‘Sons of Anarchy’ season 7, episode 1 reaction: Creator talks Gemma’s big lie

Gemma has done a whole chorus of pretty terrible things on “Sons of Anarchy” over the years. With that in mind, can you really be that surprised that she would pin the death of Tara on anyone within the Chinese in the premiere? We feel like this is much better described as par-for-the-course behavior for the character.

Unfortunately for Jax, he seemed to trust her admission pretty much without hesitation, and this is something he will deal with more as the season progresses. In speaking about this big moment for Katey Sagal’s character, and why Jax believed her so easily, to TVLine, creator Kurt Sutter (who also wrote the premiere) had the following message to share:

“At that point, there’s no reason why he would have any doubt, or any reason to believe that she was responsible. And the fact that she actually identifies a specific guy is ultimately the thing that convinces Jax. And, remember, it was Tara and Eli who were killed — could Gemma have pulled off both of those? And [from Jax’s perspective], Gemma didn’t really know anything about the war with the Chinese in order to make up that lie. It was Juice that gave her all that information, that she then fed to Jax. That all made it implausible for it to be manufactured by Gemma. Obviously, as the audience, we know it’s because Gemma had a partner. Therein lies the blood bond between Gemma and Juice.”

As horrible as it sounds, this lie was almost perfectly constructed in order to ensure that Jax does not figure it out. The only one who seems to have a clue right now is Unser, and he has to deal with Juice before he can really figure anything else out.

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Photo: FX