Image via Complex Original
Welp, it's all over. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) took his #FinalRide last night and left us with just shy of 100 episodes' worth of murder, sex, mayhem, and romance.
Now there's only one thing left to do: Compile a definitive ranking, once and for all, of the Shakespearean biker epic's peaks and valleys. Sons of Anarchy never quite abided by the Big Bad per season formula, and yet, each year is easily contextualized by some major arc or enemy. The cartel season. Ireland. Gemma's rape. The school shooting. It's been seven years full of brotherhood, endless gang warfare, montages, and some of the most shocking acts of brutality ever seen on television, some organic (these are outlaws, after all), and too many that exist solely because creator Kurt Sutter is, to put it simply, depraved.
Regardless of your opinion on the man's work and how he concluded it, the facts are ironclad. At some point, the boys of SAMCRO elbowed their way to the front of the zeitgeist alongside shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. And while Sons of Anarchy never got the awards love it, at least at one point, certainly deserved, it did have people talking. In the years since its 2008 premiere, debates over the FX drama's place in the new Golden Age pantheon—whether it fell off, when it fell off, or if it's low-key one of the most satisfying antihero shows ever—have raged on.
Let's settle the conversation for good. Here are all seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy, ranked from the weakest (our bottom choice may surprise you) to the best (which, we're sure, we can all agree on).
Season 5
Aired: 2012
Standout episodes: "Orca Shrugged," "Andare Pescare," "J'ai Obtenu Cette"
Best moment: Jax finally turns the tables on Damon Pope and Clay in one fell swoop.
Most shocking moment: Jax shoots his ex-addict/ex-wife up with drugs just to avoid a custody battle.
Best Gemma moment: Gemma and Nero have a heart-to-heart in the graveyard.
Yes, when pinpointing the worst Sons season, 96% of the fan base immediately chooses season three, because the Ireland arc, like, totally sucks, man. We'll explain why season three is ultimately better than that misguided trip to Belfast retroactively suggests a little later. For now, let's talk about how the show almost veered into self-parody in its fifth year, and definitely fell into redundancy.
There are interesting, fresh moments peppered throughout—namely Gemma's (Katey Sagal) downward spiral and quest for redemption, Clay's (Ron Perlman) subterfuge, and the great Ryan Hurst sending Opie out with a bang. But ultimately Damon Pope (Harold Perrineau) is a reheated Ethan Zobelle Big Bad a la carte with diminishing returns, down to committing an unspeakably vile act against a friend of the club in the season's premiere.
As horrible as burning Tig's (Kim Coates) daughter, Dawn, alive in front of him is on paper (and Coates does indeed sell the hell out of it), at this point the show's formula was so blatant that Pope's plan was obvious upon his first scene. And worse, unlike Gemma's rape, it doesn't resonate at all. How could it, when we barely know Dawn at all? And that's to say nothing of every character's laughably minimal reaction to what should be a horrific line crossing. Coates does his best to sell Tig's uneasiness throughout the season, but when Jax and co. basically just gave him a pat on the back and said, "Sorry, brother," it was almost as if the Harley had officially leapt over the metaphorical shark.
Five is also easily Tara's (Maggie Siff) worst year. As the new reigning Old Lady she practically has no agency until the end of the season when she finally decides its high-time her kids get the hell out of Charming. In between, though, there's a lot of weed smoking, weird interactions with Otto (Kurt Sutter), and fighting with and alongside Gemma. Speaking of Gemma, her arc gave us Nero (Jimmy Smits), one of the show's last great new characters. But there's also a lot of nonsense that came with that, like his pointless and randomly batshit crazy half-sister.
Ultimately Sons' fifth season is worthwhile for finally pushing Jax over the line. It's hard to come back from coercing your own mother to go undercover with her abusive husband and shooting up your ex-addict ex-wife with a speedball to cut her off at the custody pass. But retroactively speaking, it forged very little new ground while relying on well-worn tricks. —Frazier Tharpe
Season 7
Aired: 2014
Standout episodes: "Poor Little Lambs," "Faith and Despondency," "Suits of Woe"
Best moment: Jax asks Juice what really happened the night Tara died.
Most shocking moment: Henry Lin's goons use SAMCRO's brothel to send a very bloody message.
Best Gemma moment: Jax and Gemma have a mother-son chat in her childhood home.
To reiterate what I wrote two weeks ago, the biggest crime Kurt Sutter pulled against Sons of Anarchy is blowing out, rather than reeling in, its final season. Not that he ever would’ve shortened the seventh season to begin with—given free reign by FX, Sutter mapped out a sprawling, plot-bloated endgame that needlessly required episodes clocking in at no less than 70 minutes (minus commercials). Because of that, Sons of Anarchy’s resolution has been a slog.
And last night's series finale? Awful enough to pardon Dexter Morgan of all his lumberjacking sins.
Following Tara’s murder at the end of season six, Sons 2014 should’ve been squarely devoted to the dissolution of Jax and Gemma’s son/mother relationship. Instead of that streamlined drama, though, it’s been a wayward mishmash of overly complicated negotiations (see: everything involving August Marks), muted character demises (sorry, Bobby, you deserved better), and the neverending “Juice keeps avoiding death” conflict.
A shame, too, because Charlie Hunnam has been top-notch all season, especially in the standout episode “Suits of Woe.” Despite Jax’s ever-growing rap sheet of sins and destructive behavior, Hunnam has made you care deeply for SAMCRO’s embattled leader. He, as well as the show's longtime fans, deserved more than to see Jax perish at the end of Sons' longest and all-time worst montage, and with Sharknado-quality CGI as Michael Chiklis' rig smashed into him. And don't even get me started on the out-of-nowhere religious overtones. Jesus f'n Christ. —Matt Barone
Season 3
Aired: 2010
Standout episodes: "Turning and Turning," "Bainne," "NS"
Best moment: Jax considers letting Irish Normcores raise his son instead of bringing him back to Charming.
Most shocking moment: The Sons' interrogation tactic: burying an enemy up to his neck and doing figure 8s around his head on their Harleys.
Best Gemma moment: Holding a gun to an infant to get a nun to divulge Abel's whereabouts. A freaking infant.
The odds of Sons of Anarchy topping itself in its third season were never in the show’s favor. Greater shows have stumbled when following up incredible seasons, and Kurt Sutter’s biker drama didn’t buck that trend in the wake of the amazing, deserved-multiple-Emmy-statues second season. So, yeah, Sons’ second run will forever live under that looming shadow, and receive demerits for deflating the previous year’s momentum.
But give season three another look—some of the show’s best moments are contained within it. As he usually does with plot-lines, Sutter kept SAMCRO in Belfast for way too long, prolonging Jax’s search for Abel with the typical Sons gang deals and double-crosses. Yet that sluggish pacing can’t detract from the scene where Jax follows Abel and his new, normal adoptive parents out in public, a teary-eyed sequence in which Charlie Hunnam reminds you just how impressive he can be when the writing serves him well. Meanwhile, the season-long con Jax pulls on Agent Stahl is still a brilliant okie-doke, ending with her murder inside a car that’s equally devastating and satisfying.
Sons of Anarchy’s is essentially the show’s equivalent of Wu-Tang’s The W—it’s a strong batch of material that’s doomed to inferiority because of the greatness that came before it. —Matt Barone
Season 6
Aired: 2013
Standout episodes: "Wolfsangel," "Salvage," "John 8:32"
Best moment: Jax confronts Lowen to get the truth about Tara.
Most shocking moment: Otto kills Toric then arranges suicide-by-cop.
Best Gemma moment: Threatening Tara's boss after she figures out their scheme to fake a miscarriage.
Talk about extremes. In its eventful, corpse-ridden sixth season, Sons of Anarchy reached tremendous highs and a few despicable, head-scratching lows.
First, the positives. After five seasons’ worth of dangling story-lines and drawn-out character fates, Kurt Sutter finally introduced the Grim Reaper to some of the show’s principal cast, namely the two characters who most needed to check out in order to push Jax’s arc into its final stretch. He stopped beating around the proverbial bush in the terrific episode “Aon Rud Persanta” and killed Clay for the elder SAMCRO head’s countless sins, a move that—between endless plot diversions and, somehow, too much Danny Trejo—felt like it’d either never happen or wouldn’t go down until the final season.
The season’s anchor, though, was Maggie Siff, who majorly stepped her acting game up to carry Tara’s season-long “Will she or won’t she take the kids and haul ass out of Charming?” conflict. Once one of Sons’ least charismatic leads, Siff brought emotional weight to what could’ve been an anti-Jax antagonist. When that cougar nuisance Gemma jammed that fork into Tara’s skull during the season finale, it was shocking, hardcore, and, most importantly, sad.
Elsewhere, though, Sutter abandons such sensitivity by way of violence and goes ridiculously overboard. He turns into television’s King of Transparent Shock Value, opening the season with a gratuitous grammar school shooting. Four episodes later, Sutter’s outrageousness sinks into the deep end: In a scene that’s more exploitative than heartbreaking, Gemma and Clay are forced to have sex in a prison’s visiting room while two snarling guards watch and threaten to rape her if they don’t comply. It’s the inherently over-the-top Sons of Anarchy at its shameful worst. —Matt Barone
Season 4
Aired: 2011
Standout episodes: "Family Recipe," "Hands," "Burnt and Purged Away"
Best moment: Jax, Clay and Opie face off in "Burnt and Purged Away"
Most shocking moment: Clay savagely beats Gemma in "Hands"
Best Gemma moment: Upon being questioned about her scars from Clay by an adversary, Gemma replies "I ran my broomstick into a wall."
The ending undid everything that came before.
In its fourth season, Sons of Anarchy seemed like it was in its imperial phase, poised to deliver on season two's promise of becoming the best show on TV while apologizing for season three's lightweight stumble. The premiere found Jax finally resolving to get his new nuclear family the hell away from Gemma and the club; meanwhile, old age created a newfound sense of desperation and brutality in Clay. As the season progressed, its events became downright apocalyptic. Dual secret agendas were on deck, the duo agreed to move the club into drug-muling, which went about as awfully (awesome) as you'd expect—rival local gangs are one thing, but our favorite outlaws are no match for the high stakes war games that Mexican cartels play.
Elsewhere, heretofore comic relief Juice (Theo Rossi) quietly crumbled before the eyes of every fan who wanted to throw a chair through their TV. And when Opie forgave Clay and Tig for Donna's accidental murder, those same fans rejoiced as the newly ruthless Clay gave Opie a new reason to resume his bloodlust once and for all.
This is the season that contained arcs like Juice's stolen brick of cocaine, Clay's ill-conceived hit on Tara, and Opie's thirst for vengeance one after another. "Rollercoaster" doesn't begin to do the suspense justice. And then, Sutter wimped out and gave us one of the most maddening eleventh hour twists in TV history. While episodes like those named above still stand on their own, all of season four's arcs were rendered impotent upon not reaching completion, all thanks to the good ol' CIA.
Incidentally, 2011 was the last thoroughly great year for SAMCRO. —Frazier Tharpe
Season 1
Aired: 2008
Standout episodes: "Giving Back," "The Pull," "The Sleep of Babies"
Best moment: The last five minutes of "The Revelator" season finale
Most shocking moment: Jax shoots Tara's assaulter dead then they re-ignite their love affair right next to his corpse.
Best Gemma moment: She hits her husband's sidepiece in the face with a skateboard.
"Fire, or knife?" Those three words were uttered with chilling conviction in Sons of Anarchy's fifth episode, when SAMCRO discovered an excommunicated member is still sporting his club tattoo. That's when everything changed.
Up until then, Sons of Anarchy was merely cool, brimming with potential but only measuring up to the derisive "Sopranos-on-Harleys" description that so many critics saddled it with at the time. But then SoA abandoned the typical antihero tropes to start exploring its own themes of brotherhood, loyalty, and the moral conflict that complicates both. (There's a lot of welcome levity, too, which the show would go on to lose for better or worse around season three, coincidentally the same time walking punchline Half-Sack left the show.)
As Jackson Teller begins to realize there's a rot within the club he's always been heir to, even as external enemies close in, the Greek tragedy of Opie and his wife Donna plays out concurrently, informing Jax's final decision uttered in one of the series most powerful moments. As he stands near Donna's funeral (she's secretly gunned down in a case of mistaken identity by Tig in one of the most heartbreaking, best twists on TV ever) at his father's grave, he nods in agreement with John Teller's never-realized vision as Claudius and Gertrude Clay and Gemma fearfully look on: "Time for a change."
Jax Teller's future looked inevitably grim, but the future of Sons of Anarchy never looked brighter. —Frazier Tharpe
Season 2
Aired: 2009
Standout episodes: "Eureka," "Gilead," "Balm"
Best moment: Gemma confesses her darkest moment to bring her family together.
Most shocking moment: Gemma's gang rape stands as the most shocking moment of both season and series.
Best Gemma moment: While tracking her rapist, Gemma has a silent reply to a passerby honking at her for hogging a parking space.
Praise the (occasional) brilliance of Kurt Sutter.
Gemma's ultimately her family's most toxic and harmful element, but there was a time when she was also Sons of Anarchy's heart and soul. Even SoA's harshest critic would be at a loss for bad ways to describe the excellence on display in the show's sophomore season. Gemma's secret rape at the hands of an enemy faction and Jax and Clay's increasingly volatile relationship form the spine of a season that's firing on all cylinders. The club's mythology comes into sharper focus as Jax and Clay battle for its soul in the present, and every episode feels as urgent and fearlessly paced as one hoped the final season would.
Ethan Zobelle, Henry Rollins, and their merry band of racist rapists aren't just antagonists: They're straight-up villains, a necessary move in a season where Jax still has a long way to fall before he goes Full Antihero. But they're an afterthought compared to the tension within the club. Jax and Clay's power play is so engrossing that even the table votes become suspenseful, as if the show suddenly became an outlaw version of House of Cards. Season two isn't just the highest peak—it's the series' Empire Strikes Back, and everything that follows is, at best, an anticlimactic Return of the Jedi.
It was, arguably, one of the best things TV had to offer in 2009: violent, but thoughtful, thrilling but also meditative. Not that the Emmys noticed. —Frazier Tharpe