The end of Yellowstone left a gaping hole in the hearts of viewers everywhere. As that hole has grown, so, too, has the search for the perfect series to fill the void. Luckily, I’ve got that answer—and no, it’s not Longmire. Instead, we’re going completely unorthodox and trading horses for Harleys and cowboys for outlaw bikers.

 

 

Break out your leathers and saddle up, because on this wild ride, we’ll be exploring why Sons of Anarchy is the perfect Yellowstone replacement.

Sons of Anarchy is a gritty, Shakespearean-inspired story with more drama, violent crime, and cultural, existential, and geographical conflict than you can stomach. It’s all about raising hell to protect what’s yours and the people you love from an encroaching civilization. In using an outlaw motorcycle club as a visceral analogy for human transformation, especially of the criminal psyche, showrunner Kurt Sutter created one of television’s most bingeworthy series.

Our story follows Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), the motorcycle club’s vice president, as he struggles to find a balance between his loyalty to the club and his commitment to his personal relationships, including his life as a new father. As he works to understand and honor the legacy of his father and the club’s late founder, John Teller, the MC slowly unravels from the inside out.

Set in the quaint, fictional town of Charming in the Central California Valley, each season has plots that intertwine and overlap with Jax’s personal and family life and that focus on the Mother Charter, SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original). You’ll follow as they operate legal and illegal businesses and work with local law enforcement, other area clubs, and local VIPs to keep their town safe and free of drugs and ensure the club’s control.

We’ll battle crime syndicates, sift through volatile political and interpersonal beefs, and experience so much secret drama, you’ll feel totally blindsided while trying to figure out what just happened. On the surface, it’s a show about a biker club. Underneath, it’s a raw story about a blended family within a blended family within a blended family that is rife with fascinating subplots full of twists, turns, and moments that snap your heartstrings. Expect a lot of smack talk, fist fights, shoot-outs, and high-speed motorcycle chases, along with plenty of violence, retribution, betrayal, and war.

Sutter’s gritty crime series features an extremely talented, unforgettable cast who become just as much a part of your life as the Duttons.

In addition to Hunnam, Sons of Anarchy’s cast includes Ron Perlman, Katey Sagal, Ryan Hurst, Kim Coates, Theo Rossi, Maggie Siff, Tommy Flanagan, Mark Boone Junior, William Lucking, Johnny Lewis, Drea de Matteo, Dayton Callie, Jimmy Smits, Niko Nicotera, and David Labrava, who is a former real-life Hells Angels member. Sutter also stars as incarcerated club member Otto.

This isn’t all, though. Expect to see many more recognizable faces as seasons progress, like Walton Goggins, Titus Welliver, Michael Beach (Mayor of Kingstown), Kenny Johnson (The Shield), Kim Dickens (Fear the Walking Dead), Rockmond Dunbar (Prison Break), and Peter Weller, to name a few.

Sons of Anarchy premiered in September 2008 and saw immense popularity throughout its seven-season run. It quickly became FX’s most-watched series ever, securing its place as a cultural phenomenon.

Season 3 averaged 4.9 million viewers weekly, making the show FX’s highest-rated at that time. Season 4’s premiere was FX’s most-watched program in the network’s 17-year history at the time, with 6.5 million total viewers in live-plus-seven-day ratings. The series culminated in record-breaking ratings for its finale with over 9 million total viewers.

Not only was the hit biker saga a huge narrative success with audiences, but it was also a cataclysmic success within the television industry. In the most obscure way, the series completely redefined one of America’s most beloved, traditional genres—the Western—and in doing so, it created a new style of neo-Western that helped pave the way to future megahits like Yellowstone.

If you didn’t know, Taylor Sheridan was a part of Sons of Anarchy. He starred in a recurring role as Deputy Chief David Hale in seasons 1 and 2; however, that’s not why Sons is the perfect Yellowstone replacement.

Sheridan’s shows are loved for their authentic, gritty realism rooted in strong senses of place and identity, with a captivating blend of classic Western themes, like rugged individualism, family legacy, and a certain way of life, with modern conflicts, like political tensions, cultural issues, and land wars and development. Every bit of this was going down in Sons of Anarchy long before Yellowstone appeared—it was just through a different lens.

If you compare characters, you’ll notice shared archetypes between Sons and Yellowstone. Jax Teller and Kayce Dutton both struggle with family legacy and finding their place in a violent world. Tig Trager and Rip Wheeler are the loyal, violent enforcers who come to grapple with their actions over time. Juice Ortiz and Jamie Dutton are both deeply conflicted characters who crave acceptance and belonging but battle with betrayal. All of this suggests that Sutter’s saga greatly influenced Sheridan’s.

From the visceral action, complex anti-heroes, heavy moral ambiguities, and family drama to intense neo-Western themes, compellingly layered portraits, and that perfect amount of genuine dialogue that makes a good slow-burn so immersive, it’s all there. It’s just in a modernized frontier setting with an extremely tight-knit, completely self-governed club structure where brotherhood and loyalty—not blood, lands, or money—are the only forms of currency.

Just as Sheridan has expanded the Dutton saga, I firmly believe Sutter is working to do the same with his magnum opus, which is all the more reason Sons of Anarchy makes for the perfect Yellowstone replacement.

Last fall, Netflix released one of 2025’s best new shows—a gritty Western penned by Sutter, focusing on dueling matriarchs in a vicious land battle that sees diverse outcasts banding together in defense of what encroaches upon them. While The Abandons has not officially been announced as a prequel to SOA, many fans believe it is. Not only do we have Tellers and Winstons in the mix, but we also see familiar faces in Michael Ornstein, who played Chucky in Sons; Sagal, who portrayed Gemma; Clayton Cardenas, who played Angel Reyes in the spinoff, Mayans M.C.; and Hurst, who depicted Jax’s best friend and club brother, Opie Winston.