Sons of Anarchy Season 6 Preview: Maggie Siff Says Tara Is Looking for a Permanent Exit Strategy

Maggie Siff and Charlie Hunnam discuss the fractured relationship between Jax and Tara heading into season six of Sons of Anarchy…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Follow on Twitter @DamonMartin

Through five seasons of Sons of Anarchy the main story may have seemed to revolve around the outlaw motorcycle gang searching for money, revenge and a bloody good time, but at the heart of it all the show is really a love story—granted it’s a twisted love story, but a love story nonetheless.

In one corner there’s Jax Teller—the prince to the throne who will do anything to protect his family and in the other corner there’s Tara Knowles, a doctor with a troubled past who comes back home to find the love she left behind many years before.

The story of Jax and Tara has been the underlying backbone of Sons of Anarchy for all five seasons, but as the show heads into year number six, things are not well for Charming’s favorite couple.

The end of last season saw Tara decide that enough was enough—she was taking a new job in Oregon and moving with her sons to a safe area far away from the violence and bloodlust of SAMCRO, while at the same time setting up a living trust so that if anything happened to her or Jax, the children would go to his ex-wife Wendy.

She hits Jax straight to the face with all of this information just seconds before the sheriff shows up with an arrest warrant with Tara’s name on it. Weeks earlier in an attempt to help her husband and his nefarious affairs, Tara unwittingly became a pawn in the game when ex-SAMCRO member Otto Delaney killed a nurse using a cross she brought him illegally through the prison gates, pinning the charge of conspiracy to commit murder on her shoulders.

As season six begins, Tara finds herself locked away behind bars, far away from the fresh start she dreamed about in Oregon, and wondering if there is anything left to salvage in her relationship with Jax.

“I would define their relationship this season as sort of repressed,” Maggie Siff told NerdcoreMovement.com recently. “There’s all of this stuff that they’re not really talking about or dealing with so they’re very alienated from each other. It’s a more impersonal season between them because it’s just opening a Pandora’s box to even go there.

“He is full up of the club, really falling apart, and I’m full up with trying to stay out of jail. The main focus of my character this season, I would say, is really trying to figure out how to procure a safe future for my children. It’s kind of not about me anymore, and it’s kind of not about Jax anymore, and so that has created a lot of distance and not a lot of honesty.”

According to Siff, watching Tara get hauled off to jail might just be the breaking point for her character who has stuck through so much awfulness over the last five seasons and now she finally realizes she has to get out. Tara has been mired in so much destruction caused by the club, that if she stays there’s no way out except being tossed from the bottom in a pit of despair.

“I think she really, really wants to figure out an exit strategy,” Siff said. “It’s not even for herself anymore, it’s for her children. I think it’s just really dawning on her that this cycle of violence does not end.”

As for Jax, he’s being torn in two directions watching his beloved Tara get carted off to jail. On one side, he’s heartbroken that her involvement with him and the club led to something like this happening, but Jax is also feeling the sting of betrayal after Tara kept from him the fact that she was about to pick up and move their family to Oregon without his knowledge.

Let’s not forget of course that Jax is also dealing with the fallout from the murder of Damon Pope, his stepfather Clay being in jail, a former U.S. Marshall gunning for revenge, not to mention the return of an old Irish friend that will certainly come calling this year.

As a character, Jax has ignored Tara so much throughout all five seasons it’s amazing that they’ve been able to stick together to this point, but now with the good doctor behind bars for the first time in her life because of the involvement with the club, it might just be too much to overcome.

“Their relationship is definitely strained,” Charlie Hunnam said when speaking to NerdcoreMovement.com. “I think he did feel a huge sense of betrayal, and her attitude steadily towards him and the club has been declining, and I think there’s always been this tug of war between them where he thought she was going to be able to accept this life, and she thought she was going to be able to convince him to leave.

“I think they’re like starting to reach that crossroads now where they realize that neither are going to get what they want from each other. I think it’s obviously going to be a little bit of a power play over what’s going to happen to the children. If they go their separate ways, neither are going to want to let the kids go.”

Just because Tara wakes up in jail this season, Siff promises that her character won’t spend all year behind bars, but where she goes from here is still a mystery. While some moments have seemed to portray Tara as a fragile outsider that can’t quite handle the club life, deep down there is a steely resolve hiding beneath hands of surgeon and just like the precision she uses to save a life—Tara isn’t afraid to get dirty and then find a way to come out clean on the other side.

“I think although she doesn’t smile a lot, she is a character who does regroup and refocuses and isn’t destroyed by these things that keep happening to her,” Siff said. “If anything I think she comes back stronger, slightly traumatized, but stronger.”

Will Tara and Jax survive season six in tact or will they become the latest casualty in the world of SAMCRO? Tune in September 10 on FX for the debut of Sons of Anarchy to see how it all unfolds.

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