Bluce--ARE YOU SURE you watched THE SHIELD?
Mackey and the strike team's bad shit-though major and the issues always over their heads and therefore a predictor of their failure- were actually not all they did. First ep--missing little girl-Dutch and the others can't get the ice cold Dr suspect to give up anything. They know that he is the one who has her stashed, and they know they need to find her quickly. They resort to asking Vic for help.
Remember that scene? Mackey comes in with a brown paper bag starts putting the contents on the table-like a big assed phone book- the suspect is not moved......suspect" So your'e the bad cop?" Mackey "No, good cop and bad cop left for the day=I am a different kind of cop" Smacks him with the phone book, guy gives up the address for the little girl quick
My point between SHIELD and SOA is that Mackey and his strike team did far more good, quantity wise-though most of it was small and routine, then they did bad, quantity wise
The show had a balance, showed that though Mackey and his team were in fact corrupt, they were also shown doing good, everyday cop stuff. The team was balanced out; Mackey the sociopathetic alpha male. Lem was their conscious, Shane was a man twisted between his loyalty to Mackey and his greed-he could care less for actual legit police work, and Gardocki was, IMO (mainly cause we got little else on him) motivated by money as well. Mackey, though corrupt and criminal is clearly shown to have a singular purpose for the money he takes= it is for his family. He doesn't want a big house and real estate spec (ala Gilroy), he doesn't want a exp. car-he knows his cops salary is not enough-esp with 2 autistic kids-he never shows any motivation for personal greed-like Shane does. And Lem didn't want shit to do with any money. His surfer dude attitude and carefree lifestyle-morphed by his worry to bleeding ulcers is the moral compass-remember when he burned the money? Awesome...
In SOA, there is no such balance. It is all greed. There are no "anarchists" just men who want to be normed into a group run by a autocratic dictator. They are social deviants, men without "proper" upbringing. probably with attachment issues and many others issues. There are no moralists in the group-perhaps Jax and Juice come close but they are still far from the likes of a Curtis Lemansky. (and what is it with TPTBs wanting to blow up Ken Johnson all the time?
)
The Sons do no good-if any is done, it is a by product of their actions or done for other motives. Yeah I get they are supposed to be bad dudes and that is fine, the show doesn't have a character who is their counter (SHIELD had Acevada, Claudette, Dutch, and Kavanuagh as "moralistic opposition" to balance and put in check the BS that Mackey was doing.
Any such character in Sons is borderline comical (the ATF chic) in their acting or too short lived in their appearance and chances to effect the Sons-like AUSA Lincoln wtf last name.
Shawn Ryan was the main TPTB behind SHIELD, Sutter was a less important player in it. Perhaps it is the lack of Ryan in SOA that also causes the lack of what I am trying to describe
Sutter's character in SOA is probably one of the better acted ones. Like the Unser and Bobby character as well-but with all of them it is more of the "bad people doing good/trying to do good things". Like we are put to task to give some kind of forgiveness to them, to grant them penance and say "great show, did see how he tried to put things right, etc,etc"
THE SHIELD gave you someone to "root for", for me it was Mackey-I wanted to see him stopped but still not get put away or killed. The only "non dirty" characters that would fit this would be Claudette and Julien Lowe. In SOA, just who in the hell are you supposed to want to see win? Who are we supposed to be pulling for? Unser? Chucky? The town of Charming?
The the social issues that I have mashed up with everything else; I understand that these types of ppl are very fringe and in a minority. I see no value in having a show in which they are the main characters--"No redeeming social value" was a favorite line of tv censors and standards and practices ppl of the past
Maybe some better more refined/useful/"this is not the life to live" theme will come out by the end of the series--so far, and considering the minds of much out there watching it-it shows far too much how to make easy money and get hot chics info then anything else. By the way, Is this show still on?
But hey, gotta give me some credit for still watching, no?
