SONS of ANARCHY [Season 7, Ep. 1 & 2 Reviews]: 50 Shades of Jax.

The Men of Mayhem are back for their seventh and final season. And damn if it doesn’t feel like it…

http://youtu.be/hXBftDP_TLU

The premiere opens with its usual musical montage, setting our beloved “Hamlet on Wheels” in motion: Jax (Pacific Rim‘s Charlie Hunnam) is in prison so he could keep Tara out of harms way; Gemma (Married with Children‘s Katey Sagal) has taken over taking care of Jax’s boys with Tara gone (nice work, bitch!); and the rest of the club is trying to mend together their minds after losing their HQs last season. Oh, except Juice (Cloverfield‘s Theo Rossi)– is on the run — or underneath a sleep-sofa — cause good ol’ Jackie wants his ass dead!

With so many chief characters killed off last season, this season already feels more like a sports team that’s barely making the playoffs with almost all of its star players out for the season.

Looking at the new, wooden big reaper, the Divine One just couldn’t help but notice so many Replacements that just don’t have half the presence or uniqueness of Piney, Clay, or Opie. Perhaps the addition of white supremacist leader Ron Tully (uh.. Marilyn Manson), and the upcoming appearances of Courtney Love and Lea Michele will add some new interesting spark to this ensemble.

With this episode clocking in at almost 2-hours — as most Sons season premieres do — you’d hope it’d be a bonus. Not quite. They could’ve easily edited a good thirty out, as the pacing felt more tiresome than anything.

The characters all walk around like they just got back from a month of partying in Vegas and they didn’t want to come back. (Likely!) The show just drags along, going from one person or group meeting up with another one to talk about…nothing. Really. Then there’s that subplot with the Sons “trying” to work together with the Chinese, the Mayans and the Irish. Oh yeah… And then they get all the groups together at a party to open up the new porn studio– which, by my account, already happened in Season 2 or 3. Sure, there’s a couple of fun action scenes to remind you of the utter craziness, but it’s few and far between in such a long episode.

To no surprise comes another montage at the end, this time to a cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody that felt like creator (and Kid Rock body double– we keed!) Kurt Sutter was stroking himself till he was raw when someone needed to come in and tell him it was time to put Mr. Happy away. Just unnecessary overindulgence. As if Sutter could give two shits what I think…

Maybe the second time around is better? Sort of.

Now that the plan has been hatched — and Jax is in full-on revenge mode against the Chinese for Tara’s death — this episode delivered a whole lot more action. Whew. Wendy (The Sopranos‘ Drea de Matteo) and Nero (NYPD Blue‘s Jimmy Smits) run errands together, which, of course, is funny in itself; but pairing up the two veteran actors made for some solid character development. Hell, I think I might even start liking Wendy. She’s got her act together and the “been there, done that” Nero could be just the right mentor to help her out. Unser (Deadwood‘s Dayton Callie) gets hired on as a consultant by new Charming Sheriff Jarry (The Bridge’s Annabeth Gish). Sounds fun.

The episode also takes a slightly more humorous turn, too. Maybe it’s in the vein of merely “giving them something to do” but the ongoing ribbing between Tig (Black Hawk Down‘s Kim Coates) and Ratboy (The Purge: Anarchy‘s Niko Nicotera) is gold.

But now.. onto my ongoing problem with this season. This whole revenge vendetta by Jax and the MC against the Chinese would be so awesome– it wasn’t all based on a lie. All these people they are killing, all the risk that he’s having all his guys make for him, all the hate he is dishing out…is all one big fucking mistake. Jax is making a bigger mess than the NFL Commissioner’s front office, making it nearly impossible to support our protaganist when he’s going down the total wrong path. And, worse yet, this anger has made Jax so blind that he even chooses to betray the trust of one the other MC charters. He’s becoming more of a monster than half of my fantasy football roster!

http://youtu.be/S_GtOO7RFAs

I have almost no love for the character anymore. The old saying goes, “if you don’t care about the characters, you can’t like the show”. Well, Sons of Anarchy has thrown me in the sidecar and that’s where they’re roaring me off to. First Gemma and now Jax.

I hope they get what’s coming to them because karma is a vile bitch.

FX’s Sons of Anarchy airs on Tuesdays at 10pm ET/PT.

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