Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
After fourteen months in prison, Jax Teller and the other SAMCRO members return to Charming to find Sheriff Eli Roosevelt watching the club and federal prosecutor Lincoln Potter building a case against it. Clay Morrow pushes a cartel arrangement that ties Galindo drug-running to arms moving from the Irish Kings to the cartel. Jax backs the plan at first, though he and Tara are already looking for a way to leave the club. Potter pressures Juice for information, while Otto’s testimony puts Bobby in jail and threatens the cartel meeting.
John Teller’s letters to Maureen Ashby drive the family conflict. Piney confronts Clay with what he knows about John’s death, and Clay kills him with a shotgun. Clay arranges for men to attack Tara, then beats Gemma when she challenges him over his schemes. Opie learns that Clay killed his father and shoots Clay, but Jax stops him from finishing the job. At the hospital, the club hides the truth and blames the Niners, setting off fresh violence. Gemma tells Tara that Clay killed Piney and helped cause John’s death; Tara gives Gemma the letters, and Gemma later passes selected pages to Jax.
Jax reads the letters and confronts Clay, but a new fact changes the choice: Galindo’s cartel is working with the CIA, and the deal must continue to keep SAMCRO out of prison. Jax leaves Clay alive, strips him of the presidency and warns him to stay away from Tara, Gemma and the boys. He takes the gavel himself and asks Opie to stand as vice-president, while asking Tara to leave Charming with their sons. The final club meeting begins without Opie; Tara is at Jax’s side as he takes his place at the head of the table.