Drama
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a little like its titular character. It’s painful. It gets under your skin. And it just might leave a mark.
Something’s rotten in the town of Charming—and it ain’t the apricots.
Charming’s a pretty place, snuggled as it is in the heart of California’s ag-country. And while it’s not exactly on a list of California’s must-see destinations, it certainly has a lot of orchards and ranches and gangs and—
Yes, there are seemingly scads of gangs in and around Charming, chief among them the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club’s Redwood Original chapter. Founded in 1967 by a handful of Vietnam vets, the Sons of Anarchy (known as SAMCRO) pretty much rule this town from the seats of their custom bikes. The original members are a little long in the tooth by now—one totes around a canister of oxygen, and others should sport tattoos that read “born to wheeze”—but if someone would dare suggest that perhaps they should trade their rides for rockers, they’d tell you in no uncertain terms to mind your elders.
And then they might shoot you.
Yes, SAMCRO’s that type of motorcycle gang. You won’t find boomer-aged dentists who bought a hog on a lark here. And not one of the members, to my knowledge, totes a teddy bear on the back of his bike. When they defend the locals from outside baddies, it’s only to make sure nobody horns in on their own brand of badness. And they’re getting badder by the day.
For that, SAMCRO can in part thank Clay Morrow, the club’s one-time president. He was instrumental in turning the Sons of Anarchy into a shady-but-lucrative crime syndicate—selling guns, mostly, but branching out into drug distribution too. Sam’s dead now. And while Jax—Clay’s nephew, heir and killer—initially hoped to steer the gang in a better, cleaner direction, he’s pretty much given up on that already. Indeed, if Clay carried his guys into the gray underworld, Jax sometimes feels like he’s inexorably riding into the heart of darkness, all the while dealing with and double-crossing other gangs as ruthless and conniving as his. Oh, and if a lawman who can’t be bought wanders into town—a rarity, to be sure—SAMCRO will readily deal with that problem as well.
Despite its hog-wild and hardscrabble trappings, Sons of Anarchy has a literary backbone: It’s based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. And while the Bard’s influence on the show seemingly ended when Jax cut down Clay, we’re unquestionably looking at a tragedy still unfurling—one bathed in blood. It wouldn’t surprise me much to learn that during the finale the entire character list dies after getting poisoned in the ear. Of course, FX would presumably favor a bloodier end—so as to somehow one-up the bloody beginning and middle. Because this is, frankly, one of television’s most barbaric offerings.
In Sons of Anarchy, when murder is “just” business, it’s awful. And when it’s personal, it’s even worse. “I’m amazed sometimes at the level of violence we get away with on my show,” says creator Kurt Sutter. Indeed, blood and brain matter routinely splatter across walls and floors. And rarely do we see consequence. We’ve witnessed lots of television programming that amplifies and elevates gore to uncomfortable levels. But has any show ever been quite so cavalier about it? So remorseless?
For SAMCRO, the decision to participate in the drug trade is something of an ethical dilemma for its members. But the killing of rivals? Or for personal revenge? That’s no moral quandary. Wrong is to get caught, not to do the dirty and drastic deed in the first place.
Charming? The town may be. The show is definitely not.
“Black Widower”
The episode begins with Jax in prison, pounding another inmate’s face in. He carves a huge swastika into the gagged yet still screaming man’s torso. And when his victim passes out, Jax pulls two teeth which he later plunks down in front of another imprisoned gang leader—a business transaction, apparently.
The episode ends with Jax torturing a man to death—a man he mistakenly thinks killed his main squeeze. Both Jax and his new victim are covered in blood when Jax finally jams a long cooking fork through the man’s skull and into his brain.
Between those brutal bookends, we see two men and a woman engage in sexual acts as another man (wearing just pantyhose) videotapes them. We see partial nudity and explicit movements connoting oral and anal sex. All four are then viscerally slaughtered by SAMCRO thugs. (The men are said to have been pastors.)
Jax is welcomed out of prison with a party populated by porn stars, all of whom appear in various stages of undress. People crudely joke about porn, sex and sexual body parts. They smoke and drink. They lie and mislead. Someone’s shot in the leg, and a wheelchair-bound man is pulled into the street by a motorcycle. We hear the s-word more than 25 times; also “h—,” “a–,” “p—y,” “b–tard” and “n-gger.” God’s name is mixed up with “d–n”; Jesus’ is abused too.
“Booster”
Without the approval of SAMCRO members, Clay cuts a deal with the Mayans to supply them with guns and ferry their drugs in exchange for mountains of cash. He tells Jax that the deal, essentially, is his version of a 401(k) account. “I gave my whole life for this club,” he says. “I don’t want to walk away with nothing.” Meanwhile, Gemma sneaks around Tara’s office, breaking into her desk to see if Tara’s learned anything about John’s mysterious death.
Rival gang members kill a handful of thugs (we see what appears to be the blood-slicked scalp or brain of one victim) and threaten to kill a woman, forcing the barrel of a gun into her mouth. The Mayans save Jax from the gang, gunning down many of its members. (We see bullets enter bodies and bright splashes of blood on the walls.)
To his new wife, who’s a porn actress, Opie says, “The sooner we get you knocked up, the sooner you get to stop working.” But the woman demurs, saying her director takes his “girl-on-girl very seriously.” We hear the s-word nearly 20 times, mixed in with “d‑‑n,” “h‑‑‑,” “b‑‑tard,” “p‑‑‑” and crude words for various sexual body parts. God’s and Jesus’ names are abused. Characters lie almost pathologically.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a little like its titular character. It’s painful. It gets under your skin. And it just might leave a mark.
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