Sons Of Anarchy Spoilers: Why Didn’t Tara Die?, Clay Beats Gemma, Next Week’s 90 Minute Episode Details

News, Spoilers

While many people expected Tara to die after Clay’s hit order on Sons of Anarchy, that didn’t happen.

After last night’s episode, creator Kurt Sutter answered questions about the episode.

“[Killing Tara] was never my intention. As the season progresses, you’ll see that it’s about creating parallels that relate back to Jax’s father, to Gemma, and we see that arc continue to play out. Tara truly loves Jax, but it’s always sort of on-again, off-again in terms of her being supportive of the club and not supporting the club,” Sutter said. “I knew that if she were to continue on this path that we really would have to knock her off the fence, and in Episode 10 I think both she and Gemma get knocked off the fence. As she says in that one scene with Jax, her skills as a doctor were her “way out,” and now that’s been taken away from her, so it was just really about creating this circumstance where we could do that. I know I didn’t want her to get kidnapped again, because we had done that.”

Sutter also discussed Clay beating Gemma.

“There are some opinions in terms of why Gemma gave Clay the chance that she gave him [at the end of last week’s] Episode 9, and for me it’s because these two had this life together … and I really do believe that Gemma thought she could bring Clay back. She has been his guiding light for such a long time, at the end of [Episode] 9, when she looks him in the eye and says, “Promise me,” she really believes that she got through to him. Clay ultimately making that decision [to order the hit on Tara] is about his own fear and his own ability to trust, which is really his tragic flaw. Once he does that, Gemma feels like, “OK, he can’t be trusted and he is no longer an advocate of moving my family in the right direction.” But it took that act of brutality for her to really get to that place.”

As for where the show is going, it appears that there will be some relief over the next couple of episodes.

“We’ve released some of the tension in terms of going after Tara — she is being guarded by the Prospects, so at least that threat is somewhat diminished — but the emotional impact continues,” said Sutter. “I don’t think there’ll be a lot of laughter in the next three or four episodes, but perhaps people will breathe a little bit.”

To read the entire interview, check out TVLine.com

Turning to Clay/Gemma: How do you script that brutal assault scene without thinking, “I’m hereby painting this guy into a corner”?
Well, I think that’s point. I’m a big believer in committing, and rather than sort of seeing Clay sort of go to the dark side, we needed to see him basically cross that line. The reality of it – and we have this discussion in the writers room – is this is not the first time Clay has hit Gemma, and it’s not the first time Gemma has hit Clay. We have seen the passion and the violence in their relationship in the past, but I do believe this is the first time it was not just a smack and a push and a shove and a scream, but it manifested into absolute rage where he close-fisted and brutally beat her. There are some opinions in terms of why Gemma gave Clay the chance that she gave him [at the end of last week’s] Episode 9, and for me it’s because these two had this life together … and I really do believe that Gemma thought she could bring Clay back. She has been his guiding light for such a long time, at the end of [Episode] 9, when she looks him in the eye and says, “Promise me,” she really believes that she got through to him. Clay ultimately making that decision [to order the hit on Tara] is about his own fear and his own ability to trust, which is really his tragic flaw. Once he does that, Gemma feels like, “OK, he can’t be trusted and he is no longer an advocate of moving my family in the right direction.” But it took that act of brutality for her to really get to that place.

Murtz Jaffer is the world's foremost reality television expert and was the host of Reality Obsessed which aired on the TVTropolis and Global Reality Channels in Canada. He has professional writing experience at the Toronto Sun, National Post, TV Guide Canada, TOROMagazine.com and was a former producer at Entertainment Tonight Canada. He was also the editor at Weekendtrips.com.