The Sopranos on Wheels

I've been a fan of veteran character actor Ron Perlman ever since City of Lost Children back in '95. So, it's especially satisfying for me to see him leading the superb ensemble cast of FX's biker-themed drama, Sons of Anarchy. I had my doubts about the show early on, expecting it to fall victim to the genre's usual Easy Rider cliches. As it turns out, I seriously underestimated series creator Kurt Sutter.

With Sons of Anarchy, Sutter has developed a complex, testosterone-fueled, character-driven, thrill-ride that's riddled with almost as many Shakespearean allusions as bullets. Throughout the first and second seasons, Sutter deftly manages to elevate the genre's "booze, bikes, brawls and bitches" formula to new heights without making the material seem stilted or contrived. That is certainly no easy task. In fact, the only other series I can think of that's accomplished this feat so successfully is HBO's The Sopranos.

In some ways, I even prefer Sons of Anarchy to its Mafia-saga precursor. I always found The Sopranos' psychoanalytic aspect to be a bit pretentious. And while the show had its share of interesting characters, they were all little more than caricatures of themselves. With SOA, I feel more invested in the narrative. The audience is thrown into the action rather than passively observing it through the eyes of the protagonist's psychiatrist, who constantly analyzes and interprets his actions for us.

Regardless of their respective pros and cons, the bottom line is that both of these shows are great. And SOA will be lucky to age as gracefully as its forebearer. But when the time comes, let's hope Sutter comes up with a more satisfying conclusion to Sons of Anarchy than Sopranos' creator David Chase did for his series.