I ignored Sons of Anarchy when it first came out... The pilot sort of left me cold, and I wasn't really in the mood for it. So... Four years later, the first two seasons pop up as watch instant on Netflix. I queue them up and give it a second chance. The first season, after a few episodes, gets you hooked pretty quickly. They're doing the Hamlet thing, and there's the whole outlaw motorcycle bad boy thing that's fun.
I'm now on the third season, which has devolved into something of a comedy murder caper, but it's still got punch.
The overall problem is that they're not quite sure how to handle the anti-hero aspect of the gang. By the third season, they're all big softies with amusing psychotic quirks who can't help but get in trouble, often at the hands of truly over the top villains. Season one was a quiet little meander examining how the gang's gun running was up against the changing times. A new era where small town politics and corruption wasn't as easily swallowed, and they came up against their regular enemy June Stahl, an ATF agent who has spent the last three seasons pursuing them relentlessly. Though she was sidelines by the hilariously evil White Separatists in the second season and the third season finds them up against a suddenly (after 25 years of dealing guns with them) insane True IRA.
Even though the characters have all drifted from sympathetic anti-heroes to lovably misunderstood eccentrics, the show still has a hold on me. Mainly because, especially starting with the second season, the storyline drifted into soap opera country. Everything is building in that way modern shows do. So, after a while, it's like when you're waiting for a bus but have the option to walk home. I've put in 30 minutes already...I'll give it another 15. That's my feeling with season three. Well, I gate it two seasons. I'll see where we're going with all this.
I'll report back when the boys are done extracting themselves from hilarious hijinks north of the border.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Anarchy
