Sons of Anarchy Season 6 Episode 11 ‘Aon Rud Persanta’ Recap: ‘This Time It Was Unanimous’

Mr. Mayhem rears his ugly head in one of the most shocking moments in Sons of Anarchy history while Tara may have finally found an escape but will she take it?

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

At points over the last six seasons of Sons of Anarchy, the four most central characters to the show were Jax, Tara, Gemma and Clay and typically they were the greatest catalysts to all of the stories and plot lines we’ve enjoyed during the past 77 episodes of this outlaw biker opus. Eventually, however, we knew that one or maybe all of them would have to say goodbye, but if there was a character that had been living on borrowed time longer than anybody else it was Clay Morrow.

In the 11th episode of season six titled ‘Aon Rud Persanta‘, Clay’s time finally ran out.

Clay was one of the most powerful men in Charming, California for a couple of decades, some might say the true king of that town. But as power started to slip through his greasy fingers, he got desperate and when men get desperate, they also get stupid. When you compound desperation with greed, it’s an even nastier concoction just waiting to explode. From ordering a hit on Opie that ended up killing his wife to the botched assassination he tried to set up on Tara when he found out she knew too much, Clay’s decision making led to the moment when his stepson and mother framed him for the murder of a powerful Oakland gangster named Damon Pope.

Even with a hit squad of prison inmates just itching to get their hands on Clay, he once again escaped without conviction when the Irish still needed him alive to help transfer their gun trade out of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club. Clay was like a man with nine lives, but eventually all of the back alley deals and usefulness for this original member of the club had to run out.

To get to Clay, the club first had to carry out Galen’s orders to get their former president out of a Sheriff led escort taking him from jail to his hearing. The plan was simple — set up a group of unmarked trucks all identifiable by color and they would ambush the convoy and break Clay free. Tig notes that he’s stuck with the pink truck, which immediately reminded me of the famous scene in Reservoir Dogs where Steve Buscemi takes issue with Joe calling him Mr. Pink.

“Mr. Pink? That sounds like Mr. Pussy”

The multi-colored trucks going on a half cocked plot that was sure to end in bloodshed also sent off several warning alarms that this mission could end as badly as the diamond heist did for Mr. White and the boys back in Quentin Tarantino’s debut film. It doesn’t help matters much either that before the boys burst into action, Juice decides to tell Jax that he’s doing alright and not off the reservation. Obviously as we have seen this season, Juice is anything but okay with his continued death wish at every turn literally playing chicken with moving cars and beating up police officers who push him to the limit.

The plan works to perfection (almost) as they successfully knock over the convoy and free Clay without anybody getting hurt in the process outside of the sheriff’s deputies in the lead car getting a little banged up in the accident. That is until one of the transport drivers grabs a gun and fires off a few rounds as they escape and he tags Bobby with a couple of the shots. Juice wastes no time wasting the officer, running him down full speed with the truck and later tells Jax that he had no choice because the cop was just going to keep shooting.

Bobby’s injured and they can’t take him to a hospital and this is way beyond anything Chibs can do to fix him. Who you gonna call? Take three guesses and the first two don’t count.

To understand how this entire situation started to unfold we have to go back to the start of the episode where Jax closes out his deal with District Attorney Patterson. She’s signed off on the club’s immunity and Tara’s deal to keep her out of jail, but in exchange she needs Galen O’Shea and a truckload of guns for a conviction. Jax agrees, gives her the name of a location to pick up Galen and the guns and they are off. The only problem is as Patterson, Roosevelt and about 40 deputies sit stationed outside the warehouse, nothing is coming and nothing is going except a few members of the club and no guns to speak about. When the call comes in that the transport has been ambushed all the way across town, Patterson knows she’s been played and this is one pissed off public official.

To pick up from last week’s episode where it appeared Tara was a woman left without any options, ready to check out for good, she picks up this week still mired in her own misery after first learning that she can no longer take her boys to daycare at the hospital (courtesy of Jax’s order) and her new lawyer warns that if she sues for full custody that Jax can tell his side of the story and they will look into the miscarriage and her options are limited. Essentially, Tara can have her freedom and lose her children or she can have her children with no freedom. There’s really no third direction.

Nero pleads with Gemma to settle things with Tara for the sake of the children. In his own violent, blood soaked and addict riddled life he watched his wife cause their son to be born with a life threatening disease and then he watched her die as well. His biggest regret, however, was never making things right with her before she passed. Nero warns Gemma not to make that same mistake.

Unser also has a similar warning for Gemma when she professes that she’s going to be the one to take care of the boys if Tara goes away. Unser has a frightening reminder that whether she can take care of the boys isn’t the issue — it’s raising them in the same life that produced John Teller, Clay Morrow, Jax, Opie and a slew of other boys who are more likely to see the inside of a jail cell and a coffin than ever sit inside a college classroom isn’t the way they should be brought up.

“You’ve got to realize this isn’t 1967 anymore, sweetheart,” Unser warns. “This life it ain’t romantic or free. There’s no path to anything that makes any sense. It’s just dirty and sad. We both know it’s only going to get worse.”

Hearing Unser’s prophetic warning warrants a response from Gemma asking her old friend if this life is so awful and pathetic, why does he still stick around? For the first time in six seasons we finally hear Unser say what we’ve all known.

“For the same reason I still find myself here. No matter what the upset or damage. Because I love you. I’m in love with you.”

Tara makes her way to Gemma’s house to pick up the boys and that’s when the call comes in from Jax — he needs a doctor to help save Bobby’s life and there’s only one M.D. he knows that could help. Tara quickly points out the poison flowing between her and Jax right now, and she’s supposed to just bury all that and pretend like nothing happened and go back to being a ‘mob doctor’? For the intents and purposes of saving Bobby’s life, yep that’s exactly what she’s supposed to do.

Before the trio of Gemma, Tara and Nero arrive at the plane hangar where an ailing Bobby awaits them, one of the most pivotal moments in the history of the show takes place.

Clay’s free. Galen is waiting on him. And the fate of the club rests in these men’s hands?

Not for long because after a quick embrace between the old friends, as Galen extends his hand to say a job well done, Jax pulls out his gun and shoots the Irishman in the head. Chibs and Tig quickly take out the other two henchmen and Clay stands stunned not sure what he just witnessed. Blood for blood had to be settled, and Jax wasn’t going to let this go after Galen literally tried to blow them up a few weeks ago.

With a pile of dead IRA members on the floor, Clay knew what was coming next. He wasn’t going to be flying away to the mossy Emerald Isle where he would kick back and order the gun running in Northern California from thousands of miles away. He had no chance at winning back Gemma. He was only going to meet one more person and that was Mr. Mayhem.

Following his attempted coup to dethrone Jax last season and in the process managed to kill the sheriff’s wife not to mention the litany of crimes he’s already perpetrated on all of those closest to him, Clay’s time had run out. There were no more deals to be had. The vote was taken and there was no turning back now.

“This time it was unanimous,” Jax tells his stepfather.

Clay steps back in the room surrounded by the dead Irishman and with his brothers in arms staring him down, he knows what’s coming next. Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter may not have purposefully paid homage to another great television show with this scene, but it certainly had shades of the season two finale from The Sopranos where Tony, Silvio and Paulie are forced to put their friend Big Pussy down once and for all.

Clay stood stoic as Jax was handed the weapon and with one shot straight to the neck, all of his sins bled out in a giant pool of crimson. Jax pulled the trigger a few more times and with each bullet that penetrated Clay’s skin, he was paying back for John Teller and Piney Winston and all the other murders and deaths that were caused by this evil man’s hand. Throughout this season of Sons of Anarchy it felt like in many ways Clay was working towards redemption. Even after flirting with the idea of turning rat on his club, ultimately Clay was still loyal and did what he could to turn things around for his wife, his son and his club.

The past can’t be forgotten, however, and Clay’s crimes were too much to forgive. He chiseled his tombstone long ago, he just never laid down in the grave. Now he’s put to rest after saying goodbye to Gemma (“I’m glad you’re not alone, Gem” he tells her as she stands shocked after watching him die) and his debts are settled once and for all. Gemma is noticeably shaken by Clay’s death — despite everything he did to her, and he did a lot they were the modern day Bonnie and Clyde of this story. Through thick and thin there were always there for each other, and no matter how many wicked things he had done, Gemma will always have a place in her heart for Clay.  In those final moments, Clay knew he was going to die and he just wanted to say goodbye to the woman he loved for all those years.  Certainly Clay was a conflicted, dark soul but he wasn’t without compassion in his last minutes on this Earth.

Watching Clay get shot down by the club isn’t sitting well with Nero either, who was informed of the entire plan when he was driving Tara there to help Bobby. He’s finding less reasons everyday to be in bed with the club, and this entire plot to kill three real IRA members as well as Clay isn’t looking like an out — it’s looking like they are digging in even deeper.

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

Even Gemma can’t comfort Nero in these moments. She tries to tell him that Jax loves him, and he’s become like a father to him to which Nero responds that he’s a little too old to adopt and he’s got a point. Jax never had a real father figure, but he’s past that point now. He has to make his own decisions and whether good or bad, he has to live with them. Nero can’t guide him and even if he could it’s quite clear Jax rarely listens. The alternative to being Jax’s new father is for Nero to just marry Gemma, which she suggests while they sit in the car together. Nero quickly rebuffs that idea with a reminder of what they just witnessed happen to husband No. 2.

“No offense, I’ve seen what happens to your husbands. It ain’t pretty,” Nero says to Gemma. She can only shake her head and agree.

Meanwhile, when Galen’s No. 2 Connor arrives and finds all the dead bodies, Jax lays it out for him — Clay killed Galen and his boys, and so they were forced to put him down. His job is to now sell this story to the Irish kings and get their gun running business back by dealing with August Marks. Connor is now the man and he’s got to act like it if he’s going to survive this thing whole.

With Clay gone and the Irish situation handled (for the moment), Tara now needs to save Bobby, but to do that she’s going to need surgical supplies from the hospital so Gemma and Nero give her a ride. Along the way Tara gets a call from Patterson with a chance to re-up the deal they had on the table not that long ago. If Tara can give up the club and connect them to Federal charges, she will get full immunity, custody of her boys and they will all go into witness protection on the government’s dime. Tara offers up one possible connection to the club’s involvement in the day’s proceedings — the bullet she’s about to pull from Bobby’s shoulder will trace back to the sheriff’s gun who fired it. Patterson agrees to give her 24 hours to find this evidence and turn it over, and she will get her deal.

Tara heads to the cabin where she saves Bobby’s life and pulls the slug from his shoulder. Back in the bedroom, Jax sits down and has a heart to heart with her for the first time all season. As the events of this day unfolded, and all the dirty deeds and lies that Jax has told with the greater good always in mind, maybe he finally stepped into Tara’s shoes for one minute and understood what this good woman has gone through to be with the bad boy she loves. Why she finally reached a breaking point, and why she had to try to escape it all.

“I understand why you did everything you did,” Jax said. “I’m sorry being with me took you to that place.”

As Jax exits the room, Tara shuts the door and pulls out a bloody bandage from her pocket. Inside the bandage is the bullet she pulled from Bobby’s injured shoulder. This is the key to her ultimate freedom but can she play that card or are her loyalties always going to be with Jax?

Come back in two weeks (off next week due to Thanksgiving) when Sons of Anarchy returns with the penultimate episode of the season titled ‘You Are My Sunshine’

Notes of Anarchy:

— The song featured in the build up to the club breaking Clay out of the transport was a cover of ‘I See Through You’ by Battleme and the Forest Rangers. You can listen to the full track –HERE

— The other song prominently featured in the episode was during the actual breakout and that one is called ‘Cowboy’ by Leopold and His Fiction

— The book that Gemma was reading to Abel was called ‘The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle‘ by Beatrix Potter

— The episode was directed by Peter Weller — aka Charlie Barasky, one of the series most famed and beloved directors.