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| It's Finally Over |
Welcome to another blog here, on the new DOINOW.com. As always, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to check this out. There are two topics to hit today, as I'll be discussing the Sons of Anarchy Finale, as well as the New York Rangers recent win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. I urge you check out the archives on the right hand side of this site to get a better feel of where I'm coming from, in addition to the fact that I've discussed SOA & the Rangers a lot here on DOINOW.com
I'm leading off with SOA today, as I've seen tons of opinions already all over the place. If you've been following my articles here, you know that I loved the first 3 seasons of SOA, but I thought the show just got dumb when they refused to kill Clay. You had 38743745745 people with a reason to kill Clay, but the show kept prolonging his existence on the show. I'm only assuming they kept him around because creator/show runner, Kurt Sutter, really liked the actor Ron Perlman. The show just got sillier and sillier to me when there would be 387473473 gunfights a day, 347374 murders and 2373743 car chases, but no one ever got arrested. You'd be lucky to see a police car.
What really rattled me was that as the show would go on, protagonist Jax Teller would get dumber and dumber as time went on. No, he didn't get Eric Matthews stupid as the seasons piled up, but he was constantly out-witted and could never see what was going on in front of him, especially with his mother. How many biker gangs have half their crews killed a month because of poor decision making from the leader? Why would anyone even want to join that gang anyway? The last season just felt like a 3734737437 hour long Saturday Night Live parody to me.
The show "jumped the shark", so to speak, several seasons ago, now it was just so ludicrous, you weren't mad at the show, you were just mad at what was. However, I guess as time goes on, it's hard to stay as creative and stay fresh as you were in your formative seasons. Few shows are like "Breaking Bad" or "The Shield" where it's a thrilling ride from start to finish. Even The Sopranos had some misses towards the end. Dexter was a complete shit-show. I feel SOA kinda got as silly and as bad as Dexter. If Jax was out logging somewhere in Washington, surviving his crash into the truck of Michael Chiklis, it wouldn't surprise me.
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| Glorifying Suicide |
Jax basically handles all his financial and property affairs. For a show that said the word "FAMILY" a million times an episode, Jax abandons his, thinking that suicide is the answer. So after 7 seasons, the last scene on this show is glorifying suicide, leaving two young children with a heroin addict & a Latino gangbanger. It was just like Dexter abandoning his step-kids & handing over his own son to a mass murderer. What happened, Jax didn't have a sister to dump in the ocean? Cool story Sutter.
It was so silly that despite the million shootouts and car chases you saw throughout SOA's run, that in the final scene, Sutter decides to recreate the OJ white bronco police chase with Jax. I know Sutter thinks he's Shakespeare and David Chase all in one, but how could you not just sit back and laugh? I laughed more here, than seeing that SOA's finale getting spoiled, on a quick cash grab book for the holidays which was released a week early. It's also very nice for SOA to sell an aesthetically nice looking box-set for the holidays, except it doesn't include season 7. Perhaps Sutter should've allowed Jax to use some of his shrewd business skills!
Another major question for me is why would anyone want to join this club? All day long it's gunfights and car chases. You got the United Nations of criminal activity conveniently located in small-town America. Of course, the IRA cares about some small town in California, as do "THE BLACK", "THE BROWN", "THE CHINESE", "THE AB", "THE SALVADORIANS", "THE TWEEKERS", "TYLER PERRY & MADEA" and the thousands of small motorcycle gangs like "The Grim Bastards", "The Mayans" and "Does Anyone Believe This Shit?"
Look at Jax's family tree. Stepfather killed real father with an assist from his mother. Best friend killed, but it was a justified hit. Friends daughter burned alive in front of him. Son kidnapped. Wife killed by mother. Another friend has his eye ripped out and shot to death in front of him. One blows up because of a land mine. One gets killed protecting drugs. Three of them turn on him. Another turns on him because he covered up his wife's death. Mother attempts to kill first wife and threatens her repeatedly. Father of best friend killed by stepfather. Oh, and you have to kill your own mother. WHERE DO I SIGN UP? And I almost forgot, to justify your existence you have to drive into an oncoming truck.
Another gripe I have, was that Unser deserved a better send-off. Why did Jax kill him anyway, if Jax was going to commit suicide the next day?
The best thing about the shows limping-to-the-finish seasons was the performance of Jimmy Smits as Nero. Even during some of the Anarchy Afterwards, you can see he was shy and maybe embarrassed being with Sutter and discussing the inane material. Nero made this show watchable and SOA should've stressed the fact that Jax needed Nero to save him.
I'm so glad this show is over. I really was hate-watching the last few seasons because I invested so much time into it already. If you're looking for an FX show that has been solid from start to finish, check out Justified, which airs on the Tuesday 10pm timeslot starting 1/20/15.
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| "Ugh, um um um um um ugh I don't know um um ugh um" |
Talk about a complete trainwreck. Sutter, who said he was drunk, probably because he had one Cosmo and a lemon drop before he went in front of the camera, proceeded to "UM UM UM UM UGH UGH UGH UM UM UM UM UGH UM UM UM I DON'T KNOW UM UM UM UGH UGH" his way through the next hour. I am not exaggerating. Just like the show itself in its final season, it came off as a SNL sketch by the 5 minute mark.
Imagine being directed by this guy?
"UM UM UM UM UGH UM UM, OK GET ON THE UM UM UM UM UGH BIKE CHARLIE, THEN UH, UM UM UM UGH UGH UM, MAKE VROOM VROOM SOUNDS WITH YOUR MOUTH UM UM UM UGH, THEN UH UM UM UM UM, KATEY, YOU GO TERRIBLY BUTCHER ANOTHER SONG UM UM UM UM UM UGH, PRODUCTION GUYS UM UM UM, CUE 3483838384TH MONTAGE OF THE UM EPISODE THEN AAAAH UM UM UGH UGH UM UM UM UM JUICE, TIME FOR A RAPE SCENE, UM UM UM UM UM UGH UM UGH, BLACKS CHINESE IRISH BROWN AB UM UM UM UM, GUN FIGHT TIME UM UM UM OK THATS UM UM A WRAP."
How did Sutter go from being on one of the greatest shows of all time, developing a hit show by himself, but just mangle the home stretch? For the wrestling people out there, I wonder if he's a better version of Vince Russo. Maybe he just needs a filter. FX let him do anything. He had a fat chick sit on some guys face, just because he could. The episodes were way too long, the material got silly and unbelievable and there was no reason to care about this club ever since Clay's betrayal.
Still, I give Sutter credit. He made millions off this show and had a ratings hit. I'm more disappointed in what it became than anything else. It's hard to stay fresh and write a hit show to begin with. You just imagine what it could've been if it had the same consistency in seasons one and two in seasons six and seven.
I wonder how many real-life heroes there are in this world that abandon their kids with a heroin junkie and drive face first into a truck?
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| Warming up |
In addition to the terrible play of Henrik Lundqvist once again, (Not going to rehash, I've done 3 articles alone on his pathetic play all season, with his stats, and for all that, check out the archives) the Rangers powerplay, which wasn't that bad at the beginning of the season, has virtually disappeared.
The Rangers have been getting some great powerplay opportunities too. From multiple 5 vs 3's, to double minors, the Rangers are really logging minutes on the PP. However, they have been scoreless in this department for two straight games. I think you need to have Nash & MSL together at all times on the ice, as no one feeds the puck to Nash like MSL. Maybe trying a fourth liner, like Kevin Hayes with them would shake things up. Klein should also join the unit, as he's been on a roll lately.
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| The Mick Foley of the NHL? |
Captain Ryan McDonagh is obviously still dealing with shoulder issues and I don't think Dan Boyle has been 100% healthy since breaking his hand on opening night. Staal is playing for a contract, but he might be doing that elsewhere after the trade deadline. Girardi has been a warrior but not producing offensively. Hunwick has played well and to his role. John Moore is losing favor from last year. However, Kevin Klein, like Kevin Durant says, "YOU THE REAL MVP" of this defense. Outside of broken sticks on slapshots, I can't remember a bad Klein turnover this season. The scoring is just a welcomed bonus.
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| Henrik Lundqvist this Season |
Couple of parting thoughts on the blueshirts:
Chris Kreider - what happened? I understand his grandfather died, and it might affect him, but I feel like the Ghost of John Tortorella is stalking him!
Mats Zuccarello- Zuuuuuuuuc picked up a ton of points last year through his gritty play and some puck luck. He's not getting the same puck luck this year, as his shots are hitting posts are sailing just high or wide of the net. Hopefully he figures it out, as the Rangers need him.
Anthony Duclair- now that he's been loaned to Team Canada's junior team, maybe the extra ice time will make him stronger when he gets back.
Kevin Hayes- you can see why he's so hyped up. The future is bright.
AV- time to make the goalie switch!
Thank you as always for reading,
Sean McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com
@NYCTHEMIC on the twitter
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