In many ways, “You Are My Sunshine” felt like a repeat episode for Sons of Anarchy.  A few weeks ago I mentioned how the show seems to be stuck in a pattern of one step forward and two steps back.  All of the double and triple crossing that had Jax pitting the Irish against the Chinese, leading to — apparently — some kind of race war (or so Nero was warned by the Mayans) felt like an unnecessary coda to last episode’s show-stopping violence.  The scene Jax set up with Galen and Clay should have been the end.  Adding on to that only weakens its impact.  And then there was Juice … Hit the jump for more.

A major complaint about Sons of Anarchy this season has been the fact that we were promised change, and it didn’t come (at least, in any real terms).  Last week’s episode was particularly frustrating, because it illustrated more than most the concept of the show gaining ground only to lose it two-fold.  But “Aon Rud Persanta” (meaning “nothing personal”) was, two episodes before this season’s finale, a game changer that — like many near-penultimate episodes for Sons of Anarchy – sets up an interesting season to come.  For the season that is here though, hit the jump.

Sons of Anarchy missed a great opportunity in “Huang Wu.”  Instead of a talky episode devoted to more Irish BS and Tara’s unravelling, we could have spent an hour with Happy eating Chinese food and watching cartoons.  Best kidnapping ever?  Instead, of course, there was more of the former.  The rules of SAMCRO don’t change much.  One step forward with guns, two steps back with the Irish.  One step forward for Tara, two steps back thanks to Gemma.  There was an opportunity in “Huang Wu,” and in the final episodes this season, to show us some real change.  For now though, the story remains a little too familiar.  Hit the jump for why you are a stupid, weak, junkie whore!

Sons of Anarchy played out this week pretty much exactly how most predicted, but hoped it wouldn’t.  The Tara plot that has been bubbling all season had seemed more complicated than it really was — the end game was that she wanted out, and she wanted to take her boys with her.  This isn’t new, this is something she has wanted since Day 1 (even when she wasn’t yet totally committed to Charming, she was always resistant to it and to life with Jax).  The constant though was that, despite those reservations, Tara loved Jax and did everything she could to make it work.  She sewed up the club, she sacrificed her career, she fought Gemma for years, and eventually tried to become like Gemma to deal with things on her terms.  But this year things went off the rails with her, and what has it all been for?  Hit the jump for more.

A quiet week for Sons of Anarchy, if by quiet you mean seeing someone get brutally run down and someone else stabbing themselves in the throat — and I do.  Most of “Los Fantasmas” was given over to machinations: Patterson calls for the publication of one of the most outrageous headlines ever seen, Tara schemes against Gemma who schemes against Wendy to get to Tara, and Nero considers his options to sell out himself, his crew, or SAMCRO.  Eli, meanwhile, wandered around giving everyone the side-eye because they are all obviously lying to each other and setting everybody else up.  Then again, what else is new in Charming?  Hit the jump for more. 

When director Roel Reine’s shoot-em-up western Dead in Tombstone was filming in Romania last year, I got to visit the set along with a few other online reporters.  The film starsDanny Trejo as the leader of a gang of outlaws who frees his half-brother (Anthony Michael Hall) from prison in order to loot a mining town.  The plan backfires when Hall double crosses Trejo and kills him.  Trejo makes a deal with the devil (Mickey Rourke) and comes back from the dead to seek revenge.  As Patrick said in his Blu-ray review, “Dead in Tombstone has some really impressive stunts and set-pieces – from horse-drawn carriage flips to chandelier swings (classic!) and massive explosions – and they’re all staged and shot better than most Hollywood action fare.  One particular explosion near the end looks impossibly large, though no CGI was used.  Action fans will definitely want to check out this unique supernatural revenge thriller.”

During my on set video interview with Danny Trejo, he talked about how he got involved in the project, what it’s like to shoot in Romania, his admiration for Anthony Michael Hall, his preparation process, the action sequences, his experience on Sons of Anarchy, plans for Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again, Death Race 3, and so much more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Sons of Anarchy had a lot to live up to after last week’s return to form, but “Sweet and Vaded” was another great entry in what is proving to be the show’s best run of episodes in ages.  There were doubts (and still are a few) with the Lee Toric saga and the school shooting, but while the ancillary stories are still a weak point, for SAMCRO, things couldn’t be better.  After all, we’re back to car chases, shoot outs, and Tig’s confusing feelings towards transexuals — what more do you want from this show?  Hit the jump for why “bombs will do that.”

There was only one thing Sons of Anarchy really needed to do this season after the school shooting in its premiere, and that was to justify it within the show’s world.  Amazingly, “Salvage” did everything it needed to make that shooting matter, not only in the context of the season but relating to SAMCRO as well.  As noted in other episodes this season, Sons of Anarchy‘s biggest triumph this year was bringing things back to club, and incorporating elements from the past, like the connection with the Irish.  And while Eli told Jax that things looked like the same old stuff SAMCRO was usually involved with, Jax’s speech at the table told a different story.  Hit the jump for why “SAMCRO’s future is in pussy, not bullets.”

One of Sons of Anarchy‘s biggest successes this year (after a questionable start) is that it has called back to some of its earlier style, and some of its earliest villains.  White Power, for instance, made a brief appearance this year, acting as a target range for the MC to take their rage out on.  Now the Irish are back — not that they ever really left, but they’ve moved, once again, out of the shadows and into the forefront of the club and its future.  They haven’t stolen any babies yet, but it got damn close.  It seems the club needs to be visited by each of these ghosts before they can move forward (or shut down).  Hit the jump for why “Micks don’t like any skin they can’t see through.” 

From first-time feature director Stacie Passon, the indie drama Concussion is a poignant sexual examination of Abby (Robin Weigert in a truly stand-out performance), a 40-something lesbian housewife who begins to wonder if her suburban life and marriage is truly what she wants anymore.  Her newfound desire to explore her sexuality results in a double life as a high-end escort, which clearly complicates things.

During this recent exclusive interview with Collider, actress Robin Weigert (Sons of Anarchy, Deadwood) talked about how she got offered this role, how she saw the quality of the role over the quantity of the scenes, even though she’s in almost every moment of the film, the biggest challenges in making this character believable and relatable, finding the emotional levels for the character, and how the film evolved during shooting and editing.  She also talked about what she remembers most fondly about her time on the HBO series Deadwood, and what it’s like to work on the FX series Sons of Anarchy.  Check out what she had to say after the jump.

Before I get into survivor and counts and death tolls, let’s take a moment to relish in how much like the early seasons of Sons of Anarchy “Wolfsangel” felt like.  The biggest criticism lobbied at the show in the last two, even three years is that it had lost its sense of scale and, more fatally, its humor.  “Wolfsangel” restored some of that, and actually provided several decent twists.  It also kept the drama local — old foes were dredged up, old scabs picked, and all of it was related very closely to the club, and how where SAMCRO is not headed where Jax wants it.  Hit the jump for more.

With Sons of Anarchy, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Jax has been learning since last year that extricating himself from the club that Clay built means that he has to act, in a lot of ways, like Clay.  You could argue that his actions are largely the result of having inherited such a tangled mess steeped in violence and bad alliances, but that’s an excuse Bobby, for one, is not buying.  His collection of strays shows he’s not willing to allow for half-measures when it comes to the club.  Changes need to come, and Jax isn’t moving fast enough.  Hit the jump for more.

In Season 6 of the hit FX drama series Sons of Anarchy, SAMCRO’s new President Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), must face the consequences of the MC’s criminal deeds before it tears the club apart.  And with this being the penultimate season, things are clearly going to be more challenging and heart-breaking than ever.

During this recent interview to promote the new season, actress Katey Sagal (“Gemma”) talked about her reaction to the comments made by the Parents Television Council about the Season 6 debut, balancing Gemma’s feelings for both Nero (Jimmy Smits) and Clay (Ron Perlman), which of Gemma’s decisions she’s found the hardest to justify, the ways that she relates to her character, how difficult it is to lose an actor when their character gets killed off, how much more paparazzi hangs around the set since the casting announcement of Charlie Hunnam in Fifty Shades of Grey, and how she feels about the show’s quickly approaching end (Season 7 is expected to be its last).  Check out what she had to say after the jump, and be aware that there are some spoilers.  

After a questionable start to its new season, Sons of Anarchy returned this week with an episode that improved in some ways upon that initial outing, but was still just so dark and heavy.  A show with so much violence and dark themes needs the relief of humor, or it’s a slog to watch.  One of Sons of Anarchy‘s defining features early on was its gallows humor and quirky cast who played hard and then played harder.  These days, time spent with SAMCRO is increasingly bleak, and that bleakness reached its lowest depths last week.  Hit the jump for more on how the show needs to crawl out of that hole.

In Season 6 of the hit FX drama series Sons of Anarchy, SAMCRO’s new President Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), must face the consequences of the MC’s criminal deeds before it tears the club apart.  And with this being the penultimate season, things are clearly going to be more challenging and heart-breaking than ever.

During this recent interview to promote the new season, actress Maggie Siff (“Tara”) talked about what still surprises her about playing Tara, how much of herself is in the character, just how closely Tara is starting to mirror Gemma (Katey Sagal), the disconnect between Jax and Tara, why she cut off her hair, whether it’s harder for viewers to rationalize what the characters are doing now, whether she’s rooting for Tara to stay with the club, and her plans for when Sons of Anarchy is all said and done.  Check out what she had to say after the jump, and be aware that there are some spoilers.