Almost three years (to the day) ago, Sons of Anarchy creator/showrunner Kurt Sutter called himself an “abrasive dick” while announcing that he’d been fired as co-showrunner of the biker-based spinoff, Mayans M.C. This development was a stunning one (not that Sutter has ever shied away from being abrasive), given that the franchise was Sutter’s baby, and in the weeks that followed, we learned that he pushed back against FX’s then-new owners, the Walt Disney Co., and he’d even injected an anti-Disney joke in an exchange between EZ and Coco of the Mayans.
Subsequently, The Shield writer alluded (from time to time) via social media that he had other projects in the works, and although Netflix isn’t swiftly renewing shows or announcing new ones these days, Sutter’s return to TV earned that call. He’ll act as showrunner/executive producer for The Abandons, which will be a Western action-drama in the days when there’s a huge TV audience for the subgenre. As an interesting side note, former Sons of Anarchy cop Taylor Sheridan co-created Yellowstone, so that’s a nice little pop-cultural intersection. One can probably expect The Abandons to not appeal as much to a conservative audience, though. From the Netflix logline:
“As a group of diverse, outlier families pursue their Manifest Destiny in 1850s Oregon, a corrupt force of wealth and power, coveting their land, tries to force them out. These abandoned souls, the kind of lost souls living on the fringe of society, unite their tribes to form a family and fight back. In this bloody process, ‘justice’ is stretched beyond the boundaries of the law. The Abandons will explore that fine line between survival and law, the consequences of violence, and the corrosive power of secrets, as this family fights to keep their land.”
As of now, there’s no articulated timeline for The Abandons, although the project’s been in development for nearly a year, and Netflix ordered up a full 10-episode season. I don’t think anyone would be mad if Charlie Hunnam made a cameo (and it sounds like Hunnam wouldn’t be opposed, either), and hopefully, the always-blunt Sutter will be much happier with this non-biker endeavor than he was with The Bastard Executioner.
(Via Variety)