When ‘Sons Of Anarchy’ Ends: Kurt Sutter Talks Final Seasons And This Week’s Shocking Death

FX mega-hit Sons of Anarchy is currently in its fifth season, and if you follow the show, you know that things are heating up pretty quickly at just three episodes in. Show creator Kurt Sutter has proven that he still has all of his best tricks up his sleeve after five years, and sat down in a recent interview to explain a bit more about this week’s major character death, why the show will be done in seven seasons, and whether or not Jax and Clay will ever have the climactic face-off that fans have long expected.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead, especially if you didn’t catch this week’s episode.

When asked why Sutter plans to wrap the show after seven seasons, and why that’s the perfect amount of time to tell his story, he said:

“From a very practical notion, I knew that this model basically has around seven seasons of a lifespan before you really have to start trying to reinvent it and change licensing fees, and all that stuff. My original idea, coming into it, was, ‘Okay, if that’s the model and this is my mythology, do I have seven seasons worth of story to tell?’ I really approached it from that point of view, in terms of how to dole out the story and where to go. So, the initial idea of seven seasons wasn’t just a number I pulled out of the air. It was really based on the practicality of what we do.”

On Opie’s death, we we covered to some degree in this post:

“As dramatic and as absurd that that dynamic was, it’s not uncommon. Sh– like that goes down in prisons. Just last week, there were videotapes that came out of the Alabama prison of what guards were doing to inmates. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, in terms of the sh– that goes down. And I wanted Opie to go out a warrior. I really wanted him to go out with nobility and a sense of feeling like, ‘I may not have a lot to live for, but at the very least, I’m going to go out doing something noble and protecting the people I still love.’ I felt like we were able to do all that with that death.”

On Jax and Clay’s ultimate climactic confrontation:

“As the stories were unfolding for us, it just happened organically that the emotionality and the relationships were really in a constant state of flux. And Jax and Clay are no different. Their relationship will ebb and flow, and come to a head, as will Clay’s own personal journey and his demons. Clay’s emotional path this season is not a straight line either. He will have awareness of things and make choices and make mistakes. I think we will see Jax and Clay go at it, but maybe not in the most predictable way.”

Head on over to Collider for the full interview, in which Sutter talks about tension on set the day Opie’s death scene was shot, Juice’s secret, the new dynamic in Jax and Tig’s relationship, and more on the motivations of this season’s big bad, Damon Pope.

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