Although Gemma's motivation for returning to her former partner is evident, Clay's decision isn't so clear cut. Fully aware of Jax's suspicions, Clay surely understood that the club had leverage over Gemma, making her a potential weapon to use against him, yet he takes her in despite knowing she could be helping the club.
It's a glaring weakness against his character and a questionable decision that cost him dearly. A heavy advocate of entering the weapon trade, Clay's connection to the club's criminal enterprise began sometime in the late '80s when he traveled to Ireland.
Although it's understandable why the Irish Kings would trust Clay after years of working together, what's never explained is how he built up so much respect when the Kings showed so little interest in working with the rest of the Sons.
Despite being an all male club, the Sons aren't lacking strong female figures. As the old lady of two former leaders, Gemma's word is treated as law, making her a prominent leader and puppeteer behind the scenes.
Chief among her abilities was her ways of manipulating Jax and Clay. Through deceit and carefully thought out lies, she managed to push the club into catering to her every whim. Although Gemma was always one of Clay's weak spots, they had strikingly similar mindsets, particularly when it came to seeking control over the club. Clay continually lied and hid secrets during their relationship, making decisions without Gemma's knowledge but ultimately Gemma's ability to manipulate Clay made her the more prominent antagonist of the series while Clay's willingness to allow it made him more vulnerable.
Often referred to as Hamlet on wheels, Clay Morrow's character has been compared to King Claudius, the vengeful monarch of the Shakespearean play who ends his brother's life for the throne of Denmark, later becoming the stepfather to Prince Hamlet. Since the beginning, the parallels between Clay and Jax's relationship and that of Shakespeare's characters were apparent, but little is known about how the tainted relationship began.
As second in command of the club, Jax's presence as the future leader of SAMCRO immediately put pressure on Clay's shoulders , but the feud was contained momentarily out of respect for the two's mutual love for Gemma. Sometime before Jax grew in power, however, there had to be tension between the two. While it isn't known how the two treated each other before the show, we'd assume their relationship wasn't always civil.
A number of bromances highlighted the brotherhood of SAMCRO over the course of the series' seven year run, but Clay's sinister nature has often left him the odd man out, painting him as the most hardened and emotionally distant member of the club. Despite his manipulative ways, Clay wasn't without friends.
As Sergeant-at-Arms, Tig served as Clay's right-hand, carrying out orders with little questions. However, despite his loyalty, Tig's friendship appears more as a working relationship which serves Clay's benefit more than Tig's. Likewise, Clay's relationship with Gemma was often over the power of maintaining the club with both rarely displaying affection towards each other.
By series' end, Clay is depicted as a primarily self-motivated villain who manipulated those closest to him, rather than someone who built lasting relationships, making him the most unlikable member of the Sons.
In season four, the Sons enter business with the Galindo Cartel, supplying the club with illegal substances which Clay agrees to mule into the country. Working to maintain their relationship, they offer to push Jax aside and return Clay to the top. Refusing to have his stepson permanently removed, he declines the deal, leaving the Sons with an opportunity to cut ties. Although Clay shows mercy to Jax, his decision doesn't fit his character.
The deal would have restored his power and solved his problems. With so much to gain, his refusal to accept the cartel's offer was an odd decision that remains questionable.
Riddled with symbolism and lingering questions left unanswered, fans have taken to message boards since SoA 's series finale to address popular fan theories. One such theory suggests that JT may not have been Jax's father, making Clay the only logical choice. Sometime during his reign as leader, JT lost touch with Gemma, giving Clay the opportunity to become close.
Despite suspicions that they were seeing each other, JT could've easily ignored signs that Jax wasn't his, especially if he wanted a son of his own.
Another strong indicator of Clay's relation to Jax is the birth certificate for Thomas, Jax's younger brother. For a split second, Thomas' birth certificate is shown, confirming he's related to JT, but Jax's certificate is never mentioned, bringing up further suspicions that Gemma may have been hiding the identity of his real father. As a morally corrupt leader, Clay's demise was always an inevitability, but an unforeseen outcome which viewers never saw coming was his transition from the dastardly villain to the down-and-out, sympathetic character.
After being usurped by Jax, Clay was stripped of his kutte, had his club-related tattoos blacked out and was ultimately framed for the demise of Damon Pope, leading to his incarceration. With his end looming near, he confided in Gemma, who reluctantly agreed to stay close to him for the sake of the club. By the end, Clay went out in an ugly way, all of it a result of his terrible decisions.
Still, his lonely state and sad exit rewarded him with some undeserved sympathy and left viewers with some seriously confusing emotions. Clay's death was always an intentional trajectory and essential part of the overall story, particularly in Jax's arc. Clay was a complicated character who brought plenty of drama. However, the often sinister but sometimes kind once-SAMCRO President met a violent death after years of betrayals and a complete loss of objective morality.
Margaret Lockyer has a degree in English with an emphasis on Apocalyptic Literature and a double major in History which she earned while playing ice hockey for the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers. She currently works in the Canadian film industry and in her spare time she likes practicing yoga, talking about movies, and petting dogs. You can find her on LinkedIn: www.
By Margaret Lockyer Published Jun 22, Share Share Tweet Email 0. At the clubhouse, they tie him up and Tig uses a blowtorch to burn off the tattoo. They use these guns to ambush a prison convoy and free one of their members, Frank Cison. Three police officers are killed during the assault. Meineke drops his cell phone at the scene, and his last calls are to Teller-Morrow. The ATF find the phone, arrest Clay and raid the clubhouse. Clay is released due to lack of evidence.
Jax, Piney and Opie decide to kill Meineke and his gang to keep them from "snitching" if they are apprehended. They pretend to sell them more weapons but fill the boxes with explosives.
The militia unwittingly load the bombs onto their own trucks and are all killed when they detonate. Workmen from the Water and Power Board dig up three skeletons near the highway into Charming. Two are Mayans killed in the war of and the other is Lowell Harland, Sr. In an attempt to curtail the investigation, Clay, Jax and Tig break into the local morgue to steal the bones.
However, the corpses have already been identified. Clay tells Lowell Harland, Jr. Clay tracks him down and brings him back to town. Two Mayan soldiers are gunned down by Tig and the shotgun-toting barman.
After the shooting, he questions Jax's commitment to the club and whether Jax is willing to kill. Clay is brought in for questioning about the recent shootings by Unser.
Ernest Darby is also being held at the Charming Police Department. Clay instructs Unser to bring Marcus Alvarez in, planning to hold a meeting and, hopefully, halt any more bloodshed. Clay meets with Darby first, and warns him not to retaliate because it will start a war on the streets of Charming. He then meets with Alvarez and brokers a deal; the Sons will sell guns to the Mayans, and all Mayan-SOA disputes over turf, businesses, etc.
Alvarez also gives the Sons permission to kill his son Esai Alvarez , as revenge for the botched hit on Clay. The clubhouse is raided and Bobby is arrested for the murder of Brenan Hefner. Clay and Tig incorrectly suspect Opie of being the witness that identified Bobby. While Opie is at the clubhouse, Tig checks his car for bugs and discovers a microphone. He also finds a recording device in his mobile phone. Both were planted by the ATF without Opie's knowledge.
Clay and Tig decide to kill him. They meet with One-Niners leader Laroy, and discuss taking out the Mayans.
They agree that the Sons will meet the Mayans for an arms deal, leave and then the Niners will eliminate the Mayans and take the guns as payment. The Sons escape, but a number of Mayans and Niners are killed in the shoot-out. Tig attempts to kill Opie during the havoc, but found himself unable to do so.
After a homecoming party for Jax's son Abel Teller , Tig follows Opie's car home and shoots the driver dead.
However, Opie's wife, Donna Winston is behind the wheel. Clay tries to phone Tig to tell him, but Tig was not carrying his phone. Rosen , the club's lawyer, meets with Clay to tell him that the ATF have put an arrest warrant out for Opie and that he is likely to be convicted of Hefner's murder because of the witness. Clay, Tig and Juice meet with Sheriff Trammel and offer him money to reveal the location of the witness. Trammell doesn't know, so they approach Elliot Oswald. They again blackmail him with the knife, this time to get his friends in the US Attorney's office to tell him the witness' case number and location.
Jax goes to the safe house to stop them, instead threatening the witness into leaving the state. Donna's funeral is attended by Sons from all over the country. Jax and Clay's baleful stares made it clear that the club was coming apart from inside. In the first episode of Season Two we see that Clay still has no remorse for what he did to Donna and that he's going head to head with Jax over the death of Donna. We see him giving Opie a fake story of how a Mayan MC member killed Donna and he throws a welcome back party for Bobby.
When Ethan Zobelle and the L. He has recently learned of his wife Gemma's rape at the hands of L. Clay is now shown to be a lot more in tune with Jax's method of operation, opting to do more recon work before entering potentially lethal situations. Later in the episode, the Sons ambushed the Mayan convoy containing Zobelle and Clay spared Alvarez's life. Clay and the others cornered Zobelle in a deli, but Clay decided to abandon the scene when he learned of his grandson's kidnapping.
In the first episodes we see that Clay is still saddened by the loss of Abel, and is willing to help Jax at all cost. Also his arthritis continues to worsen as shown in the episode " Home " that it got so bad that Jax had to tie Clays hands to the handlebars.
He later burns the cut after expressing remorse for the killing. In the Season 3 finale when Clay learns of Jax's betrayal he appears enraged and saying Jax will die. In the end it is revealed that he knew of Jax's deal with Stahl and that it was part of a plan to execute Jimmy O and Stahl. When the plan is done Clay and the others share a laugh, much to the confusion of the ATF agents. He later escapes their sheriff tail and accompanies Jax and Opie's meeting with the Russians and settles their differences and form a partnership with them.
He attends Opie's wedding and goes to test a new gun given to them by Putlova. As he's firing the gun he turns and shoots Putlova's bodyguards and Jax stabs Putlova to death as revenge for trying to kill him in prison. While in prison, he set up a deal to run cocaine for the Galindo Cartel but this does not sit well with the other members of the club. This request is denied. Otto wants Luann 's murderer dead, and the issue is raised in the chapel.
Clay is then confronted by Piney, who threatens Clay that if Clay does not kill the cocaine deal with the Galindo Cartel, Piney will distribute letters to the club about John Teller's murder.
Clay discusses the threat with Gemma, revealing that Clay did kill Teller. Clay later meets Unser and obtains the letters from him, unaware that Gemma has the same plan. After Unser gets a copy of the letters, he confronts Clay.
Clay replies he does not regret doing what he did because it protected the Club and Charming. When he visits a tied Georgie Caruso , he claims that he has connections with millionaire Japanese people. Clay immediately sees an opportunity to make Jacob Hale believe he has investors in time. His idea is that he will have the investors pull out at the last minute, which will put an end to Charming Heights.
After retrieving the last brick of cocaine that Juice had stolen framing it into Miles , Clay asks Romeo for help killing Tara , to keep the secret of the letters hidden. After discussing trust issues and differences in the cabin, Clay leaves only to break down the door knocking Piney off his feet.
Piney begs Clay not to get Tara involved in the letters from JT. Clay shoots Piney in the chest with a shotgun killing him. This makes Piney the 3rd member of the First 9, and the 2nd and final co-founding member of the Sons of Anarchy to be killed at the hands of Clay as Piney and John Teller co-founded the club, which were both ultimately killed by Clay. He leaves the markings of the cartel to make it seem like they were responsible for the murder.
Given the difficult circumstances of the club, Clay calls to the Irish Kings for a meeting to set a new deal that lets them survive the war against Lobos Sonora. He later finds out that the One Niners have been dealing with the Sonora and the Sons plan an attack using the Niners to lure them, this fails however as Sonora's men were equipped with grenade launchers.
Clay is confronted by Jax when he hears from Bobby that Clay wanted Bobby instead of Opie as president as was the deal, and says it is Tara's fault that Jax changed, but Jax warns him to never insult her again. Gemma tells him that Tara will not reveal the letters to Jax out of fear that he will get deeper into the club out of guilt and promises to Gemma he won't hurt Tara.
However, he uses the cellphone given by Luis, and the next morning pays the contact 25, dollars for the Volkswagen Beetle. Not knowing that Jax and the babies were with her, he desperately tries to stop the hit, but is unsuccessful and Tara has her left hand broken during a fight. Clay meets Romeo and gets a refund, with Romeo taking the matter on his hands personally, and Clay reluctantly agrees that Tara is best dead.
Gemma confronts Clay about the hit and a violent fight ensues between the two, with Clay getting injured but severely beating Gemma's face. In the episode Burnt and Purged Away , Opie later finds out that Clay was behind the death of Piney and seeks out revenge ending the episode by shooting Clay twice in the chest. In " To Be, Act 1 ", Clay survives the shooting as he is rushed to the hospital and is in critical condition and goes into surgery, Clay is then hooked up to an intensive care unit after coming out of surgery, Gemma then reveals the truth to Jax except her involvement in how John Teller really died, and he finds out that Clay had Teller killed and that he killed Piney and he also finds out that Clay put out a hit on Tara.
After Jax reads the letter he vows to kill Clay. Tara then gives him a syringe full of blood thinner to inject into Clay's I. The episode ends with Clay still in the hospital and still in intensive care.
He holds a knife to Clay's throat and tells him he read the letters and he knows he put the hit on Tara. Jax does not kill Clay, because he needs him alive for the I. Clay is about to tell Jax something but Jax tells Clay he is done telling him anything.
Jax then tells Clay that he Clay is stepping down as President. He'll be allowed to sit at the table and get a vote, but that's all.
Jax tells Clay to keep the Irish happy and to stay out of his way or he will show the club the letters and let Opie tell everyone he killed Piney.
Jax also warns him to stay away from Tara and Gemma. He then cuts the President's patch off of Clay's cut. Clay suggests Jax kill him, but he tells him he is already dead and spits in his face.
Clay is shown to have gotten out of the hospital, but requires an oxygen tank due to his lung injury. He is shown trying to make amends with Gemma, but she coldly brushes him off.
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