Which Series Pushed More Boundaries: The Walking Dead or Sons Of Anarchy?

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for season seven of The Walking Dead!!

The season seven premiere of The Walking Dead was one of the most violent and brutal episodes in all of television history. About 20 minutes into the episode, Negan killed two beloved characters in the goriest of ways.

With a bat wrapped in barbed-wire, the villain beat in the skulls of Glenn and Abraham. He left no part of their heads intact, and even stuck the blood-soaked bat in the faces of their friends.

Later on, Negan tried to force Rick to cut off his own son’s hand. While it didn’t end up happening, Rick was about to do it.

This premiere was met with mixed reactions, and many fans are saying that the episode was too violent and emotional. Parents associations have called out AMC for letting such graphic and distrurbing images surface on cable, and a lot of audience members are claiming they won’t return to watch the show next week.

The backlash of the episode is understandable, and it parallels the sixth season premiere of another controversial cable drama, Sons Of Anarchy.

Even before the sixth season of Kurt Sutter’s biker series debuted on FX in 2013, critics and fans had already felt that the show had crossed some lines. The murder, drugs, and use of firearms depicted in motorcycle culture offended many, and the violence throughout the series was almost as horrifying as what you would see on a premium network.

The season six premiere, however, is when audiences thought the show went too far.

In order to show how much of their community the motorcycle clubs were affecting, the episode featured a young boy stealing his step-fathers gun and shooting other children in his elementary school.

To make matters worse, this aired less than a year after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.

To the show’s defense, the season had been planned and written long before the real-life tragedy, and they weren’t willing to sacrifice their long-term plans to appease polical-correctness. The event also served as a major turning point for the main protagonist, Jax Teller, since he had two sons of his own.

Both of these episodes were met with massive outrage from the public, and it begs the question: Which of these shows pushed the boundaries more?

On one hand, you’ve got The Walking Dead.

It’s set in a fictional future, so all of the events seem a little more removed from our society. While that helps its case here, TWD has still shown more violence on television than any other show in history. The graphic depiction of flesh-eating zombies and bashed-in skulls has churned stomachs for seven years, and it seems to get more gruesome with each and every episode.

On the other hand, you’ve got Sons Of Anarchy.

The make-up isn’t quite as graphic as what’s in The Walking Dead, and there aren’t as many ways to shock an audience when using a real-life setting. However, by setting the show in reality, every event hits that much closer to home. Children were taken from their mothers arms, wives were murdered for their husbands sins, and innocent students were killed in their school. Sons was an emotionally disturbing trek through the psyche of an anti-hero, and it’s one that’s extremely difficult to revisit.

So, what’s more disturbing? Tragedy in real life, or an alternate take on our world that you can’t stomach the sight of?

To be honest, it kind of comes down to personal preference. Both series have pushed each boundary and crossed every line, and both are incredibly disturbing tales of love, loss, and the American Dream.

Which series do you think pushed more boundaries? Let us know in the comments below.