Before you read on, be wary that this article contains major spoilers and plot point discussion for the FX series Sons of Anarchy. If you haven’t seen the show, or the most recent episode, I recommend you stop reading… now.

Leading into this week, the boys of SAMCRO were prepared to end their gun-dealing relationship with the real IRA by liberating ex-president Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) from an in-transit prison truck. Morrow was going to take over position of “supervisor of Irish gun distribution” on the West Coast.

Well, that didn’t really go as planned. When the Sons liberated Clay, they executed IRA gun-dealer Galen O’Shea, and staged a firefight in an airport office, where a slow-paced scene showcased the emotional execution of Morrow’s character.

EntertainmentWeekly caught up with both showrunner Kurt Sutter and Ron Perlman.

When asked about the decision to kill Clay now, Sutter said, “Ultimately he made choices that hurt a lot of other people, that came back to hurt him. And for me, the betrayal of Gemma at the end of last season was the thing that broke him. Once she broke that connection, once she said okay, you’re too despicable for me and to the point where she betrayed him, then it really became the beginning of the end for him.”

Sutter added, “I didn’t suddenly expect people to turn around and have compassion for this guy, though I think a lot of people were wondering, oh, yes, it’s all a plan. It’s all a play. He’s got something else up his sleeve because that’s who Clay is… He really does want to do the right thing by Gemma. And so, that by [the 10th episode] when you think okay, they’ve done everything they could to keep this guy alive and they’re going to keep him alive … when you have some sense that maybe you don’t hate Clay as much as you used to … that’s when we kill Clay.”

Perlman likened the role to that of Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a story Sutter has admitted he borrowed from. “Claudius doesn’t make it to Act 5,” Perlman said, “so I was ready for this.”

When the interviewer asked Perlman about the Hamlet connection, he said “Anything you’re going to assume about Sons of Anarchy is pure speculation. We’ve already seen that Hamlet is the superstructure … the guy who kills the king and marries the queen and takes over the crown. The stepson who’s trying to put all this together with the help of these voices that are visiting him in the form of the manuscript.”

“When you put on that crown, some sh– happens and it ain’t pretty and it ain’t ordered and it almost controls you,” Perlman said of Jax’s ascension. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the seventh season is going to really shine a light on the price that Jax Teller plays, simply because he’s risen to this level of power.”

[Image via YouTube]