Spin-offs, reboots, and franchises are increasingly the rage in a crowded TV and film landscape where storytellers are finding it nearly impossible to get original content off the ground. In the tradition of prestige cable spin-offs like Fear the Walking Dead and Better Call Saul, Kurt Sutter and FX are looking to recapture the lighting in the bottle that was Sons of Anarchy. The new series—which was announced as only a possibility when Kurt Sutter was still trying to get his new show, Bastard Executioner, off the ground—is now a full-fledged reality and some interesting choices are being made behind the camera.
With Sutter himself pulling the plug on Bastard, he is now free to turn his entire attention to the Sons of Anarchy spin-off, Mayans MC, that will focus on the Mayans—the Latino motorcycle club that was the sometime ally, sometime enemy of Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) and SAMCRO. Though Sutter is keeping mum on the time period of the show, there is potential for Jimmy Smits’s character, Nero Padilla, to play a role. Padilla founded another Latino gang, the Byz Lats, and was a wary ally of the Mayans in Season 6 of Sons of Anarchy. But truth be told, as great as Nero was, he’s probably best left riding off into the sunset with Wendy and the Teller boys.
But as Variety reports, the most interesting move on the new series is actually happening behind the camera. Kurt Sutter has hired Elgin James to be his co-creator on the show. James will write the pilot that is being pitched as a “dark, visceral family drama that takes a new look at the most American of icons, the 1% outlaw, this time reflected through a Latino lens.” Sutter says he brought James on board because he “wanted to find a strong, unique Latino voice. I didn’t think a white guy from Jersey should be writing about Latin culture and traditions. Elgin is that voice.”
The seventh and final season of Sons of Anarchy proved to be a ratings bonanza for FX with a whopping 9.26 million total viewers tuning in for Jax Teller’s final ride. With the time period of the series still a mystery, there’s a possibility for Sutter and Elgin to go the prequel route and, like Better Call Saul, leave room for cameos from some members of the original cast. (Many of whom wound up dead.) And if Mayans MC is set in the future, then we could get a whole new generation of Tellers involved in the mayhem, including Abel and Thomas. Maybe then Kurt Sutter can finally make his dream of working with Aaron Paul come true.
But, more likely, and refreshingly, a new Mayan-centric chapter of Sons of Anarchy will allow an opportunity for many non-white actors to take front and center in a heavily promoted cable drama. With even The Good Wife contemplating a spin-off series, it could be that the next decade of cable drama looks an awful lot like this one.
