*SPOILER ALERT* If you have not seen the series finale of “Sons of Anarchy,” beware — this post discusses specific details.
After seven seasons, lots of gruesome violence, and many expletive-laden rants by its creator Kurt Sutter, FX’s hit motorcycle gang drama “Sons of Anarchy” came to an end on Tuesday night.
How did it end? In typical “Sons of Anarchy” way, with a death. Specifically, protagonist Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), who decided to die the same way his father did: Driving his motorcycle straight into an oncoming truck.
On the special “Anarchy Afterword” after the two-hour finale, Sutter and Hunnam further explained the idea behind Jax’s suicide. Turns out, that had been Sutter’s plan all along. Not only would the act echo what happened to the late John Teller, but there wasn’t really much of a choice after everything Jax had done. (After all, where can you go after you shoot your mother for murdering your wife?)
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And so, Jax went out on his terms: Riding a motorcycle, arms outstretched, being chased by tons of cops until he fatally crashed headfirst into a truck. The audience didn’t actually see the collision, but we did see blood trickling into the frame.
Share this articleShareDuring the after-show, Sutter and Hunnam acknowledged there were a lot of conversations about how exactly the last scene should play out.
“We had talked about there being various potential versions of the ending in the beginning of the season and had a couple of conversations,” Hunnam said to Sutter. He added that when he read the last two episodes, Jax had a sense of “peace and calm” that hinted at his final decision. “And that was the moment that it really dawned on me that you had decided to really go for it and we were going to say goodbye to Jax at the end.”
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“I had a sense really from the beginning of this ride that I liked the notion of Jax being brought to the same place of his father, but getting it right. You know what I mean?” Sutter said. “The idea that he was going to go out in the same way.”
He continued: “But I wasn’t sure how much of it I was going to leave up to the imagination of people. There was a discussion that he’s on the road and we see that truck and we leave it sort of open ended. And then ultimately I felt like this has not been a show of’ ‘what ifs,’ to a certain extent. This has always been a show about direct, specific choices and direct, specific consequences. So I realized I needed to be clear in terms of whether it happened or it didn’t.”
Oh, and that appearance by Michael Chiklis over the last two episodes, specifically as the guy who gave Gemma a ride and then drove into Jax? Yeah, that was for fun. Sutter, who created Chiklis’s star vehicle “The Shield,” said he couldn’t resist the idea of a small “Sons of Anarchy” and “Shield” cross-over.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Sutter unleashed furious Twitter rants about a special “Sons of Anarchy” collector’s edition book being accidentally released a week in advance — which had major spoilers about who died in the finale. But for the solemn occasion of the after-show, he restrained himself, and only made one crack about the mix-up.
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