Sons of Anarchy (TV Series) Playing with Monsters (2014) User Reviews

So far I'm disappointed in Season 7 and the way Jax's character is portrayed...

[dols-j · 6/10 · 26 September 2014]

3 episodes into S7 is leaving me wondering if this is all there is for the carefully built up Jax character. I hope not!

So far Jax has completely changed his vision for the club & his life! To me that desire was what kept it really interesting to watch. It's nothing but killing at the moment...It was that before but there was something that was in the story that could keep it from becoming just another show about only killing for money. And no I don't see this as just revenge on Jax's part... He is lost imo! And the ever reasonable Bobby Elvis who normally was the centered one that made sense in the bunch, is suddenly agreeing with all of this?

Jax has tried very hard to ease away from the mamma's boy he was before in the earliest episodes to becoming something his father would certainly approve of and to see his father vision through as a sort of savior for the club to get out of the criminal business....

Also the lack of continuum from earlier story lines ( the school shooting )is irritating me. Have they all but forgotten that as it still was a major storyline last season!

I want to see it through to the end and am secretly hoping for some changes. Changes that would leave us as viewers at least a little satisfied, not frustrated at the "lack" of what this show was before.

Playing with Monsters (#7.3)

[ComedyFan2010 · 6/10 · 17 October 2015]

I had huge expectations for season 7 because of the great ending in the season 6 and so far I have been very much disappointed by the first three episodes. I hope this will change but I am not too sure.

I guess killing off so many important characters resulted in us having to follow a bunch of new ones who I don't really care about. To me it is members of other gangs and that sleazeball Nero. I know he is supposed to be a good guy but I just don't like him. Lots of people at SoA table are now people I don't know much or care about.

One of those I still like a lit is Juice. And he is in trouble. I don;t even think he did anything really bad. And it is again because of that loser Nero who didn't even bother to help him after giving him away. I am glad it is the final season and I hope there will be some improvement. At this point I kind of hope Juice gets to kill Jax at the end. I don't like him anymore.

Decline of the sons

[maximovlE · 6/10 · 27 October 2021]

I honestly had a feeling the sons would become a nice biker gang doing good things for the community. You know, the way they started to just before Tara died.

Now yes, I get it, Jax is p... um... (It's a show full of violence and bad language but we can't swear here, what a strange world!) Anyway, he's angry at losing Tara, even after what she did. But this rapid decline of his... He's a psyco, killing anyone and everyone. Even his crew seem to be happy to join in with the killing spree. It's totally out of character for most of them.

Again, I get it, they want to go out on a high. I just feel like 6 seasons of building Jax up as someone we can get behind only to turn him into someone we despise... The only ones I care for now are Juice, the junkie, and Unser... oh and the finger guy. I hope the rest are buried by the end of it... I guess I'll find out in a few more hours.

I know this review is a few years out of time, I just needed to vent!

A good episode, but the series is unsure of direction

[i-am-so-original · 5/10 · 26 September 2014]

This week's Sons of Anarchy, "Playing with Monsters," while better than last week's outing, still suffers from the same weaknesses that has been plaguing this season and doesn't advance the plot in any meaningful way.

At this point in a series' run, it should be going full-force into the finale, throwing everything it's got at the viewer and making us want to return week after week and leaving us with burning questions and lovable tension. However, this last season of Sons is suffering from some serious lag and water treading, leaving us as the audience with feelings of impatience rather than excitement.

Like I said, I believe this episode was a stronger outing that the previous one. It's direction was clearer, the writing sharper, and the performances a little more believable and natural. It featured some fun action sequences, such as the ransacking of the Chinese massage parlour (was that what was?) and the killings of the rogue One-Niners. However, therein lies the problem of this final season. We've seen these types of situations on the show before: it seems as if every other episode has some backstabbing and murdering going on. What we need now is something new, something fresh to keep our minds returning and our hearts racing as we lead towards the final showdown. What we're getting instead is a lot of water treading, with a questionable direction for the show.

While it's still early, I am finding myself increasingly confused and bewildered at the direction the show is going. It is getting extremely complex and confusing having to remember all the different gangs, gang members, motivations, etc. for why these gangs are doing what they are doing. With a little sharper and clearer writing, this could be reverted, but as it stands, all this gang drama seems too confusing to be considered effective. Along the same vein, the gang story lines seem out of place, and quite frankly, unwanted at this point in the series. Does anyone really care what happens to Lin or August or anybody else from any of the multiple gangs? What we care about is Gemma and Jax, and the drama unfolding between the respective sides. The show has many different, better things to focus on, but it's instead choosing to focus our attention on some gang war drama that nobody really cares about. I have faith that Sutter and his writers know what they are doing and where they are going with this plot line, and if it has relevance down the line, I'll eat my words. That's the problem with serialized drama: you never know what may turn out to be important down the line, so all this table setting can seem confusing or unwarranted during the individual episodes.

Case in point, The Shield's final season consisted of a similar format. The first third of the season focused on an unneeded storyline that didn't pertain to the drama of Vic and Shane, but when it did, it took off running and became the greatest string of episodes in a drama (my opinion). I can only hope that this series follows suit.

So, while this episode did contain some sharp direction and some nice action pieces, I can't help but feel that this series is focusing on story lines that are unneeded at this point in time and is simply treading water, waiting for the big bang of a finale that is to come in the last third of the season. I just hope I'm right. In the meantime, it's making for some boring, confusing television.

** out of *****

Show's IQ just dropped 30 pts

[danmillington · 2/10 · 29 December 2020]

Nothing subtle. Just plain scripting. Makes good actors look like soap-opera fools. What a hideous end to a well written series.