Also the trucker would have seen all the cops coming and immediately slowed right down. It would have been better if they had him go over a cliff or something.
One last time, the IMDB poster with an epic summary to enjoy.
Spoiler!
...and so, we've reached the end of Sutter's pretentious claptrap.
Buckle up!
For the final time, the show opens with... A MONTAGE! Perhaps the most important montage of them all: Jax throws out his pearly whites and slips into something more outlaw. It only took seven seasons. Jax also broods a little, burns his father's letters and visits Opie and Tara's graves. About those letters... So, all that nonsense of spending four or five seasons bickering and infighting over these epic letters that would incriminate Character A, B and C if Character D got their hands on them - that just goes up in smoke? And I was under the impression that the letters were destroyed, no? Or did Jax secretly make a late night trip to Kinko's before they were supposedly destroyed? I'm a little foggy on the details, but no matter: I never cared about the letters. I always found it hilarious that JT's manuscript was about twenty pages and yet it took Jax three or four seasons just to read the whole thing, and even then, I'm not sure he ever did (what a maroon). I know finding time to brood on a rooftop whilst your father narrates what you're reading is a tall order when you're involved in silly chase scenes, one-sided shootouts and trying to wrangle your crappy accent. I'll forgive this whole letter fiasco on that basis.
Finally, SAMCRO brings on their first black member: Tio, from The Grim #######s (yes?). That's all well and good and, like, totally progressive and all, but Tio is relegated to just standing in the background or even offscreen for the remainder of the episode, like a good little token. D'oh.
BAM! Chase scene with a crappy cover of an Elvis song. Something to do with the Irish. I don't know. I don't care. I didn't like it in Season 3, I don't like it now.
After the ridiculous chase scene, Jax lays it all on the line for Chibbs. Mayhem has to land. Chibbs sobs. So emotional.
Enough of that nonsense for now, let's get back to the Oirish. Jax kills a couple of them in one of those "You're gonna tell so and so that..." scenes. There's at least one per episode, just like the montages.
Patterson returns for her cameo. We get a scene with her and Jarry and just maybe she will fire Jarry or at least point out what an incompetent, worthless, biker-humping bozo she is, but nope. Patterson actually compliments her on a job well done. Like, really? At this point in the episode, Tara and Roosevelt's murders have not yet been solved and Jarry has NO leads. Yeah, great job!
Jax kills more Oirish in one of SOA's patented "You're gonna tell so and so that..." scenes. Hey, that's two thus far! Don't push it. Good news is, the Oirish storyline finally comes to a close.
Back at TM, Jax gets in his requisite goodbyes with Nero, Wendy, his kids, even plastic hands. Nero somehow resists the urge to say Mano, or Hermano, or whatever variation he uses.
Chibbs and Jarry have one final scene together. He threatens her. You hear that? It's the sound of confirmation: Jarry was a pointless, worthless character.
Jax has a meeting with Patterson. He hands her all the information to put an end to the Tara/Roosevelt murders. Yay! Eli finally gets justice. Great police work, Jarry. I mean Jax.
Back at SAMCRO headquarters, everyone is crying and voting AYE to the proposition of Jax meeting Mr. Mayhem.
Oh, before I go any further, I just wanted to make it clear that Rat, too, was a pointless character. All that time spent with the homeless woman's daughter? Filler. For that matter, Happy as well. Why did they get promoted to series regulars? They contributed NOTHING. Remember on The Shield when David Rees Snell was promoted to series regular? They actually made him an important, pivotal character who had an arc with closure. You'd think Sutter, having been one of the head writers on that show, would have taken some of that over to SOA land. Nope. His pullover from that show is a goofy, wink wink, suck suck, slap slap, self-congratulatory joke that ends the episode. I'll get to that soon.
Where was I? Oh, right. Loose ends. Jax kills Barosky. Don't worry... OCP can rebuild him, they have the technology.
Elsewhere, just when we think we'll have ONE Gemma-free episode, we get to see her corpse. At least she didn't sing.
Finally, the big payoff to the homeless lady that we all pretty much figured out from the get-go: she's the Angel of Death or some such supernatural nonsense. Hey, in a show that bends reality as much as SOA, don't balk. She can weasel out of an APB as good as the rest of them.
Jax takes the homeless lady's quilt and dresses up as a bum, allowing him to get the drop on Marks... ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS! Several shots fired and not ONE SINGLE COP comes running out of the building. Of course not.
It's Mayhem time. Chibbs is President now, Tig is VP. Happy is now target practice in the episode's next plot twist: of course these guys aren't going to kill Jesu... I mean Jax. They let him "escape." I truly wanted to see him get blasted.
Jarry puts out an APB on Jax. Too bad he killed Unser - now how is he gonna get it dropped?
Jax has a moment with JT's rock, spouting Sutter's inane, pretentious poetry dialogue. Jax makes peace with the old man and promises to bring him a new coat of spray paint.
The APB is now in full effect with a cop stopping and demanding Jax get off his bike. Jax opens fire and, in a show of restraint that would make Ferguson envious, the cop does not return fire. Instead, we're treated to THE FINAL MONTAGE as fifty cops chase after Jax at about twenty miles an hour. The song is really awful, by the way, but you knew that would happen.
Here comes Sutter's lame ending gag: it's Michael Chiklis who kills Jax, sort of. Jax decides to commit suicide by running head on into Chiklis' truck. You see, as I was saying, Sutter refused to carry over the brilliant writing of The Shield and instead decided to fanwank by throwing in "see what I did here" cameos. If there's ONE positive thing I can say, at LEAST Chiklis' character was NOT Vic Mackey. No need in tarnishing that legacy anymore than you already have, Sutter. I wonder, though: were Milo's tomatoes unharmed during the crash? I hope so. He has an ex wife and four kids to feed.
Oh, and if you thought the wheelchair CGI was bad, how about Jax playing chicken with the semi? Here's an image I think sums up my thoughts perfectly:
Jax crashes, the song stops (yay) and a couple of crows chomp on some homeless woman bread as Jax' blood makes its way to the bread. END SCENE! END PRETENTIOUSNESS. Cue: The ####### Executioner, which I hope is as hilarious as the last five seasons of SOA; I need something else to recap and Sutter is the perfect maroon for my foibles.
Oh, and I see what you did there, Sutter, with throwing in that Shakespeare quote at the end there. You pretentious, hacky ######nozzle.
Honestly, it's been fun recapping this show. I really did enjoy it. Yes, it was poorly written and 90% of the time, COMPLETE nonsense. But it was an entertaining mess.
BTW, did we ever find out who Sam Crow was?
__________________
"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
Jax breaks is arm in the low MPH crash with the Truck, goes to prison and becomes Marlyn Mansons new toy. Also those Asians who liked Juice would like Jax even more. With no Sam Crow to protect him he would be in worse shape than Juice for sure...
It was an entertaining show. It won't win any awards for its writing or acting, but at the end of the day it was a fun show to watch. It could have been done in five seasons, but I am just glad that it has come to an end. Based on this show I have no desire to watch Sutter's next show though.. so maybe I didn't enjoy it as much as I think I did.
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
I'm glad it's over, whatever was cool about it got lost in the chaos of the last couple seasons. They got away from the biker lifestyle aspect of the show and just went full re***rd. So much potential.
One last time, the IMDB poster with an epic summary to enjoy.
Spoiler!
...and so, we've reached the end of Sutter's pretentious claptrap.
Buckle up!
For the final time, the show opens with... A MONTAGE! Perhaps the most important montage of them all: Jax throws out his pearly whites and slips into something more outlaw. It only took seven seasons. Jax also broods a little, burns his father's letters and visits Opie and Tara's graves. About those letters... So, all that nonsense of spending four or five seasons bickering and infighting over these epic letters that would incriminate Character A, B and C if Character D got their hands on them - that just goes up in smoke? And I was under the impression that the letters were destroyed, no? Or did Jax secretly make a late night trip to Kinko's before they were supposedly destroyed? I'm a little foggy on the details, but no matter: I never cared about the letters. I always found it hilarious that JT's manuscript was about twenty pages and yet it took Jax three or four seasons just to read the whole thing, and even then, I'm not sure he ever did (what a maroon). I know finding time to brood on a rooftop whilst your father narrates what you're reading is a tall order when you're involved in silly chase scenes, one-sided shootouts and trying to wrangle your crappy accent. I'll forgive this whole letter fiasco on that basis.
Finally, SAMCRO brings on their first black member: Tio, from The Grim #######s (yes?). That's all well and good and, like, totally progressive and all, but Tio is relegated to just standing in the background or even offscreen for the remainder of the episode, like a good little token. D'oh.
BAM! Chase scene with a crappy cover of an Elvis song. Something to do with the Irish. I don't know. I don't care. I didn't like it in Season 3, I don't like it now.
After the ridiculous chase scene, Jax lays it all on the line for Chibbs. Mayhem has to land. Chibbs sobs. So emotional.
Enough of that nonsense for now, let's get back to the Oirish. Jax kills a couple of them in one of those "You're gonna tell so and so that..." scenes. There's at least one per episode, just like the montages.
Patterson returns for her cameo. We get a scene with her and Jarry and just maybe she will fire Jarry or at least point out what an incompetent, worthless, biker-humping bozo she is, but nope. Patterson actually compliments her on a job well done. Like, really? At this point in the episode, Tara and Roosevelt's murders have not yet been solved and Jarry has NO leads. Yeah, great job!
Jax kills more Oirish in one of SOA's patented "You're gonna tell so and so that..." scenes. Hey, that's two thus far! Don't push it. Good news is, the Oirish storyline finally comes to a close.
Back at TM, Jax gets in his requisite goodbyes with Nero, Wendy, his kids, even plastic hands. Nero somehow resists the urge to say Mano, or Hermano, or whatever variation he uses.
Chibbs and Jarry have one final scene together. He threatens her. You hear that? It's the sound of confirmation: Jarry was a pointless, worthless character.
Jax has a meeting with Patterson. He hands her all the information to put an end to the Tara/Roosevelt murders. Yay! Eli finally gets justice. Great police work, Jarry. I mean Jax.
Back at SAMCRO headquarters, everyone is crying and voting AYE to the proposition of Jax meeting Mr. Mayhem.
Oh, before I go any further, I just wanted to make it clear that Rat, too, was a pointless character. All that time spent with the homeless woman's daughter? Filler. For that matter, Happy as well. Why did they get promoted to series regulars? They contributed NOTHING. Remember on The Shield when David Rees Snell was promoted to series regular? They actually made him an important, pivotal character who had an arc with closure. You'd think Sutter, having been one of the head writers on that show, would have taken some of that over to SOA land. Nope. His pullover from that show is a goofy, wink wink, suck suck, slap slap, self-congratulatory joke that ends the episode. I'll get to that soon.
Where was I? Oh, right. Loose ends. Jax kills Barosky. Don't worry... OCP can rebuild him, they have the technology.
Elsewhere, just when we think we'll have ONE Gemma-free episode, we get to see her corpse. At least she didn't sing.
Finally, the big payoff to the homeless lady that we all pretty much figured out from the get-go: she's the Angel of Death or some such supernatural nonsense. Hey, in a show that bends reality as much as SOA, don't balk. She can weasel out of an APB as good as the rest of them.
Jax takes the homeless lady's quilt and dresses up as a bum, allowing him to get the drop on Marks... ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS! Several shots fired and not ONE SINGLE COP comes running out of the building. Of course not.
It's Mayhem time. Chibbs is President now, Tig is VP. Happy is now target practice in the episode's next plot twist: of course these guys aren't going to kill Jesu... I mean Jax. They let him "escape." I truly wanted to see him get blasted.
Jarry puts out an APB on Jax. Too bad he killed Unser - now how is he gonna get it dropped?
Jax has a moment with JT's rock, spouting Sutter's inane, pretentious poetry dialogue. Jax makes peace with the old man and promises to bring him a new coat of spray paint.
The APB is now in full effect with a cop stopping and demanding Jax get off his bike. Jax opens fire and, in a show of restraint that would make Ferguson envious, the cop does not return fire. Instead, we're treated to THE FINAL MONTAGE as fifty cops chase after Jax at about twenty miles an hour. The song is really awful, by the way, but you knew that would happen.
Here comes Sutter's lame ending gag: it's Michael Chiklis who kills Jax, sort of. Jax decides to commit suicide by running head on into Chiklis' truck. You see, as I was saying, Sutter refused to carry over the brilliant writing of The Shield and instead decided to fanwank by throwing in "see what I did here" cameos. If there's ONE positive thing I can say, at LEAST Chiklis' character was NOT Vic Mackey. No need in tarnishing that legacy anymore than you already have, Sutter. I wonder, though: were Milo's tomatoes unharmed during the crash? I hope so. He has an ex wife and four kids to feed.
Oh, and if you thought the wheelchair CGI was bad, how about Jax playing chicken with the semi? Here's an image I think sums up my thoughts perfectly:
Jax crashes, the song stops (yay) and a couple of crows chomp on some homeless woman bread as Jax' blood makes its way to the bread. END SCENE! END PRETENTIOUSNESS. Cue: The ####### Executioner, which I hope is as hilarious as the last five seasons of SOA; I need something else to recap and Sutter is the perfect maroon for my foibles.
Oh, and I see what you did there, Sutter, with throwing in that Shakespeare quote at the end there. You pretentious, hacky ######nozzle.
Honestly, it's been fun recapping this show. I really did enjoy it. Yes, it was poorly written and 90% of the time, COMPLETE nonsense. But it was an entertaining mess.
BTW, did we ever find out who Sam Crow was?
I think that person simply does not like television shows, because they all have similar flaws. I'm sure he thinks he is the smartest person in the world for pointing them out though. One thing that bothers me though, and this goes for a lot of shows these day, is that the finales are just way too predictable. Everyone knew a long time ago what was going to happen.
The whole Christian symbolism was a little too much for me as well. Crashing into the truck while doing the Jesus Christ pose, with the (sam) crows (i.e., the surviving Sons/disciples) eating the bread and wine, then the blood trickling into it...meh.
I thought it was funny too how at the end it was all dramatic and then the corny ending credits music started playing...dee nee nee nee nee nee neeneeeoooo. It kind of killed the moment if there was one.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 12-12-2014 at 09:29 AM.
I think that person simply does not like television shows, because they all have similar flaws. I'm sure he thinks he is the smartest person in the world for pointing them out though. One thing that bothers me though, and this goes for a lot of shows these day, is that the finales are just way too predictable. Everyone knew a long time ago what was going to happen.
The whole Christian symbolism was a little too much for me as well. Crashing into the truck while doing the Jesus Christ pose, with the (sam) crows (i.e., the surviving Sons/disciples) eating the bread and wine, then the blood trickling into it...meh.
I thought it was funny too how at the end it was all dramatic and then the corny ending credits music started playing...dee nee nee nee nee nee neeneeeoooo. It kind of killed the moment if there was one.
I don't think ending a series in a predictable way is necessarily a bad thing. IMO, every series that has gone against the grain with an ending (Lost, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, etc.) have actually left a bitter taste in my mouth about the show despite trying to be edgy and unique. The only other one that bucked the trend a little bit was The Sopranos, but it had just the right amount of ambiguity that it worked (for me, anyway).
I knew how Breaking Bad was going to end up, same with The Shield to some extent (still some unexpected elements), and the same with SOA. They were all satisfying.
__________________ "It's a great day for hockey."
-'Badger' Bob Johnson (1931-1991)
"I see as much misery out of them moving to justify theirselves as them that set out to do harm." -Dr. Amos "Doc" Cochran
I don't like to overthink too much when I watch TV, I feel like I can enjoy shows for what they're supposed to be. I enjoyed Sons from beginning to end, and while this last season certainly wasn't my favorite of the 7, I was still entertained. I thought the ending was great. I'm pretty sad it's all over, probably one of my favorite series of all time.
I always found it interesting, especially with the finale, to read interviews from the producers and directors about their perspective on what certain things mean. Gives pretty good insight about the story they're trying to tell.
Also, hugely unpopular opinion, but I always loved the music on the show.
I don't like to overthink too much when I watch TV, I feel like I can enjoy shows for what they're supposed to be. I enjoyed Sons from beginning to end, and while this last season certainly wasn't my favorite of the 7, I was still entertained. I thought the ending was great. I'm pretty sad it's all over, probably one of my favorite series of all time.
I always found it interesting, especially with the finale, to read interviews from the producers and directors about their perspective on what certain things mean. Gives pretty good insight about the story they're trying to tell.
Also, hugely unpopular opinion, but I always loved the music on the show.
The music was awesome. One of the main reasons to watch the show IMO. I would have never found out about the White Buffalo had it not been for it. Battleme's version of Hey Hey My My was pretty good too.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Had to watch just to get it over with. Decent enough but glad it is done. The only ending that would have left me satisfied is Chucky finally going crazy and chopping all of SAMCRO down with prosthetic hands screaming I don't except that after finding out about Gemma. Otherwise, blah.
Music was always great on SOA and you can grab it on spotify. Great covers or great songs.
Sutter has said that it is open for interpretation. Personally I didn't reach the homeless woman = Jesus conclusion at all. In season 6 they hinted at the posibility that she's Brookes mother who faked her own death.
The series was never a masterpeice, and more holes than the last 10 years of the Oilers defensive game, but the last season was almost unbearable.
Throw as much gratuitousness against the wall and see what stuck was the plan this year. Situations (mostly killing) that caused 2 or 3 episodes of club/street/character fallout in previous years, with club and various character dilemma/development and then resolution, went largely ignored suddenly this season, as the episode had to move onto the next scene that didn't make sense, rather then dwell on what happened for any length of time.
Then, toss in random stuff like the 17 year old baby sitter who was in love with Rat, and had some heart to heart and that she was bipolar and why did he hang out with her...then nothing past that, other then he banged someone else two episodes later....and...that was it for either of their development or talk of their relationship. It appeared to be tacked on...writers awkwardly trying to develop those characters, since they stopped Jax and and his thoughts/writings in his diary from other seasons.
Anyways, this last season was the writers accelerating timelines much faster than previous seasons, to get all loose ends tied up. It came across as sloppy, past the point of believability in almost every episode this season. Took half an episode to get Juice to and back from some motel, or people to and from the cabin, but driving to Oregon and back for Jax was 1/4 episode.
Tacking on scenes both for shock value, but also to pretend that there was some deeper meaning, was horribly executed. It's as if these writers and producer knew that the end was coming and wanted to beef up their personal resumes and show they could write something "deeper", and have a body of work that wasn't just gang-style shootings. And they failed...and with that, and the rushed nature of everything else this season, left a sour taste in the original theme, in wrapping up this series.
As popular as the show was, and as much as they think they're part of the none of those guys are going to be writing or producing any Emmy winning things after something like this (Sutter included, IMO), so I suspect to see them fall back to this and try to cash back in with an SOA in 2-3 years, probably with most of the Redwood charter (or what is left, maybe the club got decimated, and the show is about someone trying to start in back up), along with maybe Wendy, Jimmy Smits and the kids possibly grown up.
Well that was a painful season to slog through. I figured the final season was going to be weak compared to how 6 ended but it was approaching Dexter's level of "We have no idea what we're doing" from the writers. And same with Dexter I just plowed through, fast forwarding through most of the "emotional" scenes, just to finish the damn series
The show was good in early seasons because it was just a fun biker gang romp that no one really took too seriously. That was completely abandoned for the final run and there was no fun to be had, just a bunch of actors painfully overacting with no real direction until the very end. Just a sad way to see the series end up
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Sutter has said that it is open for interpretation. Personally I didn't reach the homeless woman = Jesus conclusion at all. In season 6 they hinted at the posibility that she's Brookes mother who faked her own death.
I never came to the woman = jesus thing either, never even crossed my mind. I've always seen her as more of a guardian angel, the Brooke thing threw me off but then SAMCRO/Gemma/Jax took her in and helped her and looked over her like she was Jax & Gemma.
Sutter said in an interview that she was straight up Jesus Christ. Although I don't understand why. Jax meets her in the alley, and she gives him her blanket and says it's time. Next thing you know he's gunning down Marx in front of the courthouse. WWDJ that?
Then I read some articles about how he was being sarcastic and she is whatever you want her to be. I'm gonna go with that she's the Grim Reaper.
Sutter said in an interview that she was straight up Jesus Christ. Although I don't understand why. Jax meets her in the alley, and she gives him her blanket and says it's time. Next thing you know he's gunning down Marx in front of the courthouse. WWDJ that?
Then I read some articles about how he was being sarcastic and she is whatever you want her to be. I'm gonna go with that she's the Grim Reaper.
I thought she was more like the Reaper as well. If anything, Jax was being made out to be Jesus in that scenario.
I thought the fact she was standing there eating bread and drinking wine made the Jesus reference obvious, but then she handed him a shroud that Jax wrapped himself in (Jesus was wrapped in a shroud while being crucified). Then when Jax crashed into the truck while putting his arms up like a cross, it was totally playing up the whole Jesus/martyr aspect. Then the wine soaked bread was shown being devoured by crows was symbolic for Jesus's disciples at the Last Supper.
I took it more as Jax was being symbolically compared to Jesus and the woman was more like the angel of death delivering the message to him. The Christian references were very blatant either way though.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
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I thought she was more like the Reaper as well. If anything, Jax was being made out to be Jesus in that scenario.
I thought the fact she was standing there eating bread and drinking wine made the Jesus reference obvious, but then she handed him a shroud that Jax wrapped himself in (Jesus was wrapped in a shroud while being crucified). Then when Jax crashed into the truck while putting his arms up like a cross, it was totally playing up the whole Jesus/martyr aspect. Then the wine soaked bread was shown being devoured by crows was symbolic for Jesus's disciples at the Last Supper.
I took it more as Jax was being symbolically compared to Jesus and the woman was more like the angel of death delivering the message to him. The Christian references were very blatant either way though.
I took it as the show was stupid and didn't know what else to do
Enjoyed the series, man the last season or so was bad. Worse then the IRA kidnapped Able (which was awful) season.
But really, crows, blood, bread..... head shakingly awful, including the cgi.
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I took it as the show was stupid and didn't know what else to do
Enjoyed the series, man the last season or so was bad. Worse then the IRA kidnapped Able (which was awful) season.
But really, crows, blood, bread..... head shakingly awful, including the cgi.
Yeah, season 3 and season 7 were just bad. I had a hard time getting through season 3, especially when they were in Ireland. But every other season I really, really enjoyed. 1, 2 and 4 were fantastic
So what happened to Jax's leg in the 2nd last episode?
They just decided he should limp for 1 episode and then never see out a reason for it?
Too many examples like that where the show put something in there and forgot to actually explore it. They clearly had no idea where they were going from episode to episode and just threw it together as they could.
