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Sons of Anarchy Thread (spoilers inside)
KridesBrideBritt
Posts: 25,781 jayfacer
So, after complaints, even though the Season 4 is over and we can't seem to keep our SOA craziness in the TV thread....talk about it here. Spoilers will ensue.
So...how about Jax taking the gavel?
So...how about Jax taking the gavel?
Post edited by KridesBrideBritt on
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It seems that SOA continues to delight and frustrate critics/reviewers/bloggers/guys-that-haven't-been-laid-since-911. As you can imagine, that fact also delights and frustrates me. Time after time, reviewers will complain that Sons always flirts with greatness, yet never achieves it. It lays the track to perfection, but always derails. Perhaps. In some ways, I guess it parallels it's creator. I'm a half-smart guy with a flare for the absurd, but I'm more than a few runways short of brilliant. But, self-deprecation aside, I think the bigger issue is a lack of understanding of what the show really is. And that isn't to say that critics are stupid. Some are. Most aren't. But a lot of critics don't seem to understand what I'm trying to do season after season. It's like going to see a Summer blockbuster movie and being disappointed because it's not as complex as the Godfather.
Some critics get it. Ken Tucker, Matt Zoller Seitz revel in the giddy truth. Sepinwall and others continue to bang their heads against a wall, applying a level of analysis that is best reserved for a David Simon show. The Wire, we ain't, nor do we aspire to be. For the record, SOA is an adrenalized soap opera, it's bloody pulp fiction with highly complex characters. Often, I think the depth of the characters, the emotionality of the writing and the amazing performances is what confuses critics. Those qualities put the show on par with other great dramas. But then I'll go and cut the balls off a clown or turn a plot point absurdly upside down and I will most certainly blow something the fuck up. It's those things that drive critics crazy. Why can't I just stay the course. Be what they want me to be -- measured and predictable.
So why don't I do that? Why lean so heavily on the pulp? Maybe this backstory will shed some light: When John Landgraf wanted to move ahead with SOA, he went to his then boss, Peter Chernin, and told him he was going to greenlight the show. Chernin told him it was a mistake. No one would watch a show about a bunch of dirtbag bikers. He thought it was a nasty, unpleasant world. But Landgraf knew the operatic Hamlet approach of my pitch might be able to avoid the ugly, meth-reality and deliver the thematic attractiveness of the subculture. Yes, the MC world can be a dark, brutal place. It doesn't have the glamor of the Mafia or the urban sway of street gangs. Chernin was right, a straight up drama, no matter how well done, wouldn't have lasted more than a season. I knew instinctively, as did John Landgraf, that dark humor and pulp operatic storytelling would be the best way to open up this world to viewers. That to balance the danger and brutality of the world, the show needed to be entertaining and, dare I say, fun. The truth is, I have a very healthy ego. I have no desire to run a show that only a few hundred thousand people watch. I'll go do theatre if I want an audience that size. My challenge as a showrunner, season after season, is to balance art and commerce. How do I keep the show rich, complex and authentic and yet entertain the fuck out of people? It sounds easy, but it's not. Trust me, it would be much easier to write a straight ahead drama to please the critics. You guys are easy. But I'm not writing the show to convince people how brilliant I am. I'm writing it to excite, thrill and engage an audience. And I can only hope that my talent as an artist and producer shine through.
Clearly, sometimes it doesn't. As I look at the WGA Award nominees this morning, I realize the thing that frustrates critics is probably the same thing that keeps us an arms-length away from awards. I'd confidently put the quality of our writing, acting and directing up against any other show. But the pulp, entertaining nature of Sons will always keep us a few rungs down the ladder from the obvious choices. Or maybe we just suck and I'm delusional. That's very possible.
Anyway, I'll keep writing the show the way I always have and hopefully the audience will continue to show up. And the critics will lament how imperfect and frustrating the show is to watch and yet they'll continue to watch it and write about it, week after week, after week, after week... it's almost as if they're being entertained.
I was going to tag this entry by calling them all cunts, but maybe that's a little harsh.
Half-cunts.
Sons of Anarchy Season Finale Post Mortem: Kurt Sutter Tackles Burning Qs and Previews Season 5
Phew. Sons of Anarchy concluded what has arguably been its finest season (take note, Emmy!) with an edge-of-your seat, twist-filled, game-altering hour that tied up a number of loose ends and planted just enough seeds to keep viewers pumped for Season 5. In the following Q&A, the show’s passionate, outspoken creator, Kurt Sutter, weighs in on the finale’s biggest question marks and reveals what’s in store when the show returns next year.
Was it always your plan to have Clay survive the season?
Yeah. The character of Clay was essential to me for at least a couple more seasons. There’s so much more dramatic ground to cover with Jax at the head of that table and Clay now almost the Piney character in that he’s weakened and stripped of some of his previous weight and power. To me, that’s a really interesting dynamic. And quite honestly, I didn’t want to waste the power of Jax having that knowledge and passion and knowing about the deceit that happened and the secret that’s been kept from him for all these years with just one episode of him killing Clay. Because then it’s done. He’s avenged his father’s death and it’s almost like that storyline kind of burns out, and I just feel there’s a lot more story to tell there. I equate it to a little bit of what we did on The Shield. When Vic found out that Shane was responsible for killing Lem, we played out a whole season with those two guys knowing that. It was so much fun to have those two guys [harbor] intense hatred and and yet they had to suit up every day and go to work together. That’s just really fun fertile ground for story.
The Tara-Gemma dynamic was forever altered, too. They’re essentially becoming the same person. Moving forward, what is the one thing that prevents Tara from truly becoming like Gemma?
That was always the idea to have Gemma kind of bring Tara close and ultimately create her own little Frankenstein there. Look, I don’t think we’re going to waste the arc that we built with Tara this season. Meaning, she’s not going to go back to the, “Am I in or am I out?” Tara that we’ve seen previously. But clearly Tara is not Gemma… Tara gives Jax that syringe and says, “This is how you [kill Clay].” Well if it was Gemma, she would have already done it, so there’s still an element of Tara that’s somewhat removed. I don’t thing Tara would actually be able to go up to Clay and put a bullet in his head or put the syringe in the tube. Is Tara really capable of becoming Gemma? And what happens if she’s put in a position where she has to make that ultimate sacrifice for her family and her club? Is she going to be capable of going that dark? So I do think they’re definitely some struggles with Tara yet to play out.
Tara and Clay now have something in common, in that they both know that Gemma is concealing the truth about her role in JT’s death from Jax.…
Right.
I have to imagine that that’s going to be a big story for next season.
I think so. It’s interesting — people have been asking me what’s going to happen with Clay and Gemma, and I’m not quite sure yet. I just know that they will always be intrinsically connected because of the secrets and the lies that they have together. And that’s an example of one. It’s why when Gemma sees Clay alive at the end [of the finale], that’s just a really bad thing for her. That’s a really big, dangerous loose end. So that will be something that we will definitely play with next season. And for Tara, that definitely gives her some leverage over Gemma. There are definitely still some loose ends from those letters — even though we see Gemma burning them. The physical evidence is missing, but Tara has enough weight with Jax that if she told him the truth, even without seeing the letters I think he would believe Tara. Perhaps Jax might not believe Clay, but I definitely think he would believe Tara. So I do believe there is some danger there even though she’s destroyed the evidence firsthand.
Is it safe to assume that the crime boss father of Leroy’s dead girlfriend will be a huge character next season?
Yeah. In terms of the level of participation, that always remains to be seen. But I definitely wanted to lay some track for Season 5 and put some complications already on Jax’s shoulder as he’s sitting at the head of the table. He’s already got a problem [going into Season 5].
Is it possible that we’ve seen the last of Opie for now?
I don’t think so. It was never my intention to suggest that he is away. To me, it was just too convenient and too soon for Opie to suddenly come back to that table with Jax. So much has happened to him and he’s such a thoughtful guy. I just think he’s the kind of guy that’s going to [need] a minute to put all this stuff in order in his head. And we’ll probably build some kind of story around that before he’s able to actually come back and be [at Jax's side]. So that was just [a matter of] protecting the character and then to give me some story play for next season as well.
Given the pressing nature of the Irish deal, will Season 5 pick up almost instantly?
Fairly close. Obviously, there’s not going to be the huge break we did between Seasons 3 and 4. But I’ll try to [build in] a little time, maybe a month or so.
Where do you stand on setting an end date to the show?
I’ve had a conversation with [FX president] John Landgraf and I look at [doing] potentially seven seasons. And, honestly, that’s really just coming from the model of the show and knowing that usually by Season 6 and 7 the above-the-line costs start to get pretty high and the show sort of loses profitability and it’s really difficult to continue to [produce] beyond that point. So my thought was that if I could get seven seasons, I’d definitely have stories to tell and a way to end it. So ideally, I’d love to be able to get another three seasons.
Tuesday nights will now suck.