WARNING: This piece contains spoilers regarding the final episode of Sons of Anarchy.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt that the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love.”
Appearing just prior to the end credits’ final scroll, Hamlet’s words to Ophelia hung onscreen as fans of FX’s outlaw drama Sons of Anarchy still reeled from the final episode’s events. After seven seasons of violence, twists, beautiful character development and perhaps an even sweeter focus on the motorcycles that featured, Kurt Sutter’s homage to the Shakespearean tragedy came to an end with the show’s protagonist Jax Teller, brilliantly portrayed by Charlie Hunnam, making right with not only the amount of damage the lifestyle had brought to his city of Charming and his family, but also the demons viewers had seen him battling ever since the first season. Already, there is a divide among the fans: there is a camp who saw Jax’s final moments as fitting and perfect for the show’s roots, while others perceived it to be predictable and lazy. However, the whole of the seventh season was always ultimately leading to Jax riding down a winding Californian road, with the past catching up to him so in this case, I’m inclined to sit with the first opinion.
As a show, Sons of Anarchy grew past being fodder for a TV audience who liked their bikies roughed up, their onscreen sex and violence uncompromising and their storylines straightforward. In Hunnam’s Jax, audiences were given a new troubled protagonist to fall in love with and champion and, following this rather obvious Hamlet structure, it was a great hook from the first Harley rev. The cards were excellently dealt early on, with the action driven well by a great cast; in Ron Perlman’s Clay and Katey Sagal’s Gemma, we were shown early on that there was no clear black and white, just multiple shades of grey, when it come to villainy within the ranks. The resounding notion and importance of family that permeated through each season of Sons remained a cause of the main violent story arcs right up until the end but in Sutter’s and the writing team’s talented scripts, the audience still finds themselves trying to gain perspective on what twisted place of love and protectiveness these people and their actions come from.
For Jax, his goals had always remained the same, despite falling off target at multiple times during the show’s run. Legitimising club business and eventually, as the last three seasons especially had shown, to ensure his own family got out of the danger SAMCRO would always inevitably bring. With Tara’s death in Season Six being the catalyst for every single move in Season Seven, it’s almost like Jax had been forced to make this reality that his wife and late father had wanted so badly for their children more than a pipe dream. Of course, adding to what was becoming a huge and unnecessary body count because of his mother’s lie, wasn’t in the original blueprint. In the end, although the ride was a twisty one, we see Jax finally earning some sense of relief; he’s ensured that everyone he cares about will be safe and taken care of in his absence, that his children will be raised outside the club and that all prominent threats to SAMCRO and his family were eliminated. So while the ending of “Papa’s Goods” may have been one many were expecting, Jax Teller meeting Mr. Mayhem at the hands of Milo the trucker aka Michael Chiklis aka Vic Mackey from The Wire (Clever, Sutter, clever), was no less satisfying show finale material.
“It ain’t easy being king,” Jax comments in the pilot episode of the show, longtime fans of Sons will remember. He tells Tommy Flanagan’s Chibs in the final episode that the hard decisions – aka voting for Jax to meet Mr. Mayhem – is what becoming a leader is about, doing the shit you’d rather give to others to burden. It’s what made this character so flawed and so brilliant. Hunnam played tortured so well in these last seasons, the only other cast member to come a close second being Theo Rossi’s Juice, that by the end of the action, you’re almost wanting these characters to be put out of their misery. Or at least, be given a clean slate or a new start.
In interviewing Kim Coates (Tig) earlier in the year, I got the impression early on that this was not to be an easy season to film. Emotions were already running high with the departure of Maggie Siff (Tara) and knowing that this was to be the final Sons of Anarchy season brought with it a sense of sadness and excitement. “We come across as this Robin Hood, dark hero sort of club,” Coates had said. “Yet, if the past six seasons have taught us anything, no one is safe. Not even Charlie [Hunnam]. Not even Katey [Sagal].”
And boy, was he not joking.
While the club’s core members remained intact and presumably better off at the conclusion of “Papa’s Goods”, audiences still witnessed the death of Bobby (Mark Boone Junior), Juice, Unser (Dayton Callie) and of course, the matriarch, Gemma, by the time we come to the end. While the last three deaths were lined up and could easily have been seen a mile off, Bobby’s torture and heartless shooting was on Opie-level intensity. Long time fans were rocked, but again, it was Sutter reinforcing this position that with it being the final season, nobody at all in this family was exempt from the possibility of meeting the reaper. These are outlaws who spent most of their time on bikes either riding away and escaping death, or causing it. In the same way as The Sopranos did for the Italian-American mafia and organised crime, Sutter made his viewers empathise with these people and, if you’re like me, end up a ball of tears as your hero ultimately meets his fate, arms outstretched, driving head on into a semi.
His final dialogue sees Jax talking to his father, who had died in the same manner, as he realises what his dad had been trying to put across in the diaries we see Jax reading religiously in the first few seasons. It’s impossible to be a good father and remain a good leader for the club, and it’s a crippling battle which has brought him to this point. He’s made sure his kids will grow up outside SAMCRO and knowing their father for the criminal and murderer he was in the hopes they’d never follow in his footsteps (though we’re not sure about Abel, that kid is a sociopath in the making). Hell, by the time the camera comes back to the police chasing Jax down after doing a final sweep of where we’re leaving the characters, it’s almost a leisurely ride. And you get the idea that’s how Jax, Sutter and the wider Sons show would have wanted it – Jax on his dad’s bike, going out on his own terms for the love of his family and his beloved club.
Which brings us to the Shakespearean quote after the final shot of the SAMCRO reaper. It represents what the show has always revolved around – one’s love for his/her family. Ultimately ending in death and violence, whether it was for the sake of a personal family or for the family the club cultivated, Sons of Anarchy was driven by these characters’ flawed intent, rooted in love. The dodgy CGI effects at the end aside, the ending of this episode and indeed, the whole show, was fitting. I’m glad we weren’t left with an open ending a la The Sopranos. Jax is most certainly dead. Having White Buffalo’s “Come Join the Murder” play while seven crows flew overhead of the final chase, before having the camera settle on two crows pecking at a piece of bread on the side of the road as Jax’s blood oozed toward it, akin to the wine and bread Homeless Lady was eating and drinking earlier on in the episode (confirmed by Sutter to represent the Angel of Death/God), was about as definite as it could get.
Bringing the show full circle as it did was pure Sutter gold, even right down to having the show’s unmistakeable theme song tie into the events of “Papa’s Goods”. To refresh your memory, take a listen to it below and pour one out for this talented cast who made one of the best recent dramas last as long as it did.
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