The Sopranos Reference You Never Caught On Sons Of Anarchy
Sons of Anarchy and The Sopranos share a lot of creative DNA. Aside from the shared star in Drea de Matteo, both shows take place in morally gray worlds of organized crime, and both are essentially family dramas at their cores. Savvy viewers probably see a lot of the Soprano crime family in the dysfunctional Redwood Original Charter of the Sons of Anarchy MC. They certainly kill each other at similar rates. Kurt Sutter's little morality play may be a modern take on Hamlet, but it's also a vital testament to the enduring mark The Sopranos made on TV.
It's probably not unfair to say that Sons of Anarchy might never have happened if not for the precedent set by The Sopranos, in so many ways the archetype for the gritty prestige drama in the modern era of peak TV. Perhaps as a nod to this trailblazing program — or just a wink about Drea De Matteo's prior credit — the Sons of Anarchy team slipped a fun reference to the New Jersey mob drama into Jax Teller's (Charlie Hunnam) dialogue.
Redditor u/CPTNBob46 reminded us all of the fleeting reference in response to their own post soliciting "little inside jokes" from Sons of Anarchy's epic seven-season run that most fans might have missed.
Jax was never going to 'Adriana' LuAnn
"What jokes have you noticed through the series that maybe weren't direct or took some thinking to even realize it was a joke?" asked CPTNBob46, before providing two of their very own favorites from the outlaw biker series' Easter egg-filled tenure.
CPTNBob46 recalls the humorous moment when Jax invites Otto's (Kurt Sutter) old lady, LuAnn (Dendrie Taylor), to come take a look at the warehouse he and the boys purchased to prop up their latest venture in the porn business. Fans will no doubt recall that porn is a big part of Jax's plan to get the Sons of Anarchy out of illegal guns, a trade that seems to draw a lot of heat from federal, state, and local law enforcement. Of course, LuAnn doesn't know anything about this. She's visibly nervous walking into the empty warehouse with Jax — and wouldn't you be? This guy's a known killer, and what better place to off someone than an empty warehouse off the beaten path?
At this point, Jax laughs and says, "You thought I brought you here to Adriana you?" — an obvious reference to Adriana la Cerva, the Sopranos character played by Sons of Anarchy's own Drea de Matteo. The scene he's referencing is one of the mob series' most memorable. After Chrissy (Michael Imperioli) reveals to Tony (James Gandolfini) that Adriana has been talking to the FBI, Bruce Springsteen's guitarist drives her out into the wilderness and puts two bullets in the back of her head. Gruesome, but not something Jax would ever do.
It's not like LuAnn's his mother, after all ...