Sons of Anarchy
Season 7 Episode 2: “Toil and Till”
Directed by Bill Geirhart
Written by Kurt Sutter, Charles Murray
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Tommy Flanagan, Kim Coates, Mark Boone Junior, Theo Rossi, Jimmy Smits, Dayton Callie, Drea De Mateo, Annabelle Gish, Kenneth Choi, and Billy Brown
FX
Air Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 10pm

Sons of Anarchy 7.2 ” Toil and Till” review coming up, but first a recap of Episode 1 and a look at antihero Opie Winston (Ryan Hurst).

Spoilers!!!

Sons of Anarchy 7.1 “Black Widower” recap: Loyalties are blurred and anything can happen in an already “all bets are off” world. Jax (Charlie Hunnam) carves a swastika and removes some teeth to get an in-prison meeting with Ron Tully (Marilyn Manson) and make sure the club is good with the Aryans (they are-for now). Jax gets out of jail and does not want to see his kids the entire episode, while Wendy (Drea De Mateo) leaves rehab early, and all she wants to do is go care for those kids. She gets Jax to let her take care of boys (with Gemma’s help), but when she finds Juice (Theo Rossi) hiding out in her OCD apartment, she keeps his and Gemma’s (Katey Sagal) secret. But Unser (Dayton Callie) finds Juice or rather Juice ties up Unser. Gemma justifies her murderous actions to Juice and herself, and talks to Tara (Maggie Siff) in the dark. Nero (Jimmy Smits) is with the Mayans, but goes to “handle” Jax and make up with Gemma. Jax throws a party with an agenda and invites all the players. Gemma points out an innocent Chinese as the one she saw driving away from Tara’s murder that night. Jax and Sons have a little torture party that ends with a fork to the head — his revenge satisfied….for now. This season opener provided the requisite gore with some comic relief thrown in (see gang leader’s wheelchair attached to and dragged by Bobby’s bike). Gemma continues to have the biggest balls of them all, covering her tracks for the “good” of the club.

Sons of Anarchy
Season 7 Episode 1: “Black Widower”
Directed by Paris Barclay
Written by Kurt Sutter
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Tommy Flanagan, Kim Coates, Mark Boone Junior, Theo Rossi, Jimmy Smits, Dayton Callie, and Drea De Mateo
FX
Air Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 10pm

Sons of Anarchy embarks on its “final ride” Tuesday, September 9th at 10pm on FX. Before we get to my review of the last season premiere (ever!!) of this compellingly violent show, some thoughts…

There will be spoilers (if you aren’t caught up)! Stop now or forever hold your “piece.”

Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball
Unrated DVD
Directed by P.J. Pesce
Starring Tom Berenger, Clayne Crawford, Tommy Flanagan, Maury Sterling, Martha Higareda
Universal Home Entertainment
Release Date: January 19, 2010

Direct-to-video sequels tend to put me ill at ease, and with good reason. More often than not these movies are cynical, cheapjack attempts by cash-strapped studios to squeeze every possible nickel out of even their most modest theatrical successes. Next to Walt Disney Pictures no other studio has been to the DTV sequel well more times than Universal Pictures, as their numerous quickie follow-ups to The Land Before Time, Darkman, Tremors, and American Pie have shown. I have nothing against movies bypassing cinemas and going direct to video store shelves; in the past many fine films, some much better than anything Hollywood has forced upon us, have made their premiere exclusively at our local Blockbuster Video or in the Redbox kiosk in front of the neighborhood Wal-Mart often because they”˜re the kind of movies that cannot be easily marketed into the moviegoer conscience like the cookie cutter fare that clogs the multiplex screens week in and week out. Plus every so often a rare sequel comes along that proves to be a cut above to the original (see The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, and Hostel Part II). But sequels to moderately profitable theatrical releases are as a rule made on budgets a fraction of what the originals were made for, and customarily they’re made without the participation of the filmmakers and cast that made the originals great (because they can”˜t be afforded). Leave it to Joe Carnahan, a firebrand filmmaking talent who makes his best movies outside the creative dead zone of Tinseltown, to accept the challenge of making a direct-to-video sequel the right way.