Honestly I went into the show and Emily with an open mind maybe even high expectations for it but like I said I was kinda bored.

From the promos I could tell what they were setting up with EZ and Emily and while I did find it predictable and cliche I still didn’t write it off, but the added element of her being married to Miguel and him being EZ’s kinda effectively killed the already thin ice she was on from me. Like the more I learned about this character the more I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

Right now she’s the prized “magic white pussy” everyone is going to fawn over and it’s going to cause mayhem she will never have to answer for which I’ve seen way to many times (TVD, Weeds, Smallville, etc.) and I am not looking to watch that again.

I’m also severely disappointed that a show about a Mexican-American biker gang the main female character is white and not only that she was one of the first cast. That didn’t really inspire much confidence in me from the writers especially since from what I’ve heard, SOA didn’t do well with characters of color. But with the other elements, bar from the “somoan sandwich” line, they’re doing alright. I did really like the “LA Mexican” because it felt real. I’ve known many latinas who know varying degrees of Spanish and though I’m sure there has been, I honestly haven’t seen that kind of representation since “Selena” when I was 4 (weird side note, both involved Edward James Almost).

I’m not actually all that bothered that the other female character is a light skinned Latina I’m just more concerned about why there aren’t more Latina characters in general which is why her being light skinned is an issue. As of right now she’s the only Latina representation on the show and as many POC’s are used to at this point, representation mostly only comes from the lightest of their race, especially if they’re female, and the more white passing they are the more likely they are to get cast in major roles. But it was only the pilot so hopefully more get introduced and this issue can be solved. Also I hope if they add more dark skinned latinas or afro-latinas they aren’t put in a position that’s lower than the light/white female characters because that’s not representation that just adds to the already fucked up system that I am tired of watching. Pretty much they just need to add more diversity in terms of female characters and a lot this would be a non-issue and Adelita and even Emily would just be adding to a variety of characters like the Male characters seem to have.

I was mostly underwhelmed because they spent a lot of time on exposition most of which was gathered from the promos and sneak peaks, like EZ’s past. A lot of the major stuff was kinda spoiled through them and not much more was added to it which is my only issue. Him working with the DEA was very reminiscent of Pardo’s role in Messenger’s which is not their fault but as of right now I enjoyed his role in that more which is weird since that was a CW show. His interactions with his family, while you can tell is very loving, was kinda, I don’t want to say hollow, but there were very few interactions and they were mostly silent and they haven’t set up “silent communication” well as of right now.

The plot twist at the end wasn’t really shocking but I don’t need shocking I need good storytelling. I am actually looking forward to watching the retaliation against Galindo but I’m also worried about how they’re going to insert Emily in it because I have a feeling they’re going to make it all about her and use her to split EZ’s loyalties which I know I’ll feel is unearned because she chose her path and should deal with the consequences. But I’m getting ahead of myself and with any luck my predictions will be false. Like I said in my earlier post she hopefully ends up the villain that’s honestly the only thing that would salvage her character for me.

Anyway thank you for your thoughts. Although I’m happy that there are mostly positive thoughts about the show because it deserves a chance to try to prove to be good. There are a lot of shows especially on FX that start slow and turn out amazing and I have hopes for that even given my reservations about Emily being white. But that aside I can’t just have completely positive thoughts on the show because everyone else does. In theory this show should work and be a lot more nuanced, but in practice, so far, they’re throwing us every cliche in the book.