Paris Barclay on Gemma and Sons of Anarchy’s Deadly Final Season?

[important]Thurs. 8/21/14 – ADDED VIDEO INTERVIEW[/important]

Paris Barclay, President of The Directors Guild of America and Sons of Anarchy’s executive producer and principal director, dished on the show’s final season during 2014 San Diego Comic Con.

As Barclay jokingly suggested, Charming is the murder capital of California so I wondered if this is a sign of things to come. After Barclay disclosed what it is like being on set this season, I guess the answer is yes. “There have been some sad days. There are more sad days than happy for the Sons this year. So, don’t be expecting that you’ll get a lot of chuckles.”

Barclay says scenes that seem informational about people early in the season, end up being much more important than what it may have seemed.

Barclay says scenes that seem informational about people early in the final season, end up being important by mid-season.

Fans, you’ve been warned! With such dark omens, one has to wonder if the actors were briefed on being killed off. Barclay shared they’re deliberately being kept in the dark. “They’re almost completely in the dark and the reason why they’re completely in the dark, it’s been my experience, and I learned in my NYPD Blues days, that the least the actors know about the future of their characters, the more they play in the moment. We know to some extent it’s difficult to divorce from the future of their characters.”

In spite of deliberately keeping this information from the actors, it’s important for them to stay true to the story lines. “We know to some extent what’s going to happen; Kurt and I know, so we kind of we lead people through and we make sure what they do is not inconsistent with what is going to happen later,” Barclay replied.

This question begged to be asked: “Is there a dead actor in the room?

“There are two!” Barclay revealed.

Wow, what a heavy duty revelation! Speaking of dead actors, one gruesome death from last season’s finale is still fresh in our minds and had to be discussed. Was Tara’s (Maggie Siff) murder deliberate?

“When Gemma (Katey Sagal) kills Tara she’s in the moment, but what she does next is very premeditated,” Barclay explained.

The next million dollar question was: “What is Gemma up to during this upcoming season?”

“You know when Jax finds this out,; it’s not going to be pretty. After all, she can cover her tracks as long as she wants but sooner or later, she’s really going to have nowhere to go. I think she has to do what Gemma does, which is scramble and hope that it works out and eventually, I’m sure she has a plan to beg for forgiveness, but it may or may not work.”

Next, I asked Barclay which episodes fans should keep an eye out for.

Barclays says Gemma (Sagal) kills Tara in the moment but what she does next is very premeditated

“I want to do this very carefully,” he said, pondering the subject for a moment. “Obviously, the season premiere. There are a lot of hints in the premiere and some are very early in the premiere on what’s going to happen later on. Scenes that seem to be just informational about people — I’m going to try not to tease you too much — you’ll find out by the middle of the season end up being much more important than you thought they were. We’ve only shot through episode seven and I would say so far, the episode you don’t want to miss…[Barclay jokingly kept us guessing] is four.”

His answer made me wonder about the episodes’ names. I asked Barclay whether he’s involved in the naming process. Jokingly, he talked about how some of the episodes’ weird names require him to go to Wikipedia to find out what they mean but soon enough, he explained the process. “Usually, the episodes are not named until Kurt does his final pass. He has a group of writers; we have about seven writers who write the episodes first. Kurt does the final pass of the episode and in that process, he names the episode.”

Regarding the creative challenges of a final session, Barclay noted, “There’s a healthy tension. Kurt has a story he wants to tell, he always wanted to tell, and he’s been telling for years; he knows how to conclude. There’s a hearty back and forth in how things are presented. Kurt always wins but I have some slight influence because I direct a lot of the episodes.”

To be specific, Barclay will direct four of the 13 episodes of Sons’ final season (1, 7, 10, and 12) and as usual, Sutter will direct the finale.

In regards to directing Marilyn Manson as the character “Tully,” Barclay admits he wasn’t familiar with him prior to him being on the show, and so far, he hasn’t seen traces of Manson’s musician persona in his performance. “I directed Marilyn Mason, who we call Manson. He was fantastic. I was really impressed with him. He performed in such a simple, compelling, frightening way that we’re using him again and again. He’s referred to several times in the first seven episodes as the character [Ron] Tully, the head of the Arian Brotherhood and a key contact for Jax for getting done what he has to do in prison because some of this story, as you may have gathered, is going to have to take place in prison because sooner or later somebody’s going to be arrested. You’ll have to figure out who.”

In contrast to Manson, Barclay was familiar with guest star Courtney Love. “She plays a school teacher and she’s completely convincing. She’s one of Abel’s teachers and she’s actually kind of fantastic. If I didn’t know it was Courtney Love, I would think we have this really great actress playing this part that’s not quite what it seems to be and ends up being very important to the plot later on.”

Hmm, how interesting! Barclay always shares the most interesting teasers about the upcoming season and he’s always on point. It looks like Sons of Anarchy’s final season will consist of extremely intense and complex storylines.

Sons of Anarchy’s final season will premiere September 9, 2014 at 10pm ET/PT, only on FX.

For more on the show, go to http://www.fxnetworks.com/soa and http://www.sutterink.com/.

To check out Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy video channel on YouTube, go to http://www.youtube.com/sutterinksoa.

Like Sons of Anarchy on Facebook. Follow the show on Twitter @sonsofanarchy, @sutterink, and @FXNetworks, and tweet using the hashtag #SOAFX.

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