Katey Sagal warned us that the last two episodes of "Sons of Anarchy" would be a tear-jerker, and she wasn't lying. Last night's episode, "Red Rose," was the penultimate episode before next week's series finale and (spoiler warning!) a lot of characters died.
In the Dec. 2 episode, fans saw the aftermath of Jax (Charlie Hunnam) learning that his mother Gemma (Katey Sagal) killed his wife. To say that Jax didn't handle the news well is definitely putting it lightly. The episode was a bloodbath and he killed Gemma (yup, Jax took out his own mother) and Unser (Dayton Callies).
Juice (Theo Rossi) was also stabbed to death in prison, after he enjoyed a nice slice of cherry pie. Following the episode, Sagal spoke with TV Line and said that she knew her character was going to be killed.
"Oh, I knew. Charlie and I both knew that was coming," she said. "We knew probably three episodes in. Kurt [Sutter] was still figuring it out, but we had been forewarned. We didn't know the circumstances. This is actually the merciful way to go."
Regardless, Sagal said filming Gemma's death scene was hard on her and Hunnam and both shed a lot of tears.
"Before every take, we both were just crying and hugging each other. It was very sweet. It makes me cry to think about it. Because it is Jax and Gemma, but it's also Katey and Charlie and seven years," Sagal told TV Line. "There's a lot that goes into those moments. Charlie and I were bawling. That's what was happening right before we played those scenes."
Rossi also said he knew his character was going to be killed and thinks the scene with Juice eating the pie right before his death was a metaphor that the character was finally at peace.
"At that moment, in this mayhem of prison, looking across from their heinous individual and looking around at how he got there, cherry pie is everything," Rossi explained to Entertainment Weekly. "It's the hopes and dreams. It's his full innocence. You picture him as a youth eating pie, and at all these celebratory things in your life, you eat pie."
"I thought the, 'Just let me finish my pie' line is such a classic line because he's making his one last declaration to no one," he added. "It's just himself. I never want to say that dying is celebratory, but you see the beginning of the episode, it's like there's no way out here. This is it."
So what's ahead for next week's series finale? Be forewarned, Rossi said "there's a lot going down."
"It's going to take a long time for people to process. What they have to remember at the end of the day is these people are criminals," he said. "They do bad things. Whether it be their choice or not, everyone one of them, even the ones we think are good, do bad thing. Karma is the biggest gangster of all. Eventually, things come back."
