‘Sons of Anarchy’ Recap: SAMCRO Finally Buries a Broken Past

And then, everything changed.

[Warning: Major spoilers from the Tuesday, Nov. 19 episode of Sons of Anarchy.]

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It’s been a tragic season on Sons of Anarchy for Clay (Ron Perlman) overall, spending most of his time fending for his life in prison, away from the rest of his family and former SAMCRO compatriots. And the season has clearly been building towards something big, as Jax (Charlie Hunnam) weaves plans to finally get the club out of guns. Now, with his marriage on the rocks and his club still threatened by the Irish, Jax makes a move that has been a long time coming. He buries the past and sets the course for his future.

Tara’s Terror

Tara is living in fear now that Jax has found out about her plan to leave him. She meets with a new lawyer who tells her that she might not be able to divorce Jax and keep the kids if it’s discovered that she faked the miscarriage.

“So I have to choose — my boys or my freedom?” she asks.

“There’s no guarantee of either, but essentially, yes, I guess that’s true,” responds the new lawyer.

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Jax and the Irish

Jax seems to be moving forward with his plan to give up the Irish to the D.A. in order to get immunity.

He meets up with the Irish to help out with the plan to break Clay out of jail. Conveniently for him, the plan is taking place at the exact time that he told the D.A. he’d be at the warehouse with the Irish.

Everything goes according to plan for SAMCRO until the very end, when one guard gets a few shots fired at Bobby.

Jax calls Gemma (who is taking care of Wendy at her home) to get Tara to help fix up Bobby, who isn’t looking good. But Tara doesn’t seem interested. “We just pretend nothing happened and I’m mob doctor again?” asks Tara with a laugh. But she reluctantly agrees.

Jax brings Clay to the Irish, and they greet like old friends. But then Jax and the other members of SAMCRO kill all the them. Clay was clearly unaware of the plan,

Tara, Gemma and Nero arrive. Tara tends to Bobby, while Gemma and Clay have an awkward reunion. This is one of the first times all season that all these characters have been together in one room, and being reunited feels so good.

But the reunion is short-lived. Clay realizes that the club has taken another vote — to use his death as a reason to cut ties with the Irish once and for all. In a very somber scene, Clay willingly walks into a room with Jax and the rest of SAMCRO and waits to be executed. He takes one last look at Gemma through the window, and then Jax shoots him in the throat. He falls to the ground, and Jax shoots him several more times. It’s a moment that most fans of the show probably knew would come eventually (Kurt Sutter‘s show is, after all, inspired by Hamlet), but it’s still shocking to watch.

“What went down today was us burying the last piece of a very broken past,” Jax tells Nero afterwards.

After Gemma, Nero and Tara take Bobby to the cabin to stitch him up, Connor arrives to meet with the Irish. When he sees the bodies, he’s shocked, but Jax tells him that Clay killed the Irish, and then SAMCRO killed Clay. He tells Connor that the Irish will have to work with August Marks to deal guns from now on. Connor reluctantly agrees.

The D.A. meets with Tara in secret. Now that her deal with Jax has gone awry, she’s open to making a deal with Tara. She’ll get immunity for testifying against the club. Tara asks — hypothetically — if it would be enough if she brought them a bullet that was in the shoulder of one of the men who attacked Clay’s convoy . The D.A. says it would be.

Tara then goes to Bobby and removes his bullet. After a moment of kindness from Jax, he leaves, and Tara is left alone, holding the bloody bullet in a cotton pad.

What did you think of Tuesday’s explosive episode? Sound off in the comments section below.