Mayans MC is too much of the same stuff from Sons of Anarchy with different names

Rolling Stone

"There are occasional playful flourishes, like the way the show signals the start of each flashback to EZ’s days as a clean-cut student dating Emily (Sarah Bolger), but otherwise it’s the same stuff, different names," says Alan Sepinwall. "(The Galindo cartel was a key part of Sons, too, but here it assumes the plot function of the manipulative Irish gun runners who funded SAMCRO.) That it’s a Latino group that gets mixed up with hot-button issues on both sides of the border offers some new shading, but that material largely takes a backseat to the same old plot moves. It’s a spin-off likely to be better received by people who didn’t watch the original."

ALSO:

• Mayans MC feels like the product of research, rather than lived experience
• Mayans MC is a "strange blast": "It ain’t Shakespeare, but it is salient and thrillingly confident in its storytelling"
• It doesn't fully make the case this was the spinoff Sons of Anarchy needed or demanded
• Mayans MC seems less interested in exploring timely sociopolitical themes -- it's more of a throwback than a spinoff
• Watching Mayans MC for the first time felt a lot like watching Sons of Anarchy for the first time
• It is too much like the bad late seasons of Sons of Anarchy
• There's a lot riding on Mayans MC -- it has to live up to the best years of Sons of Anarchy
• How to watch Mayans MC without having seen Sons of Anarchy
• JD Pardo had difficulty learning to ride a Harley
• Edward James Olmos was drawn to Mayans MC because it delved into the subtext of the characters' lives
• Kurt Sutter insists Mayans MC is not a political show: "I had to step away and realize that if I'm not going to let externals dictate how I tell stories, I can't do it in reverse either"