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C9 ‘Terriers’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy’: Down and dirty, boys tv previewfrom C1 Created by “Ocean’s Eleven”


screenwriter Ted Griffin, “Terri- ers” exudes an edgy confidence, personified by Logue’s swagger- ingly acerbic Hank. (And I’d like him even if his name wasn’t Hank.) Logue has bounced around different TV shows and indie films for a decade (“The Tao of Steve,” anyone?), with good and bad results, but always in need of a meatier part. Here, he’s like George Clooney on the inside and Chubby Jesus on the outside. He is thoroughly but soulfully damaged goods. Logue belongs here on FX in much the same way another coarse Irishman, “Res- cue Me’s” Denis Leary, does. Raymond-James (some will recognize him as Rene Lenier, the serial-killer Cajun from “True Blood’s” first season) is equally good as Britt, who energetically submits to Hank’s schemes. Britt is even more terrier-like than Hank; both men are, while not neutered, free to a good home. “Terriers” nimbly juggles Hank and Britt’s episodic caseload, delves into their complicated re- lationships, and launches a long- haul story arc, which is this: Asked by a down-and-out friend to locate his runaway daughter, Hank and Britt discover a sex- tape bribery scam. That case is convolutedly linked to a property development coverup that goes way beyond the cookie-cutter condos that are under construc- tion atop a toxic dump. California real estate really will kill you, and bodies start piling up. On paper, nothing about the show looks all that new. Logue’s one-liners (“Your brother says ‘Hello.’ He also says, ‘Ouch, why did you shoot me?’ ”) would ap- pear no quippier than the dia- logue from dozens of other snark- detective duds on the cable grid. But as Hank and Britt get more entangled in something sinister — such as when they are franti- cally trying to get rid of a body in Hank’s bathtub — I find myself in a rare and anxious mood: After the first five episodes, I can’t wait to see what will happen next. Certainly, “Terriers” is packed with the usual array of drug ad- dicts and hired thugs. And yes, you’re supposed to root for Hank and Britt even as their gradated value system leads them to do bad things in the name of good. And yes, the show asks you to laugh at violence, though the gunfire and clock-cleaning seems measured, almost restrained. And yes, by TV-casting fiat, there’s


flung in different directions: As Gemma goes into hiding at the home of her estranged and feeble father (ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hal Holbrook), it seems one or more of the Sons will be headed to Ireland to find the baby. But the essential theme re- mains the same — the Sons strug- gle to balance their do-bads (sup- plying arms to criminals) with some do-goods, such as keeping drug dealers out of their peaceful hamlet. (Get it? Hamlet?) Yes, as you may have heard, “Sons of An- archy” is loosely a “Hamlet”-on- Harleys. It is indeed Shakespear- ean in its constant sense of fore- boding, and it works brilliantly, as the Sons and their women ex- perience a pain that is as ever- present as their criminality. As such, our hurting for them is sometimes clouded by revulsion. Sutter is justified when he grous- es about being hosed by a paucity of Emmy nominations for the show and its solid cast.


Without sounding too much PRASHANT GUPTA/FX GANGING UP:From left, Tommy Flanagan, Theo Rossi, Charlie Hunnam, Ryan Hurst and Ron Perlman in “Sons of Anarchy.”


Instead of stylish beaches and tony poolside nightclubs, “Terriers” prefers the more squalid Golden State of moral ambiguities and final foreclosure notices.


PATRICK MCELHENNEY/FX DOGGED DETECTIVE DUO:Donal Logue, left, and Michael Raymond-James in “Terriers.”


a cigarillo-chomping black man (Rockmond Dunbar), a hard-bitten police detective — Hank’s former partner on the force — who alternately aids and antagonizes our antiheroes. And, of course, there are women in supporting roles (Laura Allen, Kimberly Quinn) ready to act cir- cles around the men in a fraction of the screen time.


But “Terriers” racks up the sub- tlest accomplishments, especially that strange and magic quality known as tone. The Southern California that you’ll see here looks and feels like the rundown, sunblasted-stucco canvas on which Quentin Tarantino splat- tered his morbidly funny trip- tychs more than a decade ago. This is the same seedy California we know from Showtime’s “Weeds” and often glimpse across the road from Disneyland vacations and rental-car lots at LAX. Instead of stylish beaches and tony poolside nightclubs, “Terri-


ers” prefers the more squalid Golden State of moral ambigu- ities and final foreclosure notic- es. It’s a cop show with satirical instincts, and it is well suited to the broken California dreamin’ of the current day.


‘Sons of Anarchy’


Speaking of West Coast desper- ados, that sonorous rumble you hear can only be the Sons of An- archy Motorcycle Club-Redwood Original (SAMCRO, for short), ar- riving for the much-anticipated third season of creator Kurt Sut- ter’s “Sons of Anarchy,” an addic- tively morose saga about a mo-


torcycle gang in the fictional cen- tral California town of Charming. The story picks up Tuesday night on FX right where it left off: A member of the True IRA gang has stolen the infant son of Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam, as SAMCRO’s conflicted heir appar- ent) in retribution for . . . I forget what. That same Irish guy also killed Half-Sack. Then Jax’s mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal, as SAMCRO’s protective matriarch) shot Polly for kidnapping her last season and facilitating her rape, and then . . . oh, jeez, where’d we put that Season 2 “Sons of An- archy” box set?


This isn’t soap opera, it’s grease opera. If you’re only now deciding to have a look at the show— which I do recommend to the stouthearted — you’re going to need to watch the first 26 epi- sodes, or perhaps hunker down for a remedial hour with the Sons’ Wikipedia page. “Cameron killed Half-Sack and


took my grandson,” fumes SAM- CRO’s president, Clay Morrow (the terrific and leonine Ron Perl- man), in one of this new season’s many moments of helpful exposi- tion. “[Stahl] lied and framed Gemma. That’s the real truth.” Subplots and characters are now


like a poindexter who’s never rid- den a hog, I guess what I like about “Sons of Anarchy,” besides the unwaveringly good perform- ances from Hunnam and Sagal, is its escapism and milieu: Take a drive across the United States or stick around Washington during Memorial Day’s Rolling Thunder rally and you soon realize how pervasive the middle-aged biker set really is in our culture, and how rarely that is reflected on TV beyond stereotype. (After all, “American Chopper” and Jesse James can’t teach us everything about biker culture.) “Sons of Anarchy” may be wild fantasy and melodrama, but it is tempered by a feeling of verity. It’s one of those hairy shows that is so true to its setting and soul that it dares you to sympathize with any of its characters. They’re all flawed, which is a fearless way to roll. “I’ve been trying to find some kind of balance,” Jax confides to the emphysemic Piney (William Lucking), one of the club’s elders. “[To do the] right thing for my family, my club. Every time I think maybe I’m heading in the right direction I end up in a place I never even knew could feel this bad. What’d I do, man?” “You’re loyal, decent,” Piney


says. “You love the right things.” With that, it’s off to bash some heads into concrete. As the Bard said, Alas, poor Yorick! I tattooed him.


stueverh@washpost.com Sons of Anarchy


(one hour) returns at 10 p.m. Tuesday; Terriers


(one hour) premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday, both on FX.


VIDEO ON THE WEB To watch a clip from “Sons of Anarchy,”


visit washingtonpost.com/style.


Hotheaded Sutter is the engine behind FX hit ‘Sons of Anarchy’ by Scott Collins


los angeles — For a guy who has outlaw biker gangs rumbling around in his head, Kurt Sutter is fairly . . . well, “nice” doesn’t seem the right word, but he’s literate and reflective and usually quite reasonable. The times when he gets riled up, though, are what everyone talks about. Then the ponytailed, tattooed,


46-year-old creator and executive producer of FX’s hit drama “Sons of Anarchy” — the network’s highest-rated series ever, which begins its third season on Tues- day — can be as rude and abrasive as they come. His Twitter account (sutterink) is a launch pad for four-letter ti- rades. After “Sons” was snubbed in this year’s Emmy race, Sutter filed a blog post calling TV acad- emy voters “lazy sheep.” Last year, when an executive was try- ing to nail down budget details for “Sons,” Sutter instructed him to back off, except in colorful lan- guage that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. The resulting letter from a Fox lawyer, ad- monishing Sutter for routinely behaving in “an abusive fashion,” now hangs framed in Sutter’s of- fice.


Sutter doesn’t apologize. “I can be arrogant, I can be insuffer- able,” he admitted in a recent in- terview on the “Sons of Anarchy” set, located in a studio complex in a hardscrabble, heavily industri- alized North Hollywood neigh- borhood. “You really have to have a big ego and a strong personality to do this job.” You also have to be a shrewd


marketer, and Sutter’s rants and serial misbehavior demonstrate


KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES


SHOW RUNNER: Series creator Kurt Sutter, left, with Mark Boone Junior and wife Katey Sagal at the Season 3 premiere.


that he can play that role quite well, too. Like, say, Matt Weiner on AMC’s “Mad Men” or Sutter’s own mentor, Shawn Ryan on FX’s “The Shield,” Sutter has become a “celebrity show runner,” a writer- producer who’s become almost as famous as the series he or she oversees. While as recently as five or 10 years ago fans knew little or nothing about the people who made their favorite programs, ce- lebrity show runners have be- come vital in a TV world packed with niche programs and fans connecting through social media. Off camera, Sutter flips off au- thority just like his bikers do on


“Sons of Anarchy.” And the fans — on Twitter, at Comic-Con, on blogs — eat it up. Last season, “Sons” drew an average of 4.5 mil- lion total viewers, a stunning 72 percent hike from the previous year, according to the Nielsen Co.


Anger as fuel


Which is not to say that Sutter’s whole life is a pose. A recovering addict, he still struggles with finding the right balance. “I got clean and sober about 17 years ago and really try to live my life by those principles” of recovery, he said. But the notion of “exor- cising the demons” frequently


crops up in conversation. He’s not telling off “The Man” simply for the marketing payoff. “I don’t struggle with the de- sire to do drugs and alcohol any- more,” Sutter said, “but I struggle with the obsessive and compul- sive behavior that sometimes ac- companies people with addic- tions.” That struggle plays out on- screen and off. “It’s hard for Kurt to be a guy who runs a production that spends tens and tens of mil- lions of dollars and has a lot of ac- countants and production people around,” said FX President John Landgraf. “I have no doubt there’s a certain amount of pain for Kurt in that process.” Or as Ryan, who gave Sutter his break on “The Shield,” put it: “There is an anger in Kurt that fuels his writing. And I think he’s very self-aware that it’s part of what makes him a really great writer. But it also gets him into trouble.” The third season will be the most ambitious yet for “Sons of Anarchy.” Often described as “Hamlet” on motorcycles, the se- ries tells the story of Jax Teller (played by British actor Charlie Hunnam), a member of the out- law biker gang run by his stepfa- ther, Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman, of “Hellboy” and “Beauty and the Beast” fame) that rules the town of Charming, Calif. (Sutter was a regular motorcycle rider in his youth but had fallen out of the habit until he developed “Sons.”) “He’s a guy who’s impulsive,”


Sutter said, “but he’s also a guy who’s probably too sensitive and too deep a thinker for the world.” He was referring to Jax, but he might as well have been talking about himself.


Sutter plays down the autobio-


graphical elements to “Sons,” but bits of his life do have a habit of creeping into scripts. A New Jer- sey native, Sutter had a tense re- lationship with his family and left home in his late teens and lat- er pursued an acting career (he turns up in “Sons of Anarchy” as the imprisoned gang member Big Otto). He patched up some old family wounds in recent years just as his father, from whom he had long felt estranged, was in declining health. Sometimes the parallels be-


tween life and art crop up at odd times, giving the drama in “Sons” a sudden burst of eccentric hu- mor. When he was growing up, Sutter was unsettled by his moth- er’s collection of Hummel dolls, which formed the basis of a life- long aversion. “When I first start- ed dating Katey, she had these wooden dolls on her mantel piece that just used to freak me out,” Sutter explained. “She would leave the room and I would turn them over. She never knew!” The doll phobia has materialized in Tig (Kim Coates), the violent lieu- tenant in the SAMCRO gang in “Sons.”


Tweet it like it is


Katey Sagal and Sutter married in 2004 and have a 3-year-old daughter. Famous from her work 20 years ago on “Married . . . With Children,” she’s a full decade old- er than her third husband and more philosophical about the vi- cissitudes of show business (her father was 1960s-era director Bo- ris Sagal and her younger sisters Jean and Liz found early fame as the Doublemint Twins). “He’s just very honest,” Sagal said of Sutter. “He just kind of


tells it like it is, in his mind. He’s an emotional guy, that’s what I would say.” She takes a similarly no-nonsense view of Sutter’s blog and Twitter rants. The dust he kicks up ultimately helps the show, at least in terms of profile. And isn’t that what matters in the end? “You have to think of other


ways of getting the word out be- cause it’s such a different adver- tising climate,” Sagal said. “And that is his motivation for doing all that.” It took Sutter some time to


grasp the possibilities. At first “I didn’t get Twitter,” he said. “I was like, ‘Why do people wanna know when I’m going to Starbucks?’ . . . Then I realized what the poten- tial was as a marketing tool.” But in his case, Sutter sees the need for caution as well. His outraged Emmy post (cheekily accompa- nied by a photo for Marlon Bran- do’s outlaw biker epic “The Wild One”) was followed by another item that seemed intended as a sheepish apology, explaining that “the blowback is affecting more than me,” he wrote. “Twitter is just a dangerous de- vice for a guy like me,” he said in the interview. “I try to use it to a good end. But ultimately, me hav- ing instant access to anything is probably not a good idea. I’m . . . ,” he said, his voice trailing off. “Just very impulsive.” That’s fine when it’s all about the work. “You really have to be obsessive to move forward and make it good, in my opinion,” he said. “But at a certain point that can cross the line and it doesn’t serve you. . . . There’s not a lot of gray in my life. It’s pretty black, it’s pretty white.”


— Los Angeles Times


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