It hasn’t yet been a year that Sons of Anarchy has been absent from our Tuesday nights, and we’ve already got a spinoff series on the way. (Well, it’s in development, but we’re 100% full of optimism and booze.) It’s being put together by Kurt Sutter, and it’ll primarily focus on the Mayan motorcycle club that had quite a bit of wheeling and dealing with SAMCRO during those seven seasons. And even though it’s in the early stages, we’ve already got some pipe dreams for it.

Here are 6 Sons of Anarchy characters that we absolutely have to see if ever this still-untitled spinoff gets made. Our main parameter was the assumption that it’ll get a modern-day setting, so no Charlie Hunnam or Ron Perlman. (It still took everything I had not to put Opie on here.) Given all the deaths in Sons of Anarchy, that certainly limited things, but we’d still want to see these guys regardless of who else was still around and breathing.

Alvarez
Sure, this is a no-brainer, considering Marcus Alvarez is President of the Mayan’s Oakland chapter. He should damned sure be the main character in this show, assuming there aren’t any major changes taking place in the creative process. Since he was partly responsible for having his own son killed, it’s not like Alvarez can pass the presidency on through family lineage, and though it’s technically possible he could bring in the Stockton President Oscar Ramos over, we’re hoping Alvarez keeps his position until death. Not only is he a hardcore badass whose boundaries are few and far between, he’s also one of the smoothest sumbitches that SAMCRO ever faced down, and I’d love to see him in action on a regular basis.

Nero
If we’re being fair, I would put Jimmy Smits on any list where I’m dreamcasting a TV series. But he’s particularly relevant in this case, as Nero Padilha was one of my favorite characters in Sons of Anarchy’s run. When that show ended, he’d promised to take care of Wendy and the Teller sons on his Uncle’s farm, and we last saw him starting down that life path and leaving the gang business behind. But fuck all that. He’d tried to leave it all behind in the past, too, and still kept coming back. Considering his close ties to Alvarez, I’m certain he could get convinced to return to this brutal underworld, once more a single man. Smits!

Chibs
A Sons of Anarchy spinoff just couldn’t exist without at least one SAMCRO member showing up, and it makes the most sense for that club’s current President to be the guy. There’s no certainty that the Sons would show up at all, but that would be a carving fork to the brain for longtime fans if they were completely ignored. I’d be extremely interested to see how everything is functioning in Charming with Chibs leading things. His loyalty to Jax certainly had to go somewhere after Jax’s death, and I’d like to think it made him one of the most fearsome, but still mentally sensible M.C. leaders out there. I’d also like to know what happened between him and Jarry.

T.O.
If this spinoff isn’t totally against showing SAMCRO members, though, then we might as well bring T.O. Cross into the picture, too. The former president of the Grim Bastards M.C., T.O. was one of the more interesting (and underused) side characters in the Sons of Anarchy-verse, and by the time the show ended, he was the club’s first black member. I’m not sure if there would be any more story points to draw out of that race-related plotline, but I’d love to hear a conversation between T.O. and Alvarez about the ways in which he’s influenced SAMCRO. Maybe now they drink more Hennessey and bringing in less patches with Confederate flags tattooed across their entire body.

Tyler
The first One-Niner that didn’t mind doing deals with Jax and SAMCRO both on the table and under it, Tyler was the kind of leader that understood taking one step backwards or sideways in order to take three steps forward. I liked August Marks, because he was stoic and dignified in his douchebaggery, but Tyler is just a cool guy. He didn’t really have much of a gang to order around by the time the show ended, so even if he wouldn’t recruit another squad, he could maybe pop back into the storyline as someone who gets things done for Alvarez in different communities. The One-Niners were heavily invested in heroin, and that’s right up the Mayans’ alley.

Tig
As if there was any chance in the universe that this list could be put together without Tig on it. As soon as the concept of a Sons of Anarchy spinoff was brought up, I crossed all of my fingers and toes (and even my wife’s fingers and toes) that it would revolve around Tig starting up a metal band/cooking show and touring the country. But just because the spinoff is Mayan-related doesn’t mean that Tig has to be left out of it. As one of this series’ most deadly characters, as well as one of the most darkly hilarious, Tig is an absolute necessity for anything related to Sons of Anarchy. And if he brings in Walton Goggins’ Venus Van Dam with him when he comes – no pun intended – that’s even better.