Kurt Sutter's death march hasn't lost a step.
The creator of "Sons of Anarchy," the relentless drama about a motorcycle gang that rubbed out rivals more times than it stopped for gas, follows up his hit with "The Bastard Executioner," in which a 14th-century warrior attempts to find inner peace by slicing the heads off fellow Welshmen.
This is supposed to be a morality play about what lengths man is willing to go to rid himself of authority — in this case, a land-grubbing English army — but Sutter fans will be engrossed in the mystery of where his penchant for colorful heroes and villains has gone.
Lee Jones plays the title character with such moody indifference that he should have ceded top billing to his much more animated horse, and the usually reliable Katey Sagal (Sutter's real-life wife), is saddled with the role of a mystic who's been cursed with Europe's most peculiar accent.
The violence is disturbing — in one scene, a soldier cradles a still fetus hanging out of his dead wife's belly — but if you're in a bloodthirsty mood, keep in mind that season 5 of "Game of Thrones" recently became available on DVD. □
