There are specific moments that make me wonder (or more accurately, doubt) if Sons of Anarchy ever has potential to be a great show. Tonight this came in the form of an otherwise throwaway scene where Clay, Opie, Happy and some other folks were meeting with a Black M.C. to piece together why the Mayans are patching another club over. There came a point where it wasn't just Clay talking to the head of the other club, but Opie and Happy doing it too. They were just dropping details about the information they needed, but why would these low-ranking guys even be speaking during a meeting like this? And moments like this happen very often on the show. I wonder if the writers get too anxious if all the characters don't have something to do every scene and this is just their defense mechanism or something, but it just ends up looking like lazy, unrealistic writing.
Speaking of Opie, I just realized the other day that the actor that plays him (Ryan Hurst) is the same guy who played Gary Bertier in Remember the Titans. It wasn't like he was a revelation in that movie or anything, but he sure didn't take any acting classes since then. In the grand scheme of things, I think it's fair to say that his fellow Titan linebacker, Wood Harris, has a better post-Denzel television career by starring on The Wire. Granted I don't think I've seen either of them in anything else other than these three pieces of entertainment, but the nod clearly has to go to Avon Barksdale.
And, of course, to segue from football to The Wire back to football, I've been catching up on Friday Night Lights over the last few weeks and was pretty excited to see the actor who played Wallace in Season 1 of The Wire show up in the most recent season of FNL. See, D'Angelo, there was no need to get so pissed at Stringer. He just sent Wallace to Dillon, Texas.
But if there's any Dillon resident who most needs to crossover onto Sons of Anarchy, it's Matt Saracen's grandmother. Now wouldn't she make a cute, albeit demented romantic counterpart to Hal Holbrook's character? It's a match made in Alzheimer's heaven.
If you're wondering why I'm rambling on about pretty much nothing, it's because pretty much nothing happened in tonight's episode, "Oiled." It was a severely boring hour of television, plain and simple. Sure, Jax is on his way towards a fruitless search of majestic British Columbia for Abel and we learn about the Mayan's building their army so to speak, but other than that, can you tell me tell me anything else that happened that progressed the plot in an honestly meaningful way? No there was just a lot of shit like Bobby being late on alimony and Tara taking a leave of absence and Tig needing lube. I'm all for slow burn, but this felt like the fuse had gone out. And we're only in episode two. Not a good sign, especially considering most of the first episode was dull as well.
OVERALL GRADE: D
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