It's over, friends. Kurt Sutter's tribute to brotherhood, two-wheeled vehicles, porno, random acts of violence, crooked cops, Lea Michele, ice cream parlors, transvestites, barbecued daughters, school shootings, vacations to Ireland, RICO, whichever cheap domestic beer is willing to pay the most for product placement, prison sodomy, crucifix stabbings, Oedipal Complexes, and family gave its all over seven sometimes-brilliant and sometimes-ridiculous seasons. Yes, Sons of Anarchy has come to a bloody end; Tim and Kaitlin, what did you think of the series finale?
TIM: In case that melodramatic sledgehammer of a metaphor wasn't apparent enough when Jax grilled himself on Vic Mackey's semi while riding his father's bike, I believe the message of "Papa's Goods" was, "Like father, like son." I realize that it's tough as balls to put together a satisfying series finale, especially after grinding out seven long seasons of drama, but if that final scene was what Kurt Sutter had in mind all along—because you know showrunners always envision their final scene way in advance—he should have announced it years ago so that we wouldn't've had to sit through Sons of Anarchy's final seasons. Having JUST seen the series finale, I'm feeling quite emotional right now, and I may say things I will come to regret. But come on, emotionally charged and knee-jerk TV reviews are the best kinds of TV reviews, and I don't feel like pulling any punches. Those digitally inserted crows were silly. Michael Chiklis's "oh shit" face was silly. That ending was silly.
KAITLIN: You don't need to convince me, dude. Silly is the perfect word to describe the way Jax drove head-on into an oncoming semi, welcoming death with his arms spread wide. That's not to say that I think Jax dying was the wrong way for Sons of Anarchy to end—as much as I wanted him to win, I'd resigned myself to Jax's sad fate last week,after he murdered Gemma—but I think it could've been executed better. Perhaps in a way that wasn't so on-the-nose? I know it wouldn't've been as poetic, but we spent seven seasons watching Jax slowly lose himself, and I think he deserved better than bad special effects. There were definitely some great moments in "Papa's Goods," but I think Sutter really Britta'd the ending.
TIM: I'll run with your Community reference and say this was the AT&T of possible Sons of Anarchy endings. And I agree, Jax dying wasn't the problem, even though I previously said that I hoped he would live. My main complaint is that Jax's actions were portrayed as heroic, and all I saw was a coward. "I can't change," he declared, and then he abandoned both his club, and, more depressingly, his family. But Jax never tried to live life outside of SAMCRO. The way he gave up on his kids wasn't heroic in any way. Yeah, they'll have a better shot at not repeating Jax's stupid aggro mistakes, but they're going to have a hell of a time making it without a father (and in Thomas's case, without either parent). Abel was already screwed-up; now his inevitable psychopathy will be accelerated and he'll probably shoot up the school in third grade. And I can't get over the way Jax was smiling throughout the entire episode, especially in those last moments. It's as if he said, "Well, I can't be an outlaw and a dad, so I'm going to be neither. HELLO, TRUCK! TAKE ME TO OUTLAW HEAVEN WHERE THE ANGELS SHOOT MILLER LITE OUT OF THEIR NIPPLES!" Jax's actions were framed to suggest that he was making a great and noble sacrifice, but all I saw was a guy who'd given up.
KAITLIN: Miller Lite nipples aside, you took the words right out my mouth. As I watched Jax tearfully say goodbye to Wendy and his sons, kill Barosky and Marks, finally sever ties with the Irish, and generally wrap up every single loose end that probably should've been dealt with prior to the series finale, I just kept thinking about what a coward Jax was. I mean, if that's the kind of man Jax really is, then SAMCRO is better off with Chibs at the head of the table (!!!!!!) and Tig wearing the VP patch. And that's where the real problem lies, because I've never thought of Jax as a coward, so my brain is struggling to reconcile the Jax I spent seven seasons with and the Jax of the series finale.
Sutter probably thought Jax going out on his own terms was a bold choice—technically, he escaped the result of the mayhem vote, and he wasn't gunned down by his enemies, yet he still paid for his crimes. However, in reality, he was just weak, which is a word I've never used to describe Jackson Teller before now. Just as I had wanted Gemma to live so she could bear the true weight of all of her sins, I wanted Jax to live so he could try to start over. That would have been the ballsier choice for a man whose entire, insular world revolved around Charming. He told Nero that he was doing what he should have done while Tara was still alive, but I think Tara would've wanted him to actively work toward being a better man. I guess if the main objective was to illustrate that Jax couldn't escape his father's fate, why do I feel like he merely followed in Gemma's craven footsteps?
TIM: Personally, I would have preferred to see the club shoot him, as 90 percent of "Papa's Goods" not-so-subtly insinuated would happen. And I would havereally preferred the outcome I predicted about 15 minutes into the episode: Jax fakes his death to appease the other charters and goes MIA with his family and Wendy, starting over on Nero's farm! He grows kale and uses farm-fresh eggs to make breakfast! Only Chibs and Tig know he's alive, and he's never heard from again! There you go! Happy ending! But the lesson that Sutter wanted to teach is, "Once an outlaw, always an outlaw, and life will only get worse."
"Good outlaw and good father can't settle in the same man," Jax said during a conversation with a rock. Now, I don't know Kurt Sutter personally, but he clearly fancies himself an outlaw, and I don't believe for one second that good outlaw and good father can't coexist. I think what's really bugging me is that bummer of a final message. For many seasons, Jax was the smartest, most noble person in the room (which was always full of lunkheads and deviants). He believed in JT's manuscript. But the life apparently changed him. I guess I figured he was ready to bounce back, that he'd learn from others' mistakes. And I can't even say he repeated his father's mistakes, because if the journals are to be believed, JT wasn't anywhere near as big a jerk as Jax ended up being. So why all the comparisons to his father, right down to the splattery ending?
KAITLIN: That's like the No. 1 rule of storytelling. Sons have been repeating their fathers' mistakes since forever, basically. But the reason why those stories remain so visible in popular culture is that after a customary period of fucking up, the son generally learns a valuable lesson and chooses to become a better man. To be clear, I think it was incredibly important that Jax accepted the fact that, despite his best efforts, he still fell victim to the same troubles that took down both Clay and JT. But he also had a new father figure in Nero, proving that there was another option. Nero was the real father Jax never had, and he was living proof that you CAN change, that you CAN escape the life. It might be true that you can't be a good father and a good outlaw, but you can definitely choose to be one or the other. Ultimately, being a father apparently wasn't enough for Jax, which is a real pity. But his scenes with Nero were arguably the best ones of the entire finale, and I feel sad that Jax's sons will never have a father again because he wasn't willing to fight to be a unicorn like Nero.
TIM: Amen, sister! As for the rest of "Papa's Goods," well, once Jax realized he was going to die, he basically had a license to kill and to tie up loose ends. Barosky, the Irish Kings, and Marks went out rather unceremoniously, don't you think? I suppose Jax thought he was doing the club a favor by getting rid of them all. They were, to some extent, his problems to clean up (or the result of Gemma's lies), and offing them them was an easy way for Sons of Anarchy's writers to cross items off their to-do list. But it's silly to think that Marks only had the one hit squad, that the Irish didn't have anybody else to chip in with some retaliation, or that some old lady who bought artisan olives from Barosky wouldn't be pissed. Do you think they'll say that since Jax is dead, the beef is squashed? Or will it blow back on SAMCRO? It doesn't matter now, because there are no more episodes.
Don't get me wrong, I loved that Jax went on a killing spree; as I've said many times before, I wanted most of these people to die. But several elements of this finale didn't quite feel earned. It was basically, "Jax is going to die, so he can do anything he wants now."
However, I'm glad we had once last encounter with the mysterious homeless woman who's been popping up throughout the series. I don't even want to know what she symbolized for Jax, or how she fit into Sons of Anarchy's bigger picture; I like to think of her as just a homeless woman who gave Jax her coat for no reason at all and said, "It's time." I'm actually afraid to learn whatever "deep" meaning Sutter assigned to her.
KAITLIN: Ah, too bad. Although I very much like the idea that she's just a crazy lady who distributes blankets to outlaws, she tended to appear whenever Jax or Gemma were struggling. She was sort of a harbinger of doom—not that she specifically brought death or destruction—but that when you saw her, you knew some shit was going to go down anyway. She was mostly seen by Jax and Gemma during hard times, but I think there've been mentions of others seeing her, too. She resembles Brooke's mom, who died in J.T.'s accident, but I'm not clear on whether she's actually a ghost or just a ghostly symbol meant to underscore the Hamlet of it all. Which is probably the point.
TIM: If you ask me, she's just another unnecessary detail the show didn't need. Which kind of summarizes a lot of Sons of Anarchy's flaws. I think Sutter got caught up in trying to make the series more important and more involved than it actually was, which made it feel convoluted at times and self-righteous at others. I'm not going to knock the guy for the choices he made or the messages he wanted to send because in the end, it's his art. And I'll give the man credit for going "full Sutter" (one of the benefits of working for artist-friendly FX) and crafting a no-doubt ending that provided closure. However, while I've seen plenty of series finales that were a lot worse than "Papa's Goods," that final scene—the last taste of Sons of Anarchy that will linger forever—was disappointing. Maybe I wanted Jax to change so badly that when he didn't, I got angry. That feeling of passion with regard to a fictional character has to count for something, doesn't it?
KAITLIN: I kept wondering why I wasn't feeling any emotion in the lead-up to the finale. Normally, when a show that I've been so heavily invested in comes to an end, I'm hugging a bottle of whiskey and complaining to anyone who will listen, and even to those who won't. But that didn't happen with Sons of Anarchy. I'll probably shed a few tears eventually (like I did when I realized that Ryan Hurst tweeted after the finale ended andcalled the cast his brothers and said he loved them), and when there's no new episode next Tuesday, I'll probably feel a tug on my heart and remember the good times, like when Juice was the comedic relief or basically anything involving Opie outside of his death. But right now, I still feel mostly numb. I'm ambivalent on the finale itself, but I do feel a sadness creeping in even as I write this. Only it's not because the show has ended, but because it stumbled across the finish line.
Sons of Anarchy never returned to the heights it reached in Season 2—even if it had several moments of excellence throughout the rest of the series—but I enjoyed this ride far more than I ever expected to. Even when it wasn't at its best, I still looked forward to watching it every week. I've forced many a friend to tune in, and maybe they'll begrudge me for that in its wake, but it gave a voice to a very specific group of people who aren't often heard, and SAMCRO often felt like a weird and totally messed-up extended family. But I also think the show's final two seasons could have been better. If FX had imposed runtime limits on Sutter, the writing might've been tighter, and the convoluted plots that tended to drag things down might've been better executed because they didn't have time to fall apart. I think I'm walking away from Sons of Anarchy mostly content, and I hope I don't come across as hateful, because this show will always have a place in my heart, even if it really did fall victim to its own success. And that's probably sadder than Jax's end at the hands of Michael Chiklis (insert all my resurfacing feelings about The Shield finale here). Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch that video of Ryan Hurst cutting his beard again.