The following is Rated M for Mature.
Sons of Anarchy returns after a week off tonight with the penultimate episode of the series, and — according to showrunner Kurt Sutter — the best episode of the season. After a floundering run-up to the end, Sutter has found his way again, and Sons of Anarchy looks to go out in a blaze of grief and guts.
There have been some uneven arcs of the course of seven seasons, as one might expect for any series that runs as long as Sons of Anarchy, but even in those uneven patched, Kurt Sutter has never lost his sense of degeneracy. The guy is a straight-up narrative lunatic, and I mean that in the best possible way. Kurt Sutter doesn’t push the envelope; he gouges out the eyes of the envelope and then burns it to a crisp in front of its envelope sisters. The man will take death scenes as far as cable censors will allow, and then like a disobedient child, he’ll take one step further and wink at the censors.
For better or worse, no one has pushed basic cable to its limits like Kurt Sutter. When Sons of Anarchy ends is run next week, there will be a giant hole of degeneracy left in the television landscape. I’m going to miss looking away from my television in gleeful disgust.
But before Sons ends its run, let’s take a quick look back at the most depraved moments in Sons of Anarchy history (not including Gemma’s rape, because I just can’t):
(It goes without saying: BRUTALITY and SPOILERS ahead.)
I think the moment we realized that Kurt Sutter went above and beyond in the depraved department was the first episode of season two. Hobart neglected to remove his back tattoo after getting the boot from the club, and SAMCRO did the honors for him. By BURNING IT OFF.
There was also that bit of fun, later on, when Jax shoved a bad dude’s face into a BUCKET OF NAILS.
In season three, Jax nearly got intimate with his half-sister before his mother interrupted him. Thankfully, he only ended up making out with his sibling and getting down to his skivvies. But seriously, EWW.
In season four, Kurt Sutter might have actually gone too far by having Jax beat the crap out of porn star Ima for sleeping with Opie, and then spitting in her face. It took us a while to recover from that.
It wasn’t enough that Opie had to die in the fifth season. Nope. Sutter took it next level, by making us watch him get his head bashed in with a metal pipe with a smile on his face. That’s an image that’s been burned into my brain for three years now.
In the season six episode, you may recall that two of SAMCRO’s men were dismembered, leaving a scene that looked like something out of The Walking Dead. At least they made good use of the hands.
Remember the time that Otto Delaney BIT OFF HIS OWN TONGUE to ensure that he wouldn’t talk during an interrogation?
Donal Logue’s character, Lee Toric, meted out his punishment to Otto by having him raped every single morning by a fellow prisoner, and what’s a guy with only one eye and no tongue to do?
But you know what? Otto got the last laugh, didn’t he?
There was also the episode where, during a shoot for a torture porn flick, the producers ACTUALLY tortured poor Lyla (who screamed out for Opie, who was dead, which made the whole thing even more upsetting). But Tig got revenge by drowning the guy in a tub of urine and then pissing on him for good measure.
In season six, Jax couldn’t simply put two in Clay’s temple and call it a day. He had to SHOOT HIM IN THE NECK and watch him suffocate in his own blood.
Or the time that Gemma killed Tara by sticking her head in a sink full of dishwater and stabbing a CARVING FORK into the back of her skull? Over and over and over.
In the current season, after Moses cut Bobby’s eyeball out (and August Marks later killed him), Jax got his own revenge by pulling out Moses’ eyeball. Eye for an eye. SQUICK.
I feel confident, however, that the hardest thing we’ve had to watch through nearly seven full seasons of Sons of Anarchy was Tig witnessing Pope pour gasoline on his daughter and burn her alive.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, can be worse than watching your own offspring burned alive while you stand by helpless. You’re a sick bastard, Kurt Sutter. We’re going to miss you (at least until The Bastard Executioner premieres).