The Bleeders: HBO's True Blood, FX's Sons of Anarchy

But as with any generational mob tale worth two cents, the real change agent turns out to be in the club’s midst. He’s Jackson “Jax” Teller (Charlie Hunnam, his golden-boy looks finally showing wear and tear), club VP and son of another founding member, a young-ish, dirty-blond hunk whose abiding love for his brethren — their mugshots sentimentally adorning the clubhouse’s hallway like family portraits — masks a growing impatience with all the destructive illegalities. While it could be the newborn son he’s just had with his drug-addicted ex-wife (Drea De Matteo, returning to the junkie-moll fold, it seems), or the return to town of an old flame (Maggie Siff, from Mad Men) who escaped the life, what sparks Jax’s awakening conscience is a secret manuscript he uncovers in a storage box, written by his late father, titled “How the Sons of Anarchy Lost Their Way.” And they said reading was dead.

Creator Kurt Sutter hails from FX’s original good-guy gangster series The Shield, so he knows his way around a show that revels in the thrill of being bad while depicting the gnawing pain of the moral gutcheck. But, taking a cue from David Chase’s late juggernaut, he also knows the strength of a ruthless mother figure, hence Katey Sagal as steely-eyed Gemma Teller-Morrow, whose last name signifies her ties to Jax (he’s her son) and Clay (he’s her husband, and Jax’s stepfather), and whose stealth moves in ensuring her son’s ascension — as long as he stays in line and doesn’t dig up the past — indicate who has the firmest grip on the club’s handlebars. Sons of Anarchy has many of the hallmarks of an FX show — male-identified, foul-mouthed and forever skirting the edge of taste — but in Sagal’s character, considering the sexist history of outlaw biker clubs, it’ll be fun watching this Shakespearean power drama play out in the sometimes undeniably silly world of overgrown boys with vroom-vroom toys.

Girl meets vampire: Paquin and Moyer

Biker golden boy: Charlie Hunnam

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More About

• True Blood (TV Show)
• Alan Ball
• Sons of Anarchy
• Stephen Moyer
• Anna Paquin

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TRUE BLOOD | HBO | Sundays, 9 p.m.

SONS OF ANARCHY | FX | Wednesdays, 10 p.m.