'Sons of Anarchy' Season 6 Finale Wrap Up

And lo, another 'Sons of Anarchy' season finale has come to pass, bringing at least two major offerings for the reaper and another nail in the coffin of the FX biker drama's hope for a happy ending. As the dust settles, we look to series creator Kurt Sutter to explain the rational behind the shocking deaths of season 6 closer "A Mother's Work," and lay the groundwork for Jax Teller's likely final ride in season 7.

While you're warned of spoilers from here on out, it certainly seems as if Tara's death had been somewhat ordained under 'Sons of Anarchy''s loose 'Hamlet' adaptation, while Sutter himself told reporters at a finale screening that he'd more or less decided on Tara's murder to take place just before the final act of the series, in this case a seventh season. Wanting to remove Jax's "True North" even further beyond the death of his best friend Opie, Sutter believes Jax will find himself completely "untethered and on his own" as we head into the final year in 2014.

Even as we left "A Mother's Work" on the image of Jax cradling his murdered wife's body, unaware of his mother's role in the matter, with Tyne Patterson (CCH Pounder) and law enforcement overlooking the scene, Sutter isn't exactly sure where or when the seventh season will pick up. "I don’t want to lose the weight of what’s happened [in the finale]. There may be a little bit of time [passed] like we had this season, which will be a few weeks ... but there won’t be a vast amount of time."

Sutter also expounded on the shocking brutality of the murder, which followed the Shakespearean tenet of drastic tragedies occurring from crucial bits of misinformation:

I knew I wanted it to be simple and pedestrian and of Gemma’s world, not of the club’s world. I didn’t want it to be a gun or a knife. There’s almost something more horrific in terms of us seeing Gemma in that opening montage washing dishes and you have no idea that something as simple as dirty dish water and a carving fork would be used as implements of death.

It remains to be seen if Jax will follow through on his plans to give himself up to Patterson as the source of the school shooting that opened the season, though Sutter believes that Jax would at least be taken in for extensive questioning over what happened, ideally by Patterson, though Sutter pointed out that CCH Pounder hadn't yet been confirmed for the final season. More set in stone is the return of Peter Weller's Charlie Barosky, given Weller's directing work behind the scenes, while 'Deadwood' star Kim Dickens would likely return as Diosa madame Collette.

Juice (Theo Rossi) also landed himself in hot water by the finale's end, as Jax revealed his knowledge of Juice's accidental betrayal to Nero (Jimmy Smits, also confirmed to return), before Juice took action to silence Eli Roosevelt before he could call in Tara's murder. Rossi told Entertainment Weekly that the predatory instincts to protect Gemma took over, an animal impulse bolstered by Juice's fractured loyalty over the past few seasons, while Sutter noted his interest in playing with the bond formed between he and Gemma. As for Rockmund Dunbar's exit from the series, Sutter jokingly attributed Roosevelt's death to Dunbar's upgrade to series regular on 'The Mentalist.'

So with a war between the Niners, Mayans and Byz-Lats looming, leaving Nero to reluctantly return to head his crew, what bodies might we expect to drop in the final season? Not Unser, at least, as Sutter tells Vulture of the cancer-ridden character, "It’s not that I planned it this way, but the guy who should have died the first season is maybe gonna be the only guy left standing at the end of it all."

We'll have more of 'Sons of Anarchy''s potentially final season in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, what say you? Were you shocked to see Tara given such a brutal, kitchen sink murder just when all seemed resolved between she and Jax? Will any part of 'Sons of Anarchy' season 7 have a happy outlook? Give us your thoughts on the finale below, and tell us what you want to see from 'Sons of Anarchy' in 2014!