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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sons_of_anarchy_2067.jpg]][[quoteright:300:[[EarWorm Gotta live this life...till you die]].]]

''Sons of Anarchy'' is a television drama series from the FX network; it was created by former ''Series/TheShield'' writer Kurt Sutter. The series, which can be described as "''{{Theatre/Hamlet}}'' meets the Hells Angels", focuses on the criminal exploits of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club in the northern Californian town of Charming.

The Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original (SAMCRO, Sam Crow, the Sons, or just Sons of Anarchy) is a motorcycle club that sells guns to various gangs, all the while "protecting" the town, in order to preserve Charming as a small town unmolested by big corporations, chain stores, and other corrupt aspects of upper-class suburbia. The main character/Hamlet analogue is Jackson "Jax" Teller, son of deceased founder John Teller and step-son of the current leader of the group, Clay Morrow. The series begins with Jax entering fatherhood as his ex-wife gives birth to their first-born son, while at the same time discovering a manifesto his father wrote prior to his death in which he decries how his hippie biker club became an organized crime syndicate that was the very thing that he was rebelling against when he conceived of the club.

The manifesto inspires Jax to try and steer the club towards his father's original vision by attempting to move the club away from organized crime. Needless to say, this does not go over well with the EvillyAffable Clay or his AffablyEvil mother Gemma; the show implies that they had Jax's father murdered when he began "going soft" on them.

Like ''The Shield'', ''Sons'' has a rich supporting cast of characters balancing out the ''Hamlet''-esque drama; other bikers include Bobby Munson (a bookmaker/Elvis impersonator by day and a biker by night), Tig Trager (Clay's right-hand man and chief enforcer who has some bizarre sexual habits), Opie (Jax's best friend, whose interests are also split between the club and his family), Opie's father Piney (who founded the club along with John Teller), Juice (a Hispanic computer geek from Queens), Chibs (a Scottish former Army medic and one-time member of the IRA), and Happy (a ruthless triggerman for the club).

On the civilian side, there is Tara (a doctor who was Jax's childhood sweetheart, who serves as the chief threat to Gemma's control over her son), corrupt Police Chief Unser, his straight-as-an-arrow deputy (and potential successor) David Hale, and Agent June Stahl.

While the show borrows heavily from ''Hamlet'', much of the drama comes from the gang's criminal exploits and the Faustian implications of SAMCRO's presence within Charming. This has led to the wealthier elements of the town to make their own (even worse) Faustian pacts, such as bringing in white supremacists into Charming (see Season Two) to destroy SAMCRO by any means necessary.

----
!!The show provides examples of:
* AbortedArc: Season two was supposed to feature the introduction of the Tacoma Washington branch of SAMCRO. Their criminal specialty would be established as robbing banks along the west coast, resulting in an episode where they would team-up with Opie and several other SAMCRO members in robbing a bank, in order to obtain the money needed to bail Jax/Clay/Juice/Bobby/Tig from jail after their arrest. As it stands, the plotline got dropped save for the introduction of the Tacoma Branch's Sgt. At Arms Herman Kozik. The storyline was eventually reworked for Season 4, only now its the Tucson, Arizona chapter and they're involved in drug dealing with the cartel.
* ActorAllusion:
** Creator/StephenKing appears in a cameo role as a "cleaner" called Bachman, a reference to his old PenName, Richard Bachman.
** When planning Gemma's hiding in Canada Tig suggests her to "go redhead," referencing Katy Sagal's role as Peg Bundy in ''MarriedWithChildren''. Gemma states that she'd rather shave her head.
** When Jax takes Luann to the new porn studio she is initially afraid that he is going to murder her. Jax tells her he isn't going to "go Adrianna" on her. A reference to DreaDeMatteo (who played Jax's son's mother)'s character from ''Series/TheSopranos''.
** Chibs' name dropping another movie he was in.
-->'''Chibs''': I love the green! All about the Benjamins!"
** A basketball player calls Kozik a "lemonheaded sucka." Hmm, didn't Kenny Johnson play a guy [[TheShield in a certain TV show]] where his nickname was "Lem," which was short for "Lemonhead"? Also [[spoiler: His final line of dialogue, before being blown up by a landmine, was "You gotta be shittin' me", one of his Shield character's catchphrases]].
** When Walton Goggins, of ''TheShield'' shows up playing a transsexual hooker, his character is named Venus Van Damme. His character on The Shield twice used Cletus Van Damme as an alias.
** DreaDeMatteo still has a major [[PreyForRockAndRoll drug problem]].
* AffablyEvil: Pretty much everyone in the motorcycle club, including the group's matriarch Gemma Teller.
** For a guy who [[spoiler:set Tig's daughter on fire]], Pope seems like an easy guy to have a normal conversation with.
* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: The Sons, which finances itself in the blackmarket arms trade. The members of the Charming chapter are completely capable of violence and murder, but are also more moral than other outlaw bikers, having formed a truce with the local police and community. Other chapters of the gang, as well as other gangs in the area, are little more than thugs. The show occasionally shows the contrast between outlaw bikers and regular bikers.
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys:
** Jax and Tara
** Donna and Opie
** [[spoiler: Lyla and Opie]]
** [[spoiler: Gemma's dad's caretaker and Tig]]
* AndStarring: Ron Perlman.
* AngryBlackMan: Lampshaded by Tig and Clay when they plan to frame the One-Niners
-->'''Tig''': Blame it on the angry black man.
-->'''Clay''': It's the American Way.
* AnimalMotifs: The crow is a recurring symbol of the club.
* AntiHero: Jax straddles the line between Types IV and V. The rest of the gang is straight Type V
* AnythingThatMoves: Tig seems to have every fetish in existence, from transexuals to corpses, which technically goes ''beyond'' "anything that moves." 
* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Half-Sack, Piney Winston, Kozik, Hale, Stahl, Opie]].
* AssShove: Early in the show, the Sons raid a warehouse where the Mayans are working with a NORD. After killing them all, the Sons pile the bodies and insert a lit stick of dynamite into the NORD's butt as a final insult.
* AxCrazy:
** Josh Kohn
** Salazar comes close. Plus he uses an actual axe
* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Subverted; Jax's relationship with his ex-wife does not get saved by the birth of their first born.
* BadassBeard: Most of the club sports one, being bikers and all.
* BadassBystander: In terms of relatives, at least. That random nurse who Otto so casually killed? Well, [[spoiler:she had a seriously dangerous and pissed off brother who just happens to be a retired US Marshal, former Special Forces officer and Harvard graduate]].
* BadAssGrandpa:
** Piney. The man uses his portable oxygen tank as a melee weapon!
** Clay is still dangerous even as he's facing crippling arthritis in his hands.
** Father Ashby easily tosses Jax on his ass when the younger man rushes him.
* {{Badass Biker}}: A show built around the trope.
* BadassPreacher: Father Ashby. Looks old and slow. Turns out he's just resting.
* BatmanGambit:
** This is how Zobelle deals with biker gangs who stand in his way. He finds a way of provoking them into brash, violent action, calls the cops and the bikers end up getting arrested and jailed for a long time. The only reason this initially fails to work with the Sons is because he underestimated Gemma.
** Agent Stahl uses a number on the Sons but they all fail since she does not understand what makes them really tick.
** U.S. Attorney Potter has them on both Otto and Juice
** Jax was able to exploit Agent Stahl's arrogance to make her think that she has beaten SAMCRO and thus they were no longer a threat to her. If it failed the Sons would have been in a much weaker position with both the IRA and the Russians gunning for them.
** Jax hands over Tig to Pope, knowing that [[spoiler:Pope will want to take his time torturing Tig and allow Jax time to rescue him. Afterwards, Tig asks what would have happened if Pope had killed him on the spot. Jax just replies, "He didn't."]]
* BeardOfSorrow: Sheriff Roosevelt grows one after [[spoiler:his wife is murdered]]. His skull remains shaved to the skin, however.
* BerserkButton: Tara does not take disrespect of her association with the club well. She also freaks out at threats to the integrity of her family.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Tara has threatened and attacked quite a few people by the fifth season for various offenses.
* BigBad
** Season 2: Ethan Zobelle
** Season 3: Jimmy O'Phelan
** Season 4: [[spoiler: Clay Morrow]]
** Season 5: [[spoiler:Pope]]
* BigNo: Tara after she witnesses [[spoiler:Otto stabbing a nurse several times in the neck]].
* BiTheWay: [[spoiler:Gemma]] starts season 5 in bed with a man who runs an escort agency and two of his young girls. He claims he never sleeps with his "co-workers" and inviting the girls was all her idea.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: SAMCRO is a criminal organization that deals in illegal firearms and routinely commits other crimes like armed robbery and even murder. But the other criminal gangs they clash with are almost always ''even worse''.
* BreakTheHaughty:
** Gemma being [[spoiler: gang-raped by white supremacists in the season two opener]]
** Otto does this to Agent Stahl when he breaks her nose after she tries to trick him into giving her evidence to open a RICO case against the club.
** Agent Stahl herself intends to do this to SAMCRO by turning them against each other and thus subverting the principles of loyalty and brotherhood the bikers are so proud of. This becomes the primary motive in seasons 2 and 3. [[spoiler: She fails and the Sons break her instead]]
** Pope knows that a hardcore biker like Tig is not going to be afraid to die and that Tig is TooKinkyToTorture. Instead he [[spoiler: burns Tig's daughter alive while a chained up Tig watches]]. 
* BrotherSisterIncest: [[spoiler: Jax and Trinity, though they find out before they go all the way]].
* BungledSuicide: [[spoiler: Juice tries several times to hang himself. When he does manage to jump off, the branch snaps. Walking through a fully-active minefield could be considered a suicide attempt as well]].
* BunnyEarsLawyer:
** Chuck Marstein is a skilled criminal accountant who developes a compulsive tic: unconscious masturbation. [[spoiler:He has his problem "cured" by a rival gang leader who amputates all but his forefingers]].
** Bobby is an Elvis impersonator on the side, which seems seriously out of place in an outlaw biker gang. He is also a stone cold killer.
** Bachman, the crime scene cleaner, is an oddball and apparently likes to listen to Eighties music when he disposes of corpses.
** Lincoln Potter, the Assistent U.S. Attorney who's investigating the Sons. He has a number of strange mannerisms that get the Sheriff to call him "a weird dude." He says that his behavior does serve a purpose, but it's also because he doesn't like most people.
* ButtMonkey: Half-Sack and Chuck.
* CantStopTheSignal: Tara makes copies of Teller's letters.
* CarChase: The Sons chase someone on their motorcycles almost once an episode, often in a running gun battle.
* TheCastShowoff: Katy Sagal has worked as a professional singer. She provides vocals for several songs used in the show.
* CelebrityParadox: ''TheShield'' is a fictional television series in the universe of ''Sons of Anarchy'', even though the series uses one of the gangs from the show (the One-Niners) as major characters in the show's mythology and the casting of multiple Shield actors in the series (most notably Jay Karnes, Kenny Johnson, David Rees Snell, and Benito Martinez).
* ChekhovsGun:
** The ambulance stolen by Half-Sack on Season 1's "The Pull"
** Maureen's message for Jax.
* TheChessmaster:
** Ethan Zobelle
** Stahl, who repeatedly attempts to play this role, though her plans all eventually have unfortunate consequences.
** Jax Teller shows throughout the show that he has the best head for intrigue. This is particularly notable when [[spoiler:he utterly outplays Agent Stahl at the season 3 finale]].
** U.S. Attorney Potter seems to be a few steps ahead of the Sons and they are not even aware of his existance yet
* ChildSoldiers:
** [[spoiler: Jimmy O'Phelan's recruiting these to employ as muscle]]
** Weston's son Dukie who tries to shoot the Sons and police who come to raid their house.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Sean Casey of the IRA subjects Liam O'Neill to this. While Happy watches with a smile.
* ColourCodedArmies: While it's not prominent, the gangs display their own colours. Samcro wears a lot of blue, Mayans have green and the One-Niners purple.
* CoolOldGuy: Bobby, also Piney and, to a lesser extent, Unser.
* CombatSadomasochist: Tig
* TheConsigliere: 
** Father Kellan for the True IRA Council
** Pope has a right-hand man whom he's known since boyhood. [[spoiler:He takes over Pope's organization after Pope's death]].
* CorruptCop: Just about all of the local cops except Hale are in league with the Sons. Outside of the local cops, Agent Stahl is a particularly notable example, going from cocky crusading cop to dirty cop to cold-blooded murderer in just a few seasons. Roosevelt is introduced as a corrupt cop willing to blackmail members of SAMCRO to bring them down but ultimately backs down when he realizes that he's being used by Lincoln Potter
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Zobelle, though he's a small business owner rather than a corporate stooge.
* CorruptPolitician: Jacob Hale becomes mayor just so he can streamline his real estate ventures. He doesn't even do a whole lot to conceal it, either.
* CrossOver: One of the gangs featured, the One-Niners, also appeared in ''TheShield''.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Half Sack is an Iraq War veteran and a surprisingly skilled boxer.
* CycleOfRevenge: Nobody actually bothers to talk about it, but it's worth mentioning that Opie went on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge [[spoiler: against Clay for killing Piney.]] This begat Tig going on one [[spoiler: against the Niners because he believed they had shot Clay,]] and then ''that'' begat the leader of the niners to start his own rampage [[spoiler: against SAMCRO for attacking and killing some of his people in broad daylight.]] The current capper has everything [[spoiler: coming full circle when Pope's revenge leads to Opie being brutally killed in prison.]]
* DarkActionGirl: Polly, Ethan's daughter. Luisa, Salazar's girlfriend
* DeadpanSnarker: Gemma. As well as Agent Stahl.
* DealWithTheDevil: The running theme of the series.
** SAMCRO is able to run roughshod over the town and its law enforcement officers in exchange for keeping outside influences out of the town.
** Kurt Sutter recently posted backstory material on his blog, stating that the SAMCRO/IRA relationship was born out of a deal with the devil. The massive medical bills from when Jax's younger brother was in the hospital due to his ultimately fatal illness, led to SAMCRO entering into their alliance with the IRA, just so that John and Gemma could avoid bankruptcy.
** When Jax makes a deal with Agent Stahl it's hard to distinguish whether the career criminal or the federal law enforcement agent is the 'devil' in that bargain.
** In the season 4 finale Jax is forced into another deal like that when he receives AnOfferYouCantRefuse [[spoiler: from the CIA]]
* DepravedBisexual:
** Tig, the most sexually depraved member of the gang, is also bisexual.
** Agent Stahl is seen having sex with [[spoiler: Deputy David Hale]] in season 2 and in bed with [[spoiler: Agent Amy Tyler]] in season 3.
* DirtyCop:
** Unser works with SAMCRO, though he insists that he does it for the sake of Charming.
** Agent Stahl, right down to killing her fellow ATF agent/lover and framing her for a crime she herself committed, to further her tenuous deal with Jax. 
* DisneyVillainDeath: Clay executes a traitorous IRA biker by shoving him off a roof.
* DownerEnding:
** Season 1: Donna is dead thanks to Clay and Tig's scheme and Jax has to cover it up for the sake of club.
** Season 2: [[spoiler:Jax's son has been kidnapped, Gemma is a wanted fugitive, Zobelle gets away, and Half-Sack is dead.]]
** Season 3: Jax and company are going to jail for 12-18 months, at which time Tara has discovered horrific evidence linking Clay and Gemma to the murder of Jax's biological father. Also, Uncer has been deposed and Charming's local police department has been disbanded, thanks to Jacob Hale's vengeful manipulation of Uncer in retaliation for his younger brother's murder thanks to the biker antics Uncer allowed to run rampant under his watch. And worse, Hale's now going to become elected mayor and has successfully eliminated the last remaining hold-out that is standing between him and the recreation of Charming into a yuppie paradise that SAMCRO has long attempted to keep from happening.
** Season 4: Jax can't leave Charming with Tara, who's career as a doctor is in jeopardy. Opie has been alienated from the club. Tig kills an innocent bystander whose father is an extremely wealthy and powerful crimelord. Jax assumes his father's place at the table with Tara by his side in the same position as a young John Teller and Gemma, implying that their tragedy is repeating itself.
** Season 5: Bobby quits as Vice-President in disgust over Jax's tactics. Jax and Nero both refuse to leave their lives of crime in spite of realizing that they should. Clay is framed for murder and Gemma is forced to go along with the plan. A powerful vigilante has set his sights on the club. Tara is framed for accessory to murder and arrested. 
* TheDragon:
** Tig and Happy fill this role for Clay.
** AJ Weston for Zobelle.
** Luke Moran for Jimmy O'Phelan on Northern California. Donny fills this role in Belfast.
** Darby is recruited by Jacob Hale to act his Dragon but he quickly resigns. Then, Hale seeks out Hector Salazar, of the Calaveras MC. However, Salazar pulls a DragonWithAnAgenda and blackmails Hale.
** Liam O'Neill, SAMBEL Sgt-at-arms.
** Sean, for Father Ashby.
** Luis Torres for "Romeo" Parada.
** Roosevelt for Lincoln Potter, who acts somewhat like TheManBehindTheMan.
* DrivenToSuicide:
** [[spoiler: Otto.]] Subverted, since [[spoiler: he fails and it was actually part of a plan to get revenge for Jax by killing the Russian that stabbed him while in Prison.]] Possibly a double subversion when [[spoiler: Otto asks Potter to get his execution date moved up as part of his deal to become TheMole.]]
** [[spoiler: Juice, due to his heritage (he's half-black, a no-no for the club) and the fact that he killed Miles. He bungles it, however.]]
* DroppedABridgeOnHim:
** [[spoiler: Hale, who's killed off suddenly in the opening of season 3.]]
** [[spoiler: Kozik, who's given a sudden and anticlimactic death by landmine. The main cast drinks a shot in his memory and the show continues as if nothing happened. Even his vitriolic best bud Tig barely bats an eyelash]].
** [[spoiler: Laroy, who's killed off somewhere between Season 4 and 5]].
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: 
** Minor example: in the early episodes Tig, Opie, Bobby and Chibs all have noticeably shorter hair than in later seasons and some are missing facial hair. The cast clearly started growing out their hair upon landing the role and continued letting it grow as the seasons progressed.
** Also, the earlier episodes followed the cliched formula of SAMCRO running around, solving problems and pissing off Hale with the way that they are always five steps ahead of the local cops due Uncer being in bed with them. 
* EasyEvangelism: Subverted; [[spoiler: after being gang raped and forced to hide what happened to her in order to keep her family from going to jail for murdering her attackers, Gemma does some soul searching of the God variety and ends up coming to the conclusion that God wants her to kill the woman who colluded with the rapists.]]
* EqualOpportunityEvil: The Sons seem pretty progressive for an outlaw motorcycle gang, which helps keep them sympathetic for the majority of the show, but typical outlaw biker bigotry occasionally rears its head to remind us that these aren't boy scouts.
** For seasons one through three, a positive aspect of the group was that they were largely shown to treat their women with respect, and Gemma even wields a lot of power as the club's TeamMom. But season four ended this with [[spoiler: Clay savagely beating Gemma and cursing her out. Jax also beats up a porn star who was creating havoc with Jax and Opie's lives]].
** Similarly, the group accepts Latino and Jewish members into their ranks and also have black and Latino allies. One member has a black wife and a mixed-race daughter. Most real outlaw biker groups are racially segregated, and white gangs often have strong White Supremacist ties. However, black members are not allowed in the club. The current members adhere to the rule even though they recognize it as a relic from another age. This becomes a major plot point when [[spoiler:Juice's father turns out to be a black man. The police use the fact to blackmail him into cooperating, since exposing it would get him kicked out of the Sons or worse. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for him, it turns out that the rule is more lax than he expected: as long as your birth certificate doesn't list you as black, your actually ancestry doesn't matter]].
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Nero establishes his badass credentials by voluntarily engaging in some CarFu to protect Jax. He chuckles throughout the chase and proclaims it a good time. This foreshadows [[spoiler:his eventual return to the gangster lifestyle]].
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas:
** Happy may have murdered 14 people, enjoy torture and frequents a strip club that employs victims of sex trafficking, but he's not about to let you make his aunt or nana wash your dishes!
** Jax and Gemma, obviously.
** Averted with Gemma: she had a horrible relationship with her mother and lists her as one of the few people who could legitimately scares her.
** Episode "Dorylus" introduced Vivica and her sons Luther and Vandross. The club suspected that she had bought their stolen weapons, but it turned out to be her sons who went behind her back. They wanted to to use the money to surprise their mother with a new vehicle. Her disapproval clearly indicates that she's got her family of thugs well under her thumb.
-->'''Tig''': Vivica makes Gemma look like Donna Reed.
-->'''Jax''': I suddenly feel a little less dysfunctional.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Violence against children is a big no-no for SAMCRO. Also dealing drugs in Charming. A big part of the show is putting the characters into situations that test whether they will adhere to the standards they set out for themselves. Clay does not seem to have a line he is not willing to cross if it is to his benefit. In contrast even Tig has principles he will stand up for even if it means opposing Clay.
* EvilMatriarch: Gemma, though she's since been downgraded to DefrostingIceQueen.
* EvillyAffable: Ethan Zobelle, Clay Morrow, Putlova
* {{Expy}}: "The True IRA" are a stand-in for "The Real IRA," which splintered from the IRA to continue their militant actions aftet the ceasefire in 1997.
* FaceDeathWithDignity:
** [[spoiler: Jimmy O'Phelan]]: First when the Russians give him to [[spoiler: the Club]] all he does is greet [[spoiler: Jax and Clay]] and gets in the car without another word. Second after [[spoiler: the ATF rescues him and then Stahl gets ambushed]] He looks his killer in the eyes, smiles, tells him to take care of his wife and stepchild. He even takes his GlasgowSmile and stabbing without any fear.
** Averted with [[spoiler:Stahl, who breaks down when she realizes she's gonna die]]
** [[spoiler: AJ Weston simply sits down and accepts his defeat. In an apparent trade-off, he demands that his son be left out of the grudge and not see his corpse afterwards]].
* FairCop: Deputy Hale.
* FakeAmerican: Jax. Charlie Hunnam is from Newcastle, UK.
* FakeIrish: Jimmy O'Phelan and most of the rest of the Irish characters in season 3.
* FakeRussian: American actor Keith Szarabajka, of Polish descent, plays a Russian gangster in the final few episodes of season three.
* FalseFlagOperation: So many.
** [[spoiler: Tig stages the murder of Opie to look like a Mayan retaliation, accidentally killing Donna.]]
** [[spoiler: After Opie takes vengeance on a Mayan biker, Jax (who knows it was Tig) stages the dead body to look like a One Niner killing.]]
** [[spoiler: Agent Stahl stages the Irish killing to look like Gemma's to frame her.]]
** [[spoiler: Agent Stahl stages her partner's killing to look like the Calaveras trying to rescue Hector Salazar.]]
** [[spoiler: SAMCRO stages the murder of Stahl as a Real IRA hit (at least Jimmy's killing was done on their orders).]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Unintentionally invoked in Season 3.
--> '''Kozik''': [[spoiler: "You do realize one of us is gonna end up dead, right?"]]
--> '''Piney''': [[spoiler: "I'm counting on it."]]
* FriendlyEnemy: Darby toward the Sons. He works against them, but will sit down and chat with Gemma for a few minutes, even though she's got "some Jew in her." He also behaves this way toward the local Jewish boxing coach. Darby has reformed at that point, but it's clear that the two men have exchanged more than just threats and slurs over the years.
* TheFundamentalist: Unlike the BigBad Ethan Zobelle, or fellow [[CoDragons CoDragon]] Ule, AJ Weston can't even consider the idea of collaborating with Latinos.
* GambitRoulette: Season 3 is either this or a GambitPileup.
* GenreSavvy: AJ Weston in season two, especially after he decides to have his group of Aryan tough guys bring guns to a planned "rumble" against SAMCRO so that they can just shoot Jax and his crew dead. Jax was also savvy enough for ensuring he had allies to back him up in case of a double-cross.
* GlasgowSmile: Chibs was given one by Jimmy O [[spoiler: and returned the favor]]. O'Neill also gets one from SAMCRO
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Subverted with Chibs' Glasgow Grin and even Darby, who sufferes severe burns and [[spoiler: turns his back on his gang and drug-dealing]]
* GoOutWithASmile: [[spoiler: Opie, in prison, just before receiving a fatal blow to the back of the head, with a lead pipe, which is delivered by a rival gang member.]]
* GrimReaper: The Sons' motif. Their symbol is the Grim Reaper holding a crystal ball with the anarchy symbol and a M16-handled scythe reflecting the founder's service in TheVietnamWar. Other examples are M16 scythe shirts and Jax's cut, which features a "Reaper Crew" patch. Some members have it as a back tatoo.
* GroinAttack: On Stahl, of all people.
** The carny from "Fun Town" ''who was castrated by Clay and left to die''. They even show his severed testicles!
** And later in Season 3, Gemma stabs someone in the groin.
** Early in season 1, Jax finds the dealer who sold smack to his pregnant ex-wife, breaks off a pool cue, and stabs him in the crotch with it.
* HannibalLecture: Tig does this to a group of bounty hunters who capture him.
* HeManWomanHater: Tig, who regularly uses and abuses women. He's not disturbed by two rotting female corpses and at one point quips, "This is why I beat hookers!" In one epsidoe, he [[spoiler:casually executes a captive woman, which shocks the rest of the gang]]. However, it's often played on its head: Tig is always very respectful to Gemma, and he has two daughters that he obviously loves a great deal.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: 
** Season two big bad Ethan Zobelle claims to be this, after telling Deputy Hale that he formed the League Of American Nationalists after his wife was killed by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting.
** Every law officer who goes against the Sons makes a pact with them at some point or outright becomes corrupt. 
* HeroAntagonist: Averted or played with for the most part.
** Pretty much all the cops in Charming are corrupt and on the take from the Sons in the first three seasons (except for Hale [[spoiler: and even he starts to become slightly more cooperative towards the end of season 2 before he dies]]).
** Agents Kohn and Stahl are also revealed to either have their own agendas or be corrupt.
** Season 4 has Eli Roosevelt and Lincoln Potter who both fit the bill a lit bit better. Still played with because Roosevelt has some CowboyCop tendencies (mostly towards the beginning of the season), while Potter uses people rather callously and occasionally bends the rules, but not to the point of corruption.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: How Opie goes out.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Alvarez, the President of the Mayans. Not particularly "heroic", but he is playing power games with SAMCRO the whole time he is fighting a bloody turf war over Oakland with the One Niners.
* HollywoodAtheist: Gemma.
* HollywoodSilencer: Every time a suppressed firearm is fired on this show (which is surprisingly often), it makes the standard movie 'fwip' sound effect.
* HotMom: Lyla, one of Luann's porn starlets
* HypocrisyNod: '''Jax''': "You are ''seriously'' gonna stand there, and lay the guilt of a dead wife on ''me''?"
* IAmAHumanitarian: A human head gets hidden and cooked in a chili pot. When some cops demand free bowls of the chili, they are none the wiser.
* IconicItem: Every character's "cut" or "colors," their vest with the MC patches. Taking or damaging another biker's cut is VERY SeriousBusiness.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Unser says his dealings with Clay and SAMCRO were about protecting Charming, not about getting payoffs.
* IdiotBall: Half Sack and Juice tend to trade off possession of this.
* IHaveThisFriend: When Tara asks her supervisor for help finding Lyla an anonymous abortion clinic, she assumes it's really about Tara. [[spoiler: It was about Lyla, but Tara does have the same thing on her mind.]]
* IJustWantToBeNormal: What Donna wanted for her and Opie. Sadly, Donna got killed off and her husband became a child-neglecting biker even more devoted to the gang that Donna loathed.
* [[IllGirl Ill Boy]]: Abel in the first season. Seems to be better now.
* ILoveTheDead: Tig insinuates that he's had a sexual encounter with a corpse. When Gemma is asked if she's ever broken into a crypt, she quips, "I'm not Tig!"
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler:Juice]] tries to hang himself but the tree branch breaks.
* IronicNickname: Happy, a violent clubmember and accomplished scowler. When a girl mentions that he seems "nice," Clay does a SpitTake.
* JurisdictionFriction:
** Between the local police and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
** Averted in the 4th Season. The ATF, FBI and San Joaquin Sheriff Department collaborate to bring down the Russians, the True IRA and SAMCRO. [[spoiler: Played Straight, however, in that their efforts are scuppered at the end of the season when it's revealed the the CIA is backing the Gallindo Cartel and won't allow any of the other agencies to touch them]].
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Ethan Zobelle manages to escape to Budapest with his life, but little else. He lost his daughter, his business, and his contacts, and his status as an informant is known]].
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: In the third season finale, both Stahl and Jimmy O get this. Stahl, whose setting up of Opie in season one as a rat got his wife Donna killed by mistake, is in turn killed by Opie. Chibs kills Jimmy O, finally getting back at him for taking his wife and child and holding them hostage for years.]]
* KilledOffForReal: It's a long list: [[spoiler: Donna, Luann, Half-Sack, Deputy Hale, Agent Stahl, Jimmy O, Piney, Kozik, Miles, Georgie, Laroy, Dawn, Opie]]
** [[spoiler: Season 5 confirms that Father Kellan Ashby was killed by Jimmy O off screen]]
* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler: How Pope has Tig's daughter Dawn killed, in vengeance for Tig's incidental murder of Pope's daughter.]]
* KlingonPromotion: The implied way Clay Morrow got control over SAMCRO. [[spoiler:Sort of confirmed in the fourth season. John Teller wanted to take the Sons out of the gun-running business, but Clay wanted to keep the money, take control of the club, and take Gemma as well. In the season three finale we hear that John wrote to his distant lover that if his letters stop, it will be because Gemma and Clay killed him. But as far as we know, he genuinely died in a motorcycle accident. If Clay or Gemma were involved, or if this was the culmination of John's death-wish (brought about by his younger son's death and Gemma's "terrifying disdain" and blatant affair with his best friend) is as of yet unknown]].
* KavorkaMan: Bobby and Tig
* KnightInSourArmor: Deputy Police Chief David Hale
* KnightTemplar: A. J. Weston
* LadyDrunk: Gemma. The violent, biker chick version.
* LadykillerInLove: Subverted. Borderline misogynist and lady's man Tig is clearly broken up by a girl who was taken from him by Kozik. Tig says he still thinks about her every day, even years later, and refuses to ever forgive Kozik even though they were clearly close friends. It turns out that [[spoiler:Tig's "girl" was actually his dog]].
* LadyMacBeth: Gemma
* TheLancer: Opie to Jax's TheHero
* LandMineGoesClick: More like Land Mine Goes High-Pitched Beep in "Call of Duty."
* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: Although they're a motorcycle gang rather than the Italian mob, SAMCRO uses this trope in the exact same fashion. Everybody knows what they do for a living, but whenever they're accused of being a biker gang by law enforcement officers, they'll assert that they're just a club of Harley enthusiasts.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: The Sons are gun-runners, drug dealers and killers who stomp on anyone who stands in their way, yet the villains of each season always end up being worse than them. Subverted [[spoiler:in season five; the Sons are their own worst enemies.]]
* LittleMissBadass: ActionGirl Trinity Ashby, not so young but kinda little and definetely {{Badass}}
* LoveTriangle: Subverted by Tig and Kozik when it's revealed that [[spoiler:they were fighting over a dog, not a lover]].
* TheMafia: The Cacuzza crime family, led by Jimmy Cacuzza.
* TheMafiya: Led by Viktor Putlova. [[spoiler: But not anymore. It's just business.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: Both Gemma and ATF Agent June Stahl.
* MamaBear: Gemma in regards to her son, Jax, and her grandson to the point of being a [[KnightTemplarParent Knight Templar Grandparent]], especially in Season 3 where [[spoiler: she holds a gun to the head of another baby to extort information about Abel's whereabouts]].
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: There's a recurring homeless woman who might just be slightly crazy or might be an AngelUnaware.
* MeaningfulEcho: 
** [[spoiler: After killing Piney, Clay is the oldest man at the table in SAMCRO. With Piney it was highlighted by his oxygen tank. Clay carries on the tradition after being shot by Opie.]]
** In the fourth season finale, Jax and Tara assume a pose that is identical to a photograph of John Teller and Gemma, implying that history is repeating itself.
** In the fifth season finale, the photograph pose is again echoed, but this time Jax is weeping and Gemma is consoling him.
* MercyKill: Subverted. In Season 4, Clay is introduced to a man who is ''slowly being eaten alive by ants''. He kills him because he overheard a conversation he and Bobby had, not to end his suffering.
* MobWar:
** A bloody war with the Mayans is a large part of the backstory of SAMCRO. By the time it was over, John Teller was dead and Clay was in charge. Without that conflict the club might have been quite different than what it is now.
** In seasons 1-3 a large part of the plot is driven by the Sons trying to avoid getting entangled in a MobWar with the Mayans, Aryans or the various factions of the Real IRA
** In season 4 Clay's scheme ends up putting the Sons in the middle of a war between rival Mexican drug cartels. As the situation deteriorates there is also a real possibility of a war between the Sons and the Niners.
* TheMole:
** Liam O'Neill and [=McGee=].
** Both [[spoiler: Juice]] and [[spoiler: Otto]] in season 4 after some prodding and manipulation from Potter.
* MotiveDecay: Agent Stahl's obsession with bringing down SAMCRO, which went from normal case to full-blown obsession after she was brutally assaulted by a member in prison, who broke her nose in the process. By season two, she's forgotten all about bringing them to justice and is just fucking with them for the sake of malice. In season three her motive seems to shift to ruthless ambition when she is presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break a major IRA network in the US. She promptly starts to undo her frame-up of Gemma and starts to protect the Sons since she needs [[spoiler:Jax Teller]] to make the case. She then quickly goes even further over the MoralEventHorizon than most of the 'bad guys' on the show. And at the end she seemed to be primarily motivated by a case of BreakTheHaughty when she can't resist betraying [[spoiler:Jax Teller]] so she can show the Sons how their pride in club loyalty and brotherhood was just a lot of hot air.
* TheMountainsOfIllinois: 
** Charming and Lodi have too many hills for being located in the San Joaquin valley.
** Ireland in the third season.
* MusicVideoSyndrome: Music montages show up fairly often in this show. On several occasions, the vocals to background music are provided by Katey Sagal, therefore doubling as TheCastShowoff.
* MurderByMistake:
** [[spoiler: Tig, on Clay's orders,]] murdered [[spoiler: Opie's wife because she happened to switch cars with him]].
** He does it again in the first half of the season four finale by [[spoiler:accidentally killing the girlfriend of the leader of the Niners (Laroy) while aiming for Laroy - because Jax told him that the Niners were responsible for Clay's attempted murder]].
* MushroomSamba: Tig and Half Sack get dosed with mushrooms to test their efficacy before SAMCRO sells them.
* MyMasterRightOrWrong: The Sons' loyalty to their club.
* NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters: The Sons make themselves a fixture in the local community, even heading up fundraisers to give themselves some respectability and keep the town from rising up against them.
* NonindicativeName: Charming, in spite of SAMCRO's claims that they keep out bad influences, is a crime-ridden and corrupt little podunk town. In season four, Tara calls it "poisonous." 
* NotSoDifferent: Referenced by name in the final episode of season 5. Bobby accuses Jax of becoming more like Clay. Jax responds, "Maybe we're not so different."
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Jax tries to portray himself as a blue collar dude to Pope and his men so that they will underestimate him. After framing one enemy for the murder of another, Jax claims that he's not nearly smart enough to do something like that.
* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Given the show's nature, the Sons give a lot of these and are on the receiving end of a few themselves
** In the series premiere, Clay forces Unser to stay on as chief of police by threatening to destroy Unser's trucking business
** [[spoiler: Juice]] is forced to help the police or [[spoiler: Potter will reveal to the club that he is half black]]
** Georgie has to help the Sons wreck Mayor Hale's housing project deal or they will kill him.
** Jax has to keep Clay alive and keep the club in business with the Irish and the drug cartel or [[spoiler: the CIA will withdraw its protection and let the feds arrest everyone in the club]]
* OhCrap: [[spoiler: Kozik's reaction when he steps on a land mine.]]
--> [[FamousLastWords "Aw, you gotta be shittin' me!"]]
* {{Oireland}}: A major part of Season 3
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The individual Sons have patterns of behaviour they tend to stick to and if they break that stereotype, we know that things have gotten really serious.
** When Tig goes against Clay and makes a stand based on principle, we know that Clay has crossed a major line. [[spoiler: For example: Tig turns in his Sgt-at-Arms patch after he discovers that Clay brutally beat Gemma towards the end of season four.]]
** When Otto loses faith in the club, things are really falling apart.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping:
** A number of non-Irish actors play Irish characters. TitusWelliver (who plays Jimmy O) has the worst accent. At times he manages to do a passing Irish accent, but with his pronunciation of certain words he actually ends up sounding more English or Newfoundlander than Ireland.
** The English Charlie Hunnam has a good American accent overall, but you can sometimes hear his accent, particularly in scenes where he's shouting.
* OutlawCouple: Clay and Gemma.
* PetTheDog: Tig is initially characterized as a depraved misogynist, but he always behaves like a gentleman around Gemma and clearly cares for her. He also loves his daughters and willingly lets them exploit him because he knows that he'll get to see them again when they need more help. He's also [[spoiler:a dog lover]]. 
* PlatonicLifePartners: Gemma and Unser move in this direction throughout the second season. By the end, [[spoiler: when she's on the run from the law]] this has pretty much been cemented.
* PoliceAreUseless: The Sons have the local police chief and county sheriff deputies on their payroll so they see little interference from them in their criminal activities. The ATF agents who go after them have their own private agendas and grudges and the Sons are able to use this against them to neutralize them. Season 4 averts this with new, more competent police moving in and providing an escalated threat.
* ProfessionalKiller: Happy's primary function for the club is killing, but assassination missions are given to a number of club members. Clay also hires one from outside the club.
* RapeAsDrama: [[spoiler: Gemma]] in the second season opener. This is about as graphic of a depiction you will ever see (but mostly [[RapeDiscretionShot hear]]) on American basic cable television.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: In one of the first episodes SAMCRO catches a carnival worker who raped a young girl. They castrate him and allow him to bleed to death.
* RealMenWearPink: Bobby. Don't let the pompadour or organic cooking fool you.
* RearrangeTheSong: The ThemeTune during the Belfast episodes is rearranged with some Irish/Gaelic style
* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler: Opie]]
* SarcasticConfession: Done at the start of "With an X" when a kilogram of cocaine is missing.
 -->[[spoiler:'''Juice (Juan Carlos Ortiz):''']]: Yeah, I stuck a key of blow down my pants and just walked right out the front door.
* ScaryBlackMan:
** The One-Niners is a gang full of them.
** The Grim Bastards are a biker gang full of them, though they're allied with the Sons. [[spoiler: Or, well, they were.]]
* SerialEscalation: How much more shocking will the next episode be? How much more shit will be on thanks to one of the Sons? How much of a monster will the next BigBad be? How much further off the rails will any of the main characters go? A lot to all four questions, as it turns out.
* SettingUpdate: Of {{Hamlet}}.
* ShameIfSomethingHappened: [[spoiler: After roasting Tig's daughter Dawn alive, Pope says he'd hate to see the same thing happen to Tig's other daughter, if Tig says anything about the murder.]] 
* ShirtlessScene: Jax gets these most often, but there are small doses of Opie, Juice and Happy mixed in.
* ShoutOut:
** SAMCRO has a similar history to the The Hells Angels MC. Both were founded by veterans (WWII instead of Vietnam in this case) in California, and originally had more counterculture leanings before becoming a straight up organized crime syndicate. The Hells Angels also have a vicious rivalry with the Mongols MC (founded by Hispanic Vietnam War veterans), similar to the feud between SAMCRO and the Mayans. Sonny Barger even has a recurring role as an old SAMCRO member.
** In "Seeds":
-->'''Chibs''': Shit is addictive. Turning me into a [[AustinPowers fat bastard]].
** In "To Be (Part 2)" Juice is actually watching ''TheShield'' on TV
* SociopathicHero: Pretty much everyone in SAMCRO. Tig is the leading example in the early episodes, but he's overpaced by Happy. While the club watches an IRA member torture a traitor, most are shown to be either stoic or disturbed by the display. Happy is smiling.
* SpitTake: Clay spits out some beer when a girl mentions that Happy seems "nice."
* StalkerWithACrush: Josh Kohn
* StrawHypocrite: Ethan Zobelle is initially presented as a white supremacist who is trying to run the Sons Of Anarchy out of town. His white supremacist right hand man thinks this is because the Sons are selling guns to latino and black groups. However Zobelle has no issue with dealing with nonwhite gangs. Zobelle is actually an FBI informant who is trying to kill the gun trade and make a tidy sum of money in the process.
* StuntCasting: [[spoiler: Walton Goggins of ''The Shield'' and ''Justified'' has a small part as the transsexual escort Venus Van Damme. Made even more amazing by the fact that it was ''completely'' kept secret until the episode aired, to the extent of pushing Goggins' on-screen credit to the end of the ep. Even the name choice was great, as his character on The Shield twice used "Cletus Van Damme" as an alias.]]
* TattooedCrook: An EnforcedTrope. All of the Sons get club tattoos on their backs. If you leave the club, the tattoo also has to come off. When an excommunicated member of the MC doesn't comply with this rule, SAMCRO [[spoiler: burns it off.]]
* TeamMom: Gemma, who wields a lot of influence over the club in spite of not being an actual member. She eventually tries to groom Tara into taking her place.
* TearsOfRemorse: Tig, while [[MushroomSamba high from shrooms]], breaks down and cries from the guilt of [[spoiler: killing Opie's wife by mistake]].
* TheOphelia: Opie, who serves as the equivalent character of the Hamlet setting update.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Unser unloads a ''megaton'' one on Gemma in "Small World" (episode 5.06), basically telling her he's tired of cleaning up her messes while remaining stuck in [[JustFriends "the friend zone"]].
* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: The Lin Triad
* ThoseWackyNazis:
** The Nords are a local Neo-Nazi gang. They're pretty harmless.
** L.O.A.N. (League Of American Nationalists) is a more militant but also more respectable organization of Neo-Nazis.
* TooDumbToLive: 
** [[spoiler: Half-Sack]]'s death could've been avoided if he just locked the front door. [[GenreBlindness Or closed it]].
** [[spoiler: Pope's guard who was supposed to be watching Jax while Pope tortures Tig. After disarming Jax, he takes no notice as Jax simply retrieves another gun from his bike's saddlebag and shoots him]].
* ToThePain: "If you ever talk that way about Tara again, I will pound those half-dead hands so hard into this table, you won't ever be able to hold that gavel again."
* VillainProtagonist: While the main characters are already antiheroes at best, [[spoiler:Clay Morrow becomes the villain in season 4. By season 5, Jax's own steady path toward villainy is repeatedly lampshaded]]. 
* VitriolicBestBuds: Tig and Kozik. Tig will never forgive Kozik for stealing his "girl" long ago, but they are still clearly friends.
* WarriorPoet: Apparently John Teller was this.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: SinisterMinister Father Kellan Ashby is a highly respected Catholic priest who is also a high ranking IRA leader. He strongly believes in the Cause and will go to great lengths to protect it. This includes having a man executed in his church and using [[spoiler: Jax's infant son]] as a bargaining chip to have the Sons murder a rival IRA leader.
* WhamEpisode: 
** Each season finale tends to be this.
** "Laying Pipe," which [[spoiler: kills off Opie]] a whole ''three'' episodes into the season!
* WhatHaveIDone: When Clay [[spoiler:sees Donna's corpse as he had mistakenly caused her death, having sent Tig to kill Opie, whom Clay believed had sold them to the ATF.]] Stahl has a milder moment at the scene as well.
* WifeHusbandry: Jimmy O threatens this against Chibs, which also counts as a KickTheDog moment for him.
* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: Claimed by Juice when he's asked to translate Spanish. "I'm a Puerto Rican from Queens. I speak better Yiddish."
* YouHaveFailedMe: You really, really do no want to disobey when Popes gives an order. Similarly, if Pope promotes you to a position of responsibility you better not try to decline.
* YouRemindMeOfX: In episode 4.08, Piney says to Jax "I'm not going to tell you how much you just sounded like your old man."

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14th Dec '12 7:54:16 PM tsstevens

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6th Dec '12 9:54:38 PM CaptainCrawdad

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** Season 4: The Cartel is in bed with the CIA and the CIA will blackmail Jax into sparing Clay's life, after all of Clay's sins are exposed, as the Real IRA are needed to fund the Cartel guns and the Real IRA will only deal with Clay and not Jax. This means Jax can't leave Charming with Tara, who's gone full-tilt crazy after she realizes that the only way she'll be able to keep Jax is to throw away her life and career as a doctor. And Jax can't tell Opie this and after Clay murdered his father AND had Jax admit that he lied to keep Opie in the club while and he was planning on bailing, has basically told Jax to fuck off and left the club entirely. And Tig, thanks to Jax lying his ass off about who really shot Clay (Opie), attacks the head of the One-Niners, murdering his girlfriend, who's father is a infamously ruthless gangster who will rain horrific vengeance upon SAMCRO and Charming, forcing Roosevelt into a position where he may have to sell out and help SAMCRO (who are now arrest-proof thanks to the CIA) in order to protect the town from the hell he knows is coming.

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6th Dec '12 8:43:23 PM CaptainCrawdad

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6th Dec '12 8:42:06 PM CaptainCrawdad

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no apostrophy in Hells Angels

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6th Dec '12 8:41:42 PM CaptainCrawdad

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5th Dec '12 12:55:30 AM Tuckerscreator

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5th Dec '12 12:55:15 AM Tuckerscreator

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30th Nov '12 11:28:35 PM CaptainCrawdad

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30th Nov '12 11:20:47 PM CaptainCrawdad

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