A better title for this show would have been Sons of Bad Fathers

So, this could very well be intentional. You might be thinking "wow, a whole bunch of violent outlaw drug dealers and gun runners aren't good parents? Shocker." But like, I did find it interesting how so many of the characters I spent so much time with, Clay, Gemma, John (okay we just hear about him), Opie, and then Jax himself, either are or become really shit dads.

This was also the reason why I could never get too broken up over Opie's death. Because his wife dies in one of the first big "oh shit" moments of the show. And then he responds by being a massive bitch about.

Like don't get me wrong, I'm with him in terms of being angry and wanting revenge. I don't believe in this "you need to let go an hEaL" pussy shit. But like, Opie has two children who just lost their mom. No matter what kind of pain Opie is in, his kids are feeling it worse. And those kids NEEDED their dad to be their for them. Hell, even his own dad tells him "Dude, you need to be their for your children." And even after Opie has his revenge, he decides that instead of raising his kids as best he can he's instead going to go all in on the club. And that's just a really shitty thing to do.

Like, if Opie didn't have a family this would be way more understandable. He'd be a guy who after his partner was killed the MC would have been the only "family" he had left. So he doubles down on all the chaos and violence that the outlaw life brings until it finally consumes him.

But because Opie is a father this hits different. It now reads like a man who went through a tragedy, but is now *choosing* to shirk his responsibilities and essentially spend all his time playing dress up in a play house (a very violent playhouse not withstanding).

And again, "criminals = bad parents omg" but I couldn't help but feel the way Opie died and the way they talked about him after, that the show does try and present him as this kind of noble warrior, rather than the loser that he was.

I guess in the end you could say the show does treat Opie as a warning that Jax doesn't heed. Rather than taking the woman he loves and his children away from this life, he goes balls into it and they all pay the price. Jax chooses to off himself rather than be there for his boys (much like it's implied his own father did to him). And despite Jax's promise that "my sons will never know this life of chaos" I think the final shot of Abel with the "SONS" rings kinda implies that actually these boys will embrace the outlaw life.