Sons of Anarchy throws the kitchen sink at us this week, with the best episode of the season thus far. An Elvis impersonator singing at a Bar Mitzvah provides a biker montage that is poor comedy, dada art, and overzealous creative license all at once. The show spends plenty of time trying to wow the audience into giddy laughter, but maybe this is too much crazy at one time. Bobby is the fat ugly of the motorcycle club, moonlighting as Elvis to pay his child support and alimony. He takes a job as the bookkeeper for the club’s new porn studio to make ends meet. Jax and Tara go for a gentle ride through the countryside for a picnic, where Jax draws a picture and playfully compares his penis to a steak, while his girl reads Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. What does this all mean?
The strange intro fades in memory though, and the proceedings get underway. This episode frames the town and the white trash dilemmas in a way that hasn’t been fleshed out before. There is a mill that provides the crux of the local economy, and the setting for some of the action. The white supremacists, here identified as the League of American Nationals, is bringing meth into the town of Charming to turn public opinion against the Sons, as if a biker club is as susceptible as the health care debate to populist consensus. The leader of the Nationals reveals his wife was killed in a drive-by, which put him on the road to violent racial warfare. Do-gooder Deputy Hale has made an uneasy alliance with the Nationals to flush the Sons out of Charming, ignoring the new meth labs springing up around town.
The other plotlines are painfully obvious: Gemma and Clay are having problems after her rape, Clay and Jax are butting heads, and the racists will be in conflict over utilizing the Mexican motorcycle gang (the Mayans). Still, the meth lab looks well-researched, the local neo-Nazi toughs are menacing, and the Sons of Anarchy prove to be adaptable, prepared criminals. The show has made some vague reference to the recession, with the Sons repossessing cars for a day job, and the Niners gang unable to sell heroin to rich professional suburbanites anymore. The show isn’t current events as much as Hillbilly 101, a lesson in the trials and tribulations of poor country life, at least of the illegal redneck variety. Hell, the club is repossessing cars, blowing up meth labs, and running a porn studio all at the same time. It screams red state America, and is probably the most honest (and only) show to cover the subject matter. I bet Country Music Television will hop on the bandwagon, and start a show about renegade truckers if Sons of Anarchy keeps its awesome ratings up.
The violence and the character work are warmed up and running at a nice pace now. Opie is still a brooding figure risking his life to deal with the death of his wife. Jax is still doing his worthless-criminal-who-everyone-loves act, and looks remarkably like a Jesus painting when viewed in profile. Tara learns the hard lesson of taking a rival girl down a few notches to send a message to any girl who might try to steal her man. And who can blame her? Jax is such a romantic that he finishes the episode by making “love” to Tara in the bathroom of the porn studio. The aforementioned competition walks in, and Tara shoots her a knowing glance, “you’ll never make love to MY man in a filthy restroom.”
