Sons of Anarchy: A portrait of society turned up to 11

I started watching Sons of Anarchy, season one, episode one, because of a low-profile movie staring Elijah Wood.

True story.

It was a movie recommended to me by a then colleague at Blockbuster Video. The movie, Green Street Hooligans, quickly became one of my favorite films. I don’t know if I could ever put my finger on why, but something about the tale of the GSE enthralled me as a viewer. The lead character, Pete Dunham, was played by a guy I had never heard of named Charlie Hunnam. And he was fantastic in the role. He wasn’t ordinary at all.

Oh yeah, Elijah Wood was in the movie too.

So I looked up some of his work and the next thing I found was that he did a short-lived Judd Apatow television show called Undeclared with Seth Rogan and Jay Baruchel. I was intrigued. The show was good. But it wasn’t Pete Dunham, that is for sure. And then in 2008, I saw a trailer on FX for a show called Sons of Anarchy, and there was Pete Dunham, again a renegade, now on a Harley with long blonde hair.

Count me in.

And then I watched the first episode and looked across the room at my sister, equally a Green Street Hooligans fan. We were unconvinced. Sons of Anarchy, season one, episode one sure didn’t hit the spot for me. Yes it had Hunnam, the guy who played Hell Boy (Ron Perlman as Clay Morrow), Peggy Bundy (Katey Sagal at Gemma Teller Morrow) and the paralyzed guy from Remember the Titans (Ryan Hurst as Opie Winston), but it didn’t draw my interest initially.

But as time went on, it became what it is today: probably my favorite show on television. The tale of the Teller family is a deep, integrated web of emotion, pride, sadness and straight up crazy. As the final season wraps to its last two episodes, I can’t help but think, as I do with my of the “classic” shows I have watched (i.e. Lost), how can they ever top this? What will ever be better, in this same niche genre, as Sons?

Kurt Sutter, the show’s creator, is a genius. I mean, he’s sick in the head (trust me, just watch the show), but he’s a genius. The family portrayed in this show wouldn’t be allowed within ten feet of Jerry Springer’s stage, or Maury’s. They are delusional, depraved and semi-psychotic. But Sutter tells their tale, of betrayal and pillage and murder and he makes you love these characters. He also makes you hate them. I can honestly look at the main character, Jax Teller (portrayed by Hunnam) and say that throughout the run of this series, I have liked him, and I have hated him, been confused by him and been sad for him.

His run of an emotional gambit in this week’s episode was Hunnam’s acting, Sutter’s creation at it’s best.

The show has many things. The sadness and anger is counteracted by smiles and happiness. Jokes, in poor taste or not, lighten the mood enough. Maybe Sutter does that just to crash you down to reality.

Even Happy (the Sgt. at Arms of SAMCRO, not the emotion) is a picture of both bi-polar emotions of the show. Ok, Happy is especially the picture of the bi-polar emotions of the show.

The reality that is true today that probably was not true when the first episode of Sons aired is that you can never take a moment off. Not mentally, not emotionally. Sons is the ultimate, epic roller coaster. For every up, there are probably three downs and they all happen bang-bang in an episode. There is no break in Sons, even those so-called filler episode have a lot going on, even if it isn't high paced for the adrenaline junkies.

In a word, conflict is what has made Sons of Anarchy.

The conflict in the story, physically or emotionally manifested hints at the conflict in all of us. I may not hop on a Harley or shoot down a white supremacist because of my conflict, but it doesn’t mean we all as viewers don’t share in it all.

What would you do for your family? And what do you do when what you thought was right has unintended, perhaps devastating consequences?

Sons of Anarchy is a show about a train wreck of people, their thoughts, actions and instability. It is a portrait of society turned up to 11. And it is, perhaps, my favorite show on television today. At least for a couple more weeks.

Guess I have Elijah Wood to thank for that.

John Ross Ewing: Television's best character snuffed out too soon

Finally, back refreshed from my honeymoon with my second installment of this new blog. And I knew all along exactly what this second entry was going to be. This second entry was (and in ways, still is) about what I feel to be the best character on television today.

And then something happened while I was gone. TNT happened. And surprisingly, the re-boot of Dallas was cancelled just after its third season ended with a couple of intense cliff hangers. And as a fan, it was heart breaking. But I digress some. The cancellation is only relevant to this column because my plan all along was to talk about Josh Henderson’s portrayal of John Ross Ewing on Dallas and how I believe it to be the best character on television.

I guess this means I now this that it was the best character that WAS on television in the last year.

Dallas, as a show, has a lot of history. Because of that, there was a lot of skepticism when it was re-booted all these years later with fresh faces co-mingling with the old faces. There were a lot of fans of the original Dallas that these new faces had to impress. There were familiar actors in new characters (Jordana Brewster has had a solid movie career, Jesse Metcalfe has done some movie and soap opera work), and then there was Josh Henderson. Not to say that Henderson was not well versed before he was cast for the Dallas re-boot, but those roles weren’t very big. Dallas was the first big stage for Josh Henderson and he was dealt the toughest hand.

Loved, hated — the character of JR Ewing (portrayed by Larry Hagman) is absolutely the most iconic character from the show’s long and varied history. JR Ewing is one of the most iconic characters in the history of television. And while Hagman was going to be returning to that role, the depth of it was unknown. He was older, in bad health and TNT clearly wanted to put a focus on the younger, sexier characters. Enter Henderson. All of the sudden, the former pop star had to be the new JR. John Ross Ewing was already going to be a tough role for anyone to fill. But now, he couldn’t just be John Ross as John Ross, Henderson had to be John Ross as JR.

How do you replace an iconic character like JR? Especially when that character still existed? That was the task for Josh Henderson and he passed with more than flying characters during Dallas’ three-season run.

John Ross Ewing was every bit as compassionate, conniving and unruly as his father. But more importantly, with today’s audience that can be so fickle, John Ross was every bit as compelling as a character as JR ever was.

I picked up on the Dallas reboot initially because I liked Jesse Metcalfe (Christopher Ewing) as an actor, so I wanted to give the show a chance. But as a television fan, I fell in love with Dallas mostly because of Josh Henderson’s portrayal of John Ross. Let’s face facts, with the exception of a choice few shows and characters, television today is bland and boring more often than not. Shows get cancelled before they ever get a chance to gain footing and a lot of characters are cookie cutter. The Christopher Ewing character, as must as I enjoy Jesse Metcalfe and his acting, the character was cookie cutter. It was a role meant to be stable and safe. Most roles anymore are made to be safe.

John Ross Ewing was not a safe role and Henderson never played it safe. Nobody else could play John Ross, especially in such a captivating way. By the end of Dallas’ third season, there was a lot of intrigue into different storylines, sadness at the death of Ewing, but for me I was hanging on John Ross’ every move.

The character was written to perfection, especially after Hagman’s death (and with it, the death of the JR character) because John Ross absolutely had to be JR now. His Jekyll and Hyde personality went from excellent to out of this world. He was good, he was evil, and he didn’t want to be his father but absolutely was.

What I find interesting is that even on blockbuster shows that I have been a fan of; it’s the ensemble that often makes it work more than not. And even if individuals were strong, they didn’t touch Henderson. I was a big fan of Lost, as were millions of others, but no character on that show was as good of an individual character as John Ross. Josh Holloway’s portrayal of Sawyer was a personal favorite of mine but I would not have watched Lost solely for Sawyer. I’d watch Dallas exclusively for John Ross’ character. Today, Sons of Anarchy is another personal favorite of mine with a lot of fun characters and one — Jax Teller — is deeply compelling, but absolutely not in the same vein as John Ross.

I started watching Dallas for Metcalfe and out of intrigue. But at the end of the day, Dallas, to me, was about John Ross Ewing. The writing was perfect, as was Henderson. No character on television today is as captivating as John Ross was for three seasons. He took the toughest role, watched it get tougher and rose above every challenge better and better than before because you just never knew what John Ross had up his sleeve or what he was going to do. Nobody could get that across like Henderson. Television will be less in the coming seasons without that character.

The perfect game of Big Brother

There is one thing, in my opinion, that really needs to be taken away from the now-wrapped up season 16 of popular CBS reality show Big Brother: we may have just seen the best game play in the history of the show.

I have been watching Big Brother since season 2 when I was sucked in by the enthralling play of Dr. Will Kirby, widely regarded as the best player in the history of the game. There have been the players like Dr. Will or Dan Gheesling, who until now stood alone atop the heap. There have been winners like Mike Boogie and Hayden Moss who have done well enough and those like Andy Herren and Maggie Ausburn who have been downright horrible.

And now, there is Derrick Levasseur. A cop from Rhode Island, Derrick was one of my two favorite players from the beginning of this season next to the brash Zach Rance. And Derrick played the game — yes, I will say it — perfectly.

Never on the block in 55 nominations and renoms. Never targeted during the “most twisted summer yet.” Never on anyone’s radar as he made big moves, orchestrated different strategies and puppeteered who he needed to when he needed to. Derrick’s game was flawless because he never had to be the one to pull the trigger. He was the truest of true hitmen.

And it was impressive, which is why the jury (minus two clearly misguided votes) handed him $500,000 dollars.

In the game of Big Brother, being named a great is not easy. I am such a deep fan of the show, my favorite overall show on television and until this year, it was simply Will and Dan. Period. End of discussion. Not only does Derrick join the conversation, he eclipses it. Yes, Derrick had the blueprint of Dan and Will to work from, just as Dan had Will’s blueprint to use. But, Derrick did it better. He was real and sincere and was never malicious. Again, I loved the games Dr. Will and Dan played, but at times they were, out of necessity, malicious. Derrick never was. Derrick was real and Derrick was bold.

And this wasn’t an easy season either. Almost anybody on this year’s cast could have won last year’s show full of boring, non game playing, some racist and downright horrible “contestants.” But this was a good year with good game players. Zach played well, just too over the top. Frankie and Caleb played strong games, as did Nicole and Cody, all in different ways. And Derrick, he picked them all off….one by one.

As Big Brother has now been renewed for two more years, I will continue to watch every episode and I am sure at some point, again be in awe of someone’s game play. But very likely, I will never be in awe like I was at Derrick’s game play.

Because in 16 seasons, not a single person has played the perfect game. Not Will. Not Dan. Not Evil Dick. Nobody. Nobody until Derrick Levasseur.

Derrick played the perfect game. And for that, as a Big Brother fan, I am grateful.