlie Hunnam broke his toe before shooting that episode. They felt that his having a limp would contribute to this feeling that everything is weighing on him and that he was even giving out physically. I personally think it would have been better to just make something up.
