Sons of Anarchy (2008– )

The first season of this series is a Sopranos ripoff set in a biker gang. It shows us the disgusting reality of one-per-center biker gangs while most of the protagonists try to rationalize their actions to fit within their mythical (but ultimately non-existing) biker-ethos. The prospect still believes strongly in the romanticized myth and is slightly innocent (example: still feeling that digging up corpses from a graveyard is wrong while all the others laugh it off). The young VP of the gang tries desperately to cling to the ideals on which the original motorcycle clubs were based, but is ultimately a cold, ruthless and sometimes downright sadistic piece of work who's only nice to the people he loves. The manipulative matriarch without conscience or remorse is nicely depicted too, as is the old leader who is so far gone that he can almost be called a monster. His downright sociopath killer sidekick nicely completes the picture of a really dangerous criminal organization without redeeming features whose ideals only exist in legends. Because of that and the good soundtrack and cinematography, you can see beyond the cartoonish incompetence/stupidity of the police and citizenry, you can ignore the A-team-style shootouts and you can laugh about the fact that such a tremendous body count doesn't garner more attention from national security organizations.

But starting with the second season everything goes horribly wrong. The cinematography is still there, as is the great soundtrack, but suddenly the plots and subplots start to enhance - even glorify - the outlaw motorcycle club myths, we are forced into seeing these criminals as nice guys who just got in over their heads, in fact, without them it would be much worse! At the same time they become so overly cartoonish that they simply insult your intelligence.

It's a real shame though, being a weaker Sopranos rip-off isn't such a bad thing, but being a criminal glorifying white trash wet dream cartoon is.