Has anyone else around here seen this magnificent, freewheeling, gun-running, addictive-as-opiates, Mad Maxian, Bechdel-test-passing, tragic, furious, Shakespearean apocrypha?

Welcome to Charming, home of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original. SAMCRO, or Sam Crow for short.

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Sam Crow.

This is the life of SAMCRO. They are an outlaw motorcycle club similar to/loosely based around Hells Angels, with a nation-wide network that also extends across to places like Ireland and has connections to the IRA and are generally considered an organized criminal network of illegal gun-runners and violent outlaws. The show focuses on the Redwood Original chapter, which forms the spiritual leadership of the Sons of Anarchy, being the birthplace of the club where the founding nine started the whole shebang.

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Jax Teller.

Vice President of the Redwood chapter and son of the deceased John Teller, who was the original creater of the MC. Throughout the series, John speaks from the grave to Jax in a manner reminiscent of Hamlet, albeit through a manuscript John wrote, entitled The Life and Death of Sam Crow: How the Sons of Anarchy Lost Their Way. Jax starts to question the way the club is run, challenging his step-father, Clay, the president of the chapter in a way that starts slowly eating the club from the inside out, wanting to change to a more peaceful way of life that's closer to the Harley Commune envisaged by his father.

But at the same time, yeah, he always has that massive mother of a knife strapped to his thigh, and yeah, that's him pulling a shotgun out of his Harley. That's just how he rolls.

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Clay Morrow.

President of the Sons of Anarchy Redwood Original chapter, one of the founding nine and a vicious, violent Alpha who will kill dissenters and fiercely protect his own. Only shows a soft underbelly around Gemma. Will cut your balls off and mail them in a paper bag before eating a cigar whole for breakfast.
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Gemma

Gemma and Jax. Mother and Son. See the family resemblance?

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Gemma is one of the most brilliant, compelling characters I've ever encountered, female or male. She's the matriarch of SAMCRO, manipulative, takes no prisoners, trusts no-one and worships at the altar of family. She will cut anyone who messes with those under her wing, is megalomaniacal, loving, and contains twisty turns of emotional and spiritual motivation that leaves Milton's Lucifer in the dust. And she rocks the biker-chic.

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The club table has a reaper carved into it. That's right. Even their table is more hardcore than you. And that's Tara. Right after she slammed Jax into a wall and literally tore his shirt open. She's a doctor, struggling with returning to the violent, moral morass of Charming, smart, hard, and I think this description by Hunter S. Thompson suits her, if not perfectly, then in a more general, metaphorical sense:

...with boots and dark glasses, uplift bras, bright lipstick and the blank, wary expressions of half-bright souls turned mean and nervous from too much bitter wisdom in too few years."

Jax and Tara are nearly-half-madly in love with each other, but still a little too scared to let themselves trust it again after she left and broke his heart, when she can still barely handle what SAMCRO is and what it would mean to become a part of that life once again.

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See that little half-smile on Jax's face? That's the smile he gets when he wants to kill you. And, bonus naked pretty, because this show? Does not lack for the gratuitous naked pretty.

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