MovieChat Forums > Sons of Anarchy (2008) Discussion > Is ANY character in this show not a tota...

Is ANY character in this show not a total scumbag?

posted 8 years ago by al666940-3
37 replies | jump to latest

As much as I've tried to follow the show (a hard core Shield fan), I just can't get behind any of them.

I mean, the closest one I kinda like is Clay, but that's because he's played by Ron Perlman, not because of the character itself. And Nero only because he's trying to go straight and actually doing it (unlike Jax who sings the same tune yet is not dancing it).

Everybody here is a non redeemable piece of crap whom would make the world a better place if they dropped dead:
- Jax: lost count of all the people he's killed directly (never mind indirectly like that school shooting and who knows what else from his gun running), and since he's also a bad husband and father, what's redeemable about him at all?
- Gemma: murderer, betrayed her husband and her son and grandchildren, etc.
- Clay: need to say?
- The whole gang: rapists, criminals, murderers, gun/drug runners, etc.
- Tara: chooses her cheating criminal husband over the welfare of her kids. She's no innocent.
- Unser: crooked cop, got what he deserved.

At least in The Shield, Mackey and his team did some good along with the bad.

This crew, WTF have they done that's any good to anyone but themselves?

[–] mgreen9715 8 years ago

That's one of the points of the entire series: that they're all horrible people who do horrible things. They've all done things that are morally okay but they're definitely crappy people.

[–] julia-solovjova 8 years ago

Are you forgetting CHUCKY?

[–] mgreen9715 8 years ago

Chucky was a complete creep with his public masturbation problem.

Don't you remember the book scamming he did for Henry Lin?

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

hucky was a complete creep with his public masturbation problem

forgot about that..define "public" in that context..

I agree that it is, erm...yeah...but I mean, perverts and sex offenders can come a lot worse than that..sort of in the flasher category, isn't it..

Like I said, they come a lot worse than that..

[–] julia-solovjova 8 years ago

I think Chucky's creepiness was very "innocent" and humorous in the context. And you have to admire the chilli scene

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

At least in The Shield, Mackey and his team did some good along with the bad.

yeah, especially going double hard after child-molesters/abductors and rapists of teen girls and stuff..but so have SOA guys.

It's same Sopranos...many or most of the killings are scumbags and agreeable..a few are not ok.

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

Part of the point of the show is that they all kind of suck.

[–] timosullivan-09439 8 years ago

opie and Donna, the pornstars tigs daughters.

[–] timosullivan-09439 8 years ago

and Samcro had no rapist in there groups that was something they we're extremly against.

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

Donna was decent, but she was also a very tertiary character who didnt last very long.

Tig's daughters? Sure I guess. Didnt one of them basically extort him for money by pretending it was for the good of her sister though?

Opie? I have to disagree on that one. Sure he seems like a nice loyal guy, but he was horrible to his family. He went to jail for years and his wife stuck with him on the assumption that he would stop hanging around with the gang that got him stuck there. He got out of jail and got a real job and almost instantly quit it so that he could hang out with the club again. Most people work real jobs and don't need blood money to keep afloat, but Opie couldnt handle that responsibility. His wife died and he still kept hanging around the club. He neglected his children so that he could keep hanging around with the club and digging himself deeper.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

yeah...the show was never advertised as being the 'God Squad" bikers...it is an outlaw MC..

here, these days, they are actually far worse than they ever were in the past..low-lifes I would not spit on if Pope set them on fire are wearing colours these days...a lot of the MFers would not know one end of a *beep* motorcycle from the other..but, very very bad people.Worse than the average SAMCRO card holder..

[–] Elijahohmy 8 years ago

Tara: chooses her cheating criminal husband over the welfare of her kids. She's no innocent.

uh, See season 6. All about trying to leave her scumbag husband for her kids, and ending up with a fork in her skull.

[–] al666940-3 8 years ago

Yeah, and every scumbag on death's front door always shed crocodile tears pleading with God to be forgiven.

Too little, too late.

[–] Elijahohmy 8 years ago

Dont think she ever asked to be forgiven for anything lol. The worst thing she did was fall in love with a scumbag who treated her horribbly at times.

[–] luckyluvr22 8 years ago

Chibs seemed like a pretty decent guy. Same with Bobby Elvis. No saints, but the best of the bunch.

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

Tara? She is an accomplice to a staggering number of murders and serious crimes. I don't think she ever pulled the trigger on anyone herself, but she was aware of and supported many murders committed by Jax and the club. She watched them commit other crimes and didnt report them. She abused her position at the hospital to steal supplies and provide medical assistance to the club. She patched up IRA terrorists and other dangerous criminals. She did way worse things than fall in love with a scumbag.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

I don't think she ever pulled the trigger on anyone herself,

from memory, she dropped Kohn with one, can't remember where she hit him, but he looked like surviving and was already taunting her about coming back on her when he recovered and was released from a probable modest prison term..
...she did not know what to do next, was wavering, so Jax walked in where Kohn was downed, and handled it..

I've little doubt that bitch had what it took to blow someone's ass away, if it had come to it..

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

True she did put one bullet in him, but Jax did the final shots that really killed him.

My point was that she is certainly not an innocent character, as much as she pretends to be.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

she is running with bad people, even if planning to get away from them...we do not know if she would still want to do that if she was not now a parent. Maybe besides that, she would think it was fun.
Her partner, she knows, has been involved in numerous homicides and criminal racketeering , even if she excises that as much as possible.

Maybe not, does not quite strike me as that type...but she is no angel either, no, despite having an elevated place in society professionally, what little we know of her past seems to be that she is actually a loner and we do not see many signs of her having many female friends.

She is an oddball, maybe a somewhat mysterious one...for some people, it enhances her appeal.She is not someone who embraces and French cheek-kisses every human being she has ever crossed paths with casually.She probably does not spend every idle moment social-networking on her *beep* tablet.

She probably did not do a selfie with Jax over Kohn's bullet-riddled corpse.

Maybe that one is a shame...I'd like to see more Tara selfies..

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

what little we know of her past seems to be that she is actually a loner and we do not see many signs of her having many female friends.

Never noticed that until now. We never saw any mention of her having any friends back at her old job. She moves back to Charming and the only people she ever hangs out with are Jax and the club.

Either thats an oversight on the part of the writers, or they decided not to waste runtime on showing scenes of her with old friends, or it was an intentional decision to show her lack of other friends.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

I suppose she kind of becomes friends with Ms Horn-rimmed glasses she beat up at the hospital...and her lawyer.(or is she just her lawyer?) Those seem to be the kinds of relationships she forges with other women.

[–] Cursedchild13 8 years ago

Nero isn't a scumbag. He's awesome. He actually cares about people.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

true.. and apart from a handicapped son, everything is great for him until he meets Gemma and the Sons..

[–] prolelol (1423) 7 years ago

Agreed!

[–] PinkyGirl521 8 years ago

To be fair, though, the SoA guys were a lot of things, but they weren't rapists. They "punished" that one Carrie that raped Oswald's daughter, remember? Is it redeemable to not be rapists? No. But if they were it would have put them in a whole other level.

[–] silver_snail14 8 years ago

Nope, they're all a bunch of rotten, corrupt, unlikable bastards. It was amusing in Season 1 but it eventually got really tiresome and boring. Any moral message the show was trying to convey was lost amid the graphic violence, tepid melodrama and macho posturing. I don't mind gratuitous violence and carnage just for the fun of it, but SOA took itself WAYYYY too seriously.

You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn to serve me well.

[–] theintimadatork 8 years ago

They were anti-heroes. Nothing more. Sure they are unlikable people but they are moments that show they are not completely terrible people. Tig caring for his daughters even though they were using him. Jax saving a 17 year from execution. The Carnie raptist murder. Chibs wife and kid. Jax, for a moment, thinking Abel might have been better off with that Irish couple. Clay, even though he killed Lowell's father, couldn't bring himself to kill Lowell, Jr.

The biggest scumbag was Opie. He was weak after Donna's murder by carrying her ghost away and that pretty much destroyed any chance of happiness with Lyla. He then checked out after his father's murder by willingly sacrifice himself for the club even though he had TWO YOUNG CHILDREN that needed their father.

They are all scumbag, but humans, for all intent and purposes, are scumbags. Some hide it better. Look at the school shooting, the riots after the election, the cop killins, Colin Kaepernick. Human beings are scum.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

the riots after the election,

yeah, we needed something SOA-style to happen to those "Trump is not my President" rioters, actually..punks.

[–] silver_snail14 8 years ago

The biggest scumbag was Opie. He was weak after Donna's murder by carrying her ghost away and that pretty much destroyed any chance of happiness with Lyla. He then checked out after his father's murder by willingly sacrifice himself for the club even though he had TWO YOUNG CHILDREN that needed their father.

Opie was a broken man torn between his loyalties to the club and his loyalties to his family. Donna's death completely destroyed him. By the end, he was too broken to be the husband and father that his children and Lyla needed. So he sacrificed himself for his friends. He was weak and maybe a bit selfish and misguided but he was still a conflicted man with a good heart. To me, he's a tragic character. I think Jax was a much bigger scumbag. He was an arrogant, trigger happy mama's boy who couldn't do anything right. By the end of the show he was barely even human anymore, just a homicidal maniac who shot first and thought about it later. And he also committed suicide and abandoned his children, so I don't see why you would give him a pass but paint Opie as a scumbag.

They are all scumbag, but humans, for all intent and purposes, are scumbags. Some hide it better. Look at the school shooting, the riots after the election, the cop killins, Colin Kaepernick. Human beings are scum.

That's a cop-out if I've ever heard one.

You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn to serve me well.

[–] R_Kane (15828) 6 years ago

That is probably the most pompous signature I’ve seen in over 20 years on the internet.

The only way to conquer pain is to serve yourself.