Throughout the first season of Sons of Anarchy, SAMCRO grapples with a multicultural array of foes: Hispanic bikers, African-American gangbangers, white supremacists, an Asian triad, and agents of the ATF. Uneasy alliances and precarious compromises rarely work out as planned, leading to nail-biting confrontations and headaches for Jax. But the rituals and emotional bonds of the club itself are the real subject of the show--how an institution built on friendship and family loyalty gets twisted by ambition and greed. One particularly compelling story line follows Jax and his best friend, Opie (Ryan Hurst, Remember the Titans), who had stepped away from the gang to make peace with his wife; to help Jax, he reenters the biker life, with horrific consequences. The creator of Sons of Anarchy, Kurt Sutter, was a writer and actor on The Shield, and fans of that show will find a similarly compelling mixture of scheming machinations and compromised morality here, grounded in excellent performances and vivid production. --Bret Fetzer 

Stills from Sons of Anarchy: Season One (Click for larger image)