FX’s manly man shows hold outsider appeal

I've never laid eyes on the FX corporate offices, but I'm picturing an abandoned muffler shop full of bruisers with tattooed skulls, frequent stabbings over parking places and a mandatory fight club out back. And those are just the secretaries.

The cable channel has become so unabashedly rough-and-tumble that a marathon of four upcoming episodes of the outlaw-biker drama "Sons of Anarchy" (10 p.m. Tuesday) and five of the new down-and-out-detectives drama "Terriers" (10 p.m. Wednesday) had me itching to do something uncharacteristically manly, like take apart and reassemble my car's intake manifold. And I don't even know what that is.

"Sons of Anarchy" was 2009's best series not named "Breaking Bad," and I'm not just saying that because creator Kurt Sutter, who also plays the show's imprisoned biker Otto, is easily more terrifying than every other show runner working in TV. Combined.

And while its absence left a gaping hole in last Sunday's Emmys, the snub helped cement the show's outsider appeal. "Sons" star Charlie Hunnam makes for a much more believable badass when he's able to publicly call the awards "a crock of (expletive)" than if he'd shown up onstage in a monkey suit, stumbling through stilted, scripted small talk with some hot young thing from The CW.

This week, "Sons" comes roaring back looking to expand on the success of last year's breakout season.

After last fall's calamitous final moments, season three kicks off with Gemma (Katey Sagal) still on the run after having been framed for murder and Jax (Hunnam) still reeling from the kidnapping of his 8-month-old son, Abel.

And as the search for Abel eventually leads the members of SAMCRO -- Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, for the uninitiated -- to Northern Ireland, home to both the terrorist group that supplies the Sons with the guns they broker and the club's Belfast charter, the drama begins to border on the epic.

With "24" off the air, nothing on TV gets my heart racing like "Sons." It's the best cardio workout I get all week. There's just no time to relax during an episode, because if Sutter will script a vicious gang rape scene for his wife, Sagal, to endure, there's honestly no telling what he'll do next.

The stench of brutality that hangs over most every scene just makes the lighter moments that much more refreshing. Such as the delightfully macabre cameo by Stephen King as a cleaner named -- literary shout-out alert -- Bachman, who's called in to dispose of a body. Or the response by Sagal's Gemma when it's suggested that she might better elude capture as a redhead. "Christ," complains the actress who'll forever be known as the carrot-topped Peg Bundy. "I'd rather shave my head."

The unlicensed private investigators of "Terriers" don't come quite as tough, but they're still fairly rough around the edges. And, like most of the FX lineup these days, they're proudly blue collar.

With their unlikely partnership and clever banter, former cop Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and former robber Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James) inhabit the same breezy world as USA's summer shows, only in a much lower tax bracket. Assuming they're even in a tax bracket.

As "Terriers" begins, the duo are in the middle of settling a custody dispute over a bulldog by stealing the pooch back from a muscled-out boulder of a man in exchange for two weeks of free dry cleaning.

Just don't call Hank and Britt, who regularly conduct surveillance in Hank's beat-up pickup with its hand-painted Gomez Bros. Pool Service sign, small time. That's giving them too much credit. "If we grew two sizes," Britt says with a sigh, "we might make small time."

And while "Terriers" is the second entry in the unlikely, unlicensed PI genre in less than a year -- HBO's "Bored to Death" is more highbrow, absurdist and weed-dependent -- it still feels completely original. Besides, Hank has a good excuse for not having a license: "We found that by not working with them, we never have to worry about losing them."

The bulk of Wednesday's premiere is pure fun. When an investigation takes them to a lush, oceanfront estate, Britt bets Hank that its residents have a live-in Mexican maid. Hank: "Since when did you get so jaundiced?" Britt: "Since when did you start using the word 'jaundiced'?"

But when things eventually take a dark turn and the rumpled duo find themselves in way over their unkempt heads, they don't back down. Much. It turns out they can take a beating almost as well as their biker brethren.

And of the few skills they possess, that's likely the handiest. Because as "Sons of Anarchy" and now "Terriers" prove, FX is a great place to visit, you just wouldn't want to live there.

The medical premiums alone would be a nightmare.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.