‘Mayan MC’: How Did the Mayans Get Chuck From the Sons of Anarchy?
Mayans MC brought back several Sons of Anarchy characters, including Chuck Marstein. Chuck was a bookkeeper for the Sons of Anarchy who proved especially useful at times. By the time of the spinoff series, he is passed on to work for the Mayans MC. Here’s what we know about how Chuck came to work for the Mayans and why he is no longer in the show.
How did the Mayans get Chuck from the Sons of Anarchy?
Chuck was first introduced in Sons of Anarchy as a friend of Otto’s in prison who previously worked for the Lin Triad. He had a compulsive masturbation disorder which eventually led to Lin cutting off all but two of his fingers. The Sons of Anarchy eventually took Chuck off the Lin Triad’s hands. Tig Trager set him up as a bookkeeper at Luann Delaney’s studio, where he proved his usefulness over time.
Later, Chuck reappears in the spinoff series, Mayans MC. He is first shown in the season 1 episode “Escorpión/Dzec” in the front office of the Mayan’s junkyard, called the Romero Brothers Scrap and Salvage. Coco makes a comment that the Mayans won Chucky in a game of cards. Kurt Sutter revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that there won’t be much more elaboration than that.
“There’s a reference to it. There’s this throwaway line that Coco has in episode six or something like that where we find out why [Chucky is] there. It’s just this thrown away thing and you realize, ‘Oh, my god. That’s why he’s there.’ But there’s never an exploration of it, an explanation of it. He’s just there and in a very Chucky-esque way. Then you get a sense that he’s there creating new relationships.”
Chuck helped bridge the gap between ‘Sons of Anarchy’ and ‘Mayans MC’
It’s oddly heartwarming to see Chuck in Mayans MC and it helped bridge the gap from Sons of Anarchy to the spinoff. “It was one of those things where you’re setting up the dynamics of the world and who are the players, and as you get into the episodes, you can expand those layers,” Sutter told THR.
“I knew we had our clubhouse and the club itself is set in this scrapyard world where that’s their day job and that’s where the clubhouse is located … and I also knew there would have to be some sense of the reality of how that world operates. So, who are the external players in that world making it function? I remember thinking, ‘Well, I want to create a character who’s running the front office. Who’s my Chucky here?’ Then I went, ‘Well … maybe it’s Chucky!'”
“He’s a drifter, traveling around, and the thing about him is that he represents this blind love and loyalty to whoever gives him a place to be and a job and a reason to be there, to be part of the family,” Chuck actor Michael Ornstein told THR. “Once he’s in that place, he has this deep loyalty to that place. I just love that. It’s such an honor to play someone as pure as that.”
Here’s why Michael Ornstein didn’t return for seasons 3 and 4
Ornstein’s role in Mayans MC has since tapered off. The actor has not appeared as Chuck since season 2. The series explained that Chuck fell in love with a woman and moved to Ohio. There were actually plans for Ornstein to return to the series, but they didn’t work out thanks to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“The time when I was supposed to go film was right around the Thanksgiving rush,” Ornstein explained to Comic Book Resources in 2021, “when it was just absolutely impossible for me to make that trip cross country.” At the time, the actor wasn’t sure if Chucky would ever return, but he didn’t rule it out either. “Chucky is a character that could really turn up anywhere at any time,” he told CBR.
All episodes of Mayans MC are currently streaming on Hulu.
