In its fractious fifth season, FX's biker drama Sons of Anarchy introduced us to two new characters, with varying results.  The first, Nero Padilla (played by Jimmy Smits) started out as a love interest for Gemma (Katey Segal), but ended up being a better father figure to Jax (Charlie Hunnam) than his (increasingly evil) step-father Clay (Ron Perlman).  Nero helped the MC financially and also emotionally as things began to break apart.  As much as he wanted to help lead Jax away from its violence, he ended up caught in its web as well.

Last year we also got the beginning of the story of U.S. Marshall Lee Toric (Donal Logue) in the final few episodes, and it seems Logue will also be back in the new season to expand on that part.  Hit the jump for more on these characters and what we might see of them coming up.  

Nero was an unexpectedly great addition to the cast on a show that tends to introduce new characters only to kill them off at the end of the season, and so it's terrific news that according to THR, Smits will be back for all 13 episodes of the show's sixth season.  Things were left unfinished between Nero and Gemma emotionally, too and where that goes (especially with Crazy Clay on the loose) should be interesting to follow.

As for Logue, in my recap of last season's finale I was disappointed with the direction his character seemed to be going, even though I like Logue as an actor.  Toric was introduced to harass Otto (played by showrunner Kurt Sutter, who seems hell bent on destroying every physical piece of himself for sensationalistic violence with that character) after the death of his sister at Otto's hand (and thanks to a cross brought to him by Tara, who ended the season being carted off the jail).

Toric's "unhinged, rogue-cop with a taste for revenge" persona feels like characters we've already encountered on the show, like a cross between the fourth season's Assistant U.S. Attorney Linc Potter (Ray McKinnon) and earlier seasons' ATF agent June Stahl (Ally Walker).  Hopefully I'm wrong, and Toric will bring something new to the table.  The fifth season left a lot of loose ends for the upcoming episodes, so regardless it should be interesting to see what happens with SAMCRO.