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Over on How to Spend $20 this week, I touched on the second season of Sons of Anarchy – which was released Tuesday on DVD/Blu-ray – and briefly spoke on some of the series’ strengths in ~300 words.

The drama, the second FX series I’ve paid attention to after Damages, is worthy of your time, and I wanted to use Make an Argument this week as a space to tell you why.

More specifically, the show’s second season finale – like most every season finale – ended on an inconclusive note, with several questions hanging in the balance. None of ‘em will be fully resolved in the third season premiere, set to air six days from now. Yet they linger, and I wanted to analyze a few of ‘em here.

Like in previous editions of Make an Argument, you’d be silly to expect to read through my text without coming across a few spoilers. Proceed with caution.

Will Clay and Jax’s friendship be rekindled?

You didn’t have to pay too close attention to the second season to realize that Jax and his stepfather, Clay, had some, shall we say, personal issues.

It all started when Jax learned that SAMCRO (Sons Of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original), acting on Clay’s orders, played a major role (or I guess the only role) in the accidental drive-by death of Opie’s wife, Donna. Through a series of miscommunications, Tig, thinking the driver of the car to actually be her husband, Opie, shot and killed her.

Anyway, a supposed lack of oversight fueled an unquenchable anger within Jax, who throughout season two was a total dick to his stepfather. Even worse, Clay then accused Jax of murdering porno kingpin Luann Delaney (not true). And Jax, acting on assumptions, believed Clay was behind the burning of Luann’s porn studio (also not true).

The moral of the story here may be that communication is key. But maybe that’s just me.

What you also must know is that Sons of Anarchy is very much a Shakespearian drama. Actually, it’s loosely based on Hamlet, with Clay standing in for Claudius, Jax as Hamlet and Gemma as the family matriarch, Gertrude.

So, for a rift to form between Clay and Jax seems about right. I mean, if the show is to play out Hamlet in full, it’s all eventually going to end in a giant bloodbath anyway. Tensions between members of the family will need to be there.

But, what was interesting about the final handful of episodes in the season is that they seemed to suggest that Clay and Jax might have managed to put their differences aside.

First, Gemma gave the big reveal on being raped by members of the League Of American Nationalists. Then, Cameron, of the True IRA, kidnapped Jax’s newborn in retaliation for the accidental death of his son, Edmond.

SAMCRO seeks revenge when necessary. The raping and kidnapping of immediate family? Yeah. That’ll be enough to set the two men, and probably the whole chapter, in a frenzy.

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