Sons of Anarchy Series Finale: Kurt Sutter and Charlie Hunnam Sound Off On That Epic Ending

SOA's creator and star reveal why [SPOILER] had to die

By Sydney Bucksbaum Dec 10, 2014 7:10 AMTags
Charlie Hunnam, Sons of AnarchyPrashant Gupta/FX

No matter how you feel about the final moments of the Sons of Anarchy series finale, you can't deny that the episode will go down in history as one of the most epic, emotional chapters of television in history.

Warning! Major spoilers below...

After seven years, Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) finally met the bloody end he deserved, but instead of getting killed by his own club as punishment for killing another SOA charter's president, he helped them frame his "escape" and instead killed himself by driving his father's motorcycle head on into a truck on the highway.

After the final moments of "Papa's Goods" aired, SOA creator Kurt Sutter and Hunnam appeared on Anarchy Afterword to discuss that epic ending. 

"Seven years, man," Sutter said to Hunnam as they sat across from each other at the SAMCRO table. "We can tell stories."

"It's the end of a little era for us," Hunnam agreed. "A lot of sleepless nights and bottles of tequila."

So why did Sutter decide to kill off the series lead instead of allowing him to ride off into the sunset, since he did have the opportunity to get away clean? Turns out, Jax's death on his own terms was Sutter's plan all along, both because it would mirror what happened to the Jax's father JT, and because there was nother way the show could end after everything Jax had done.

Prashant Gupta/FX

"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.

And when he read the last two episodes, he realized that Jax had a sense of "peace and calm" that foreshadowed how he already made the decision to end his life. "And that was the moment that it really dawned on me," Hunnam said, "that you had decided to really go for it and we were going to say goodbye to Jax at the end."

As for how Jax went out? It wasn't in a firefight or by the hands of his own club. It was riding down the highway, wind in his hair, on his father's old bike, with a mob of cop cars trailing him in an epic chase...in the same way his father died. 

"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," Sutter said. "You know what I mean? The idea that he was going to go out in the same way." 

It turns out there was actually a debate over how much of Jax's death Sutter wanted to show. 

"I wasn't sure how much of it I was going to leave up to the imagination of people," Sutter said. "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."

And as for that now-infamous spoiler leak, when Sutter was showing off the full SOA series DVD collection, he cracked a joke at his own expense.

"Interestingly enough, this did not come out a week early," he said, referencing how the souvenir book accidentally released early, spoiling Jax's fate. "No resentment there!" 

Do you agree with how Sutter ended the FX biker drama?