'Sons of Anarchy' Deaths: Season 1

01 of 12

Collateral Damage

''Pilot'' (season 1, episode 1)

RIP: Two ladies on the night shift

Death by: Fire

Reason: The series' first casualties were two illegal female immigrants — ''Fried' and ''Refried,'' as SAMCRO president Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) called them — who helped assemble the weapons the gun-running motorcycle club received from the True IRA to distribute in Northern Cali. They died hiding in a utility hatch when the rival Mexican M.C. the Mayans stole weapons intended for the black street gang the One-Niners and torched SAMCRO's warehouse.

Result: The blast cover-up pushed the club's relationship with San Joaquin County Sheriff Trammel (Glenn Plummer) to a new level, and the Mayan beef was a red flag to club VP Jax (Charlie Hunnam), who was also dealing with the local white supremacist gang the Nordics selling crank to his pregnant ex Wendy (Drea de Matteo).

Reverberations: After discovering writings by his late father, John Teller, detailing his vision for the M.C. (which didn't include gun-running), Jax floated the idea of not rebuilding the gun warehouse and the club instead looking for a new way to earn. It didn't go over well with Clay or Jax's mother, Clay's wife Gemma (Katey Sagal), who wanted to make sure Jax followed in the right father's footsteps.

02 of 12

Payback

''Pilot'' (season 1, episode 1)

RIP: Three Mayans and a Nord

Death by: Bullets

Reason: SAMCRO wanted to steal back its stolen guns and set the Mayans' warehouse ablaze in retaliation, but Jax was slow setting the explosives. He'd let his more pyro-proficient best friend Opie (Ryan Hurst) bow out since Opie's wife Donna (Sprague Grayden) wanted him to go straight after a five-year jail sentence for arson. SAMCRO got company. Clay took out two Mayans, his Sergeant-at-Arms Tig (Kim Coates) offed one, and Jax was forced to kill a fourth who fired on him and turned out to be a Nord.

Result: The Mayans had teamed up with the Nords — the white supremacists' leader Darby (Mitch Pileggi) knew where SAMCRO's gun warehouse was, and the Nords wanted Mayan help pushing SAMCRO out of Charming so they could bring meth into town. In the end, SAMCRO did blow up the Mayans' warehouse with the three dead Mayans sitting in the cabin of a truck and the deceased Nord lying in its bed — with a stick of dynamite?well?in a sensitive spot (see above). ''Candle's in the cake,'' Chibs (Tommy Flanagan) said.

Reverberations: It was the first time we saw Jax kill. His first love Tara (Maggie Siff) — who'd just returned to Charming as a neonatal surgeon and helped save his premature baby, Abel — saw the blood on his shirt when she hugged him. She told him to clean himself up.

03 of 12

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

''Seeds,'' (season 1, episode 2)

RIP: Aggressive driver

Death by: Axe

Reason: In order to remove the illegals' bodies before investigators discovered Tig's DNA in the women's bellies — which could form a connection between the gun warehouse and SAMCRO, putting the M.C. back on the ATF's radar — the club needed to distract the Lodi forensics team investigating the case. Clay sanctioned Tig killing a couple of Nords to also send a message to Darby, but Jax didn't want to spill blood. Though Clay thought Jax was going soft since becoming a father, Jax was following one of the club's creeds: ''Brains before bullets.'' He suggested negotiating with gravedigger/cremator Skeeter (Bob Rusch) for fresh cadavers whose murders could be staged in Lodi. (Skeeter wanted to sleep with a certain Croweater, a club groupie, and her condition was that Jax sleep with her first. Win-win!)

Result: While Jax and Chibs were transporting the two cadavers, an unnamed guy randomly cut Jax off, making Jax damage the front end as he swerved and Chibs spill his beer. The damage drew the attention of a passing Lodi cop, who they managed to lose. Jax and Chibs later happened to pull into the same gas station as the guy, and Jax beat him up inside the attached convenience store. The guy pulled a gun. As Jax wrestled with him, the storeowner put an axe in the guy's head.

Reverberations: Even when Jax tries to avoid violence, it finds him. You can't start a fight and expect it not to escalate.

04 of 12

Neighborhood Watch

''Fun Town,'' (season 1, episode 3)

RIP: Carny rapist

Death by: Castration

Reason: After the 13-year-old daughter of a prominent figure in Charming was raped at a town carnival, her father Elliott Oswald (Patrick St. Esprit) asked SAMCRO to find her attacker before by-the-book Deputy Chief David Hale (Tayler Sheridan) did. Clay said he didn't want Elliott's money, he just wanted to know Elliott would enforce justice when the man was delivered. Oswald was going to castrate the man, who worked as a dunk tank clown, in the woods, but he couldn't go through with it. Clay used Oswald's dropped knife to finish the job and let the man bleed out.

Result: Clay told the guys to gift wrap the man's balls and send them to Oswald. He asked Jax to keep the knife, which had Oswald's prints all over it, for real-estate insurance: Now they could blackmail Oswald into not selling off lumber acreage that could be turned into housing developments, which would raise Charming's population, bring in more cops, turn the town Disney, and culminate in SAMCRO being squeezed out by what Clay called, ''the most dangerous gang of all — old white money.''

Reverberations: This is where a then-appalled Jax learned about blackmail, but also when he delivered a speech that would resonate in season 6 when a promoted Jax made decisions without consulting his VP: ''Hey, you want me to be your No. 2, protect this club, then I gotta know where you're takin' us, otherwise there's no trust. And if you and me don't trust each other, then SAMCRO has got a problem.''

05 of 12

The Survivalists

''AK-51,'' (season 1, episode 6)

RIP: Cop, innocent bystanders, and Nate Meineke's militia

Death by: Bullets, Explosives

Reason: Jax helped Opie's father Piney (William Lucking), who co-founded SAMCRO with Jax's father, sell five guns to one of Piney's old war buddies, Nate Meineke (Tim de Zarn). Unfortunately, Piney didn't know Meineke and his militia pals were planning on using the weapons to free a man during a prison transport. Three people were killed, including a cop that was close to Sheriff Trammel, whose request to end his relationship with the Sons Jax denied.

Result: Meineke's cell phone was recovered at the scene, and the last call he received was from the Teller-Morrow garage, one of SAMCRO's legitimate businesses. Cue the entrance of ATF Agent June Stahl (Ally Walker), who promptly brought Clay in for questioning because of his rap sheet for gun-running (though Clay hadn't been charged with a crime in over seven years). She ultimately searched the clubhouse, and while Jax managed to get the guns out in time via a sewage truck, she found oil barrels labeled as coming from Dungloe, Ireland — a known True IRA territory — and now guessed they were used to smuggle in the weapons.

Reverberations: The only immediate loose end was Meineke's militia, who could tell the Feds where their guns came from for a deal: Piney, Jax, and Opie arranged to sell them more weapons, and Jax watched Piney hug Meineke and tell him to take care of himself knowing full well that Opie would soon detonate explosives killing him, his son, and others. Jax would make a similar move — hugging a friend and saying a masked goodbye — in season 6.

06 of 12

The Mechanic

''Old Bones,'' (season 1, episode 7)

RIP: Lowell Harland Sr.

Death by: Bullets

Reason: When three bodies were dug up, Clay told Jax all were Mayans. Back in 1992, the Mayans tried to expand their Oakland dope business by setting up a charter in Lodi, which SAMCRO couldn't allow. It was a bloody two years. Jax remembered them because his father had died in 1993, two days after he was hit and dragged by a semi-truck while riding his bike.

Result: The club needed to stop the identification of the bodies, but they were too late: After we learned Tig may or may not be into necrophilia, Jax read the name tag on one set of bones: Lowell Harland Sr. Clay told Jax the Mayans had killed Lowell, who'd been a trusted mechanic at T-M and not a club member, because they were going after everyone back then. Clay told Lowell Jr. (Keir O'Donnell), who'd followed his father's footsteps as a mechanic, that the two Mayans buried with his father were the men who had killed him. But Stahl and Hale told Lowell Jr. that his father had been shot in the head three times and buried with the enemy because it was actually SAMCRO who had killed all three.

Reverberations: When junkie Lowell Jr. went AWOL, Clay found him in a hotel and told him he had killed his father because he'd been a ''weak junkie rat.'' Worried that Lowell Jr. would tell the ATF what he's heard around T-M, Clay was going to shoot him. But when Lowell Jr. begged Clay to do it, to save Lowell Jr.'s son Moby from him, Clay couldn't pull the trigger. ''Good mechanic,'' Clay told Tig later.

07 of 12

The Hits (and Misses)

''The Pull,'' (season 1, episode 8)

RIP: Mayan shooter

Death by: Bullets

Reason: After Darby was gifted the ATF file on the Sons with information on SAMCRO's Irish gun connection, he called a meeting with the Mayans' president, Marcus Alvarez (Emilio Rivera), to broker a new deal: Darby would give the Mayans the info to intercept and renegotiate the distribution agreement so the Mayans could take over SAMCRO's gun business and freeze the Niners out. That means the Niners wouldn't have the guns to protect their heroin, which the Mayans also deal. In exchange, Darby wanted the Mayans to kill Clay, then the rest of SAMCRO. Alvarez made his own addendum: He'd take out Clay and Darby. Both attempts failed.

Result: Clay was ambushed while he and Tig were at a bar making a payment to their new Irish contact, Cameron Hayes (Jamie McShane). Their old one, Michael McKeavey (Kevin Chapman) had been killed after he told off the port commissioner who wanted to triple his payoff money. Cameron was hit.

Reverberations: Tig identified the Mayan tats on a dead shooter and figured the intel had come from Darby. Clay said it was war time and questioned Jax's commitment to the club when he balked. ''I'm seeing things different. Big picture shit — for me, this club,'' Jax said. ''But I ain't afraid to get bloody, Clay. I'm just afraid all that blood's gonna kill SAMCRO.'' Clay wouldn't think big-picture until this score was settled. (Choosing to settle a score instead of taking a breather is something Jax would do in season 6.)

08 of 12

The First Time

''The Pull,'' (season 1, episode 8)

RIP: ATF Agent Joshua Kohn

Death by: Bullets

Reason: Jax went to Tara's house to borrow medical supplies for Cameron's bullet wounds. He told her he was the same guy, wearing the same cut (the club's leather vest) as when she left, but she was different. She told him she'd seen him with his son, not afraid to be vulnerable or let someone in: ''It might be the same cut, but it's not the same guy,'' she said. When Jax left, ATF Agent Joshua Kohn (Jay Karnes) appeared in her home. She'd dated him in Chicago, but she ultimately filed a restraining order and fled to Charming, where he followed. He was supposed to have been run out of town: Jax had already kicked his ass once and the authorities told him to leave. But after giving Darby the Sons' file to hurt Jax, he wanted Tara. His advances escalated and, to stop him from raping her, she pretended she wanted to make love gently — until she reached for his gun. She shot him in the gut and called Jax back.

Result: While they were going over their options, Kohn called Tara a ''stupid bitch'' and a ''pathetic whore'' and told her ''once a biker slut, always a?'' — he didn't get to finish his sentence. Jax shot him in the head, doing what the cops couldn't. Jax was shaken, but comforting Tara led to them making love gently as the camera panned down past Jax's clothes on the bedroom floor to Kohn's dead body.

Reverberations: The next day, Jax told Tara that was the first time he's killed someone like that (when he had time to make a choice). He'd been waking every day since Abel was born wondering who was going to die that day. After killing Kohn, that worry was gone — and that scared him most of all.

09 of 12

The Peace Offering

''Hell Followed'' (Season 1, episode 9)

RIP: Esai Alvarez

Death by: Stabbing

Reason: Knowing the body count during the botched hits on Clay and Darby would bring more attention from the ATF, Charming PD Chief Wayne Unser (Dayton Callie) told Clay the tit for tat with the Mayans had to stop before it landed at their door: ''Deal always was, outlaws live in Charming, s--- beyond the borders.'' While other charters of Sons rode in prepping for battle, Clay requested meets with Darby and Alvarez in Unser's cells to hammer out a truce. Even with his arthritic hands, Clay beat Darby until he confirmed his deal with the Mayans and agreed to let Clay handle the retaliation. The Sons and Mayans had serious history, which we knew from ''Old Bones.'' But Clay wanted to focus on the present: He'd start selling the Mayans the same guns he was selling the Niners so they'd be on equal footing for the heroin trade. Beefs between other SOA charters and the Mayans would be settled in the Sons' favor, and since SOA crews would want Alvarez's head for ordering the hit on Clay, Alvarez had to offer a life.

Result: Alvarez met his son Esai (Kevin Alejandro) in the park and told him it was okay that he'd botched the hits: because of his mistake a deal had been struck with SAMCRO for guns. He walked him over to get a churro, had Esai turn his back to the vendor so he could hug him and tell him he loved him, and then Son Happy (David Labrava), posing as that vendor, put a knife in the back of Esai's neck. He fell into his father's arms, and Marcus lowered him to the ground and kissed his head. Then Marcus handed Happy the Sons' ATF file, which Esai had stolen during the Darby hit and Marcus had warned Clay about during their cell summit.

Reverberations: Happy got another happy face tattoo on his torso to commemorate the kill. Jax threw his father's manuscript — The Life and Death of Sam Crow. How the Sons of Anarchy Lost their Way — into the fire when he went back to burn the body of Agent Kohn. (He grabbed it back out again.)

10 of 12

The Test

''Hell Followed'' (season 1, episode 9)

RIP: Brenan Hefner

Death by: Bullets

Reason: With the Irish's Cameron Hayes still laid up from the bullets he took during the hit on Clay, he offered to give SAMCRO back the $200,000 they'd just paid him plus a month of free guns if they took out Oakland port commissioner Brenan Hefner (Lyle Kanouse), who'd had McKeavey offed. The club needed cash for the new warehouse and saw it less as murder for hire and more as avenging a friend, so it was on.

Result: Even though Jax tried to talk him out it, Opie insisted he'd pull the trigger, wanting to prove he's firmly back in SAMCRO both for the brotherhood and for the money he needed to support his family. The hit was set for when Hefner was leaving his mistress's apartment. Opie froze, so Bobby (Mark Boone Junior) put four in his chest.

Reverberations: The mistress's young neighbor was looking out the window. By the next episode, Stahl had returned to town and kicked Unser out of his office.

11 of 12

The Shootout

"The Sleep of Babies," (season 1, episode 12)

RIP: At least one Niner

Death by: Bullets

Reason: With only circumstantial evidence on the gun-running, Stahl had turned her attention to RICO. She needed to prove SAMCRO is an ongoing criminal enterprise with illegal activity over the past 10 years. She'd targeted the clubs' old ladies who had the most to lose, including Luann (Dendrie Taylor), the porn company-owning wife of incarcerated Son Otto (series creator Kurt Sutter). Luann was arrested when drugs were found in her studio. Ultimately, Otto got Luann clear without ratting on the club and slammed Stahl's face a the table five times.

Result: Extremely pissed off (''I'm gonna bury these a?holes''), Stahl framed Opie to look like he was turning on Bobby as a witness to Hefner's murder to save himself. Clay knew Jax would never vote to kill Opie, so he told Tig to do it quietly. The plan: Clay and Jax would drop off the first shipment of guns to the Mayans, while Tig and Opie went to a second location to pick up the money. Clay arranged for the Niners, led by Laroy (Tory Kittles), to hit both locations once the Sons were clear and kill as many Mayans as possible. Clay would execute Alvarez, Tig would off Opie, and it'd all get blamed on the Niners.

Reverberations: Laroy had his crews show up early, and after Opie shot and killed a Niner about to put a bullet in Tig, Tig couldn't pull the trigger.

12 of 12

The Mistake

"The Sleep of Babies," (season 1, episode 12)

RIP: Donna Winston

Death by: Bullets

Reason: The ATF was going to pull Stahl out of Charming after the Mayan body count, so she'd just have to settle on nailing Bobby for murder. The name of the witness would be released the next day, and the club would know Opie wasn't a rat. Hale knew someone could get hurt in the meantime, so he told Unser about Stahl framing Opie. Unser told Clay, who'd already ordered another attempt: They'd pretend the Niners saw Opie's truck at the money drop and killed him in a drive-by as he was driving home from the homecoming party for Jax's baby, Abel.

Result: Clay tried to call Tig, who'd seen Donna (now back onboard with being in the Son family), get into the car with the kids. But Tig had taken off his cut, which held his phone, when he got into a Range Rover. He didn't know that Donna and Opie had switched vehicles, so Opie could take the kids home and Donna could fetch dish detergent for Gemma and return to Jax's house to help clean up. Fearing he couldn't pull the trigger if he saw Opie's face, Tig pulled up behind the truck and fired. Brokenhearted after seeing Opie with Donna's dead body, Jax fell into the arms of his ex Wendy, with whom Gemma wanted him to reconcile.

Reverberations: In the season 1 finale, Opie's father Piney took a Niner hostage at a bar until Laroy convinced him the Niners hadn't killed Donna. Hale told Jax about Stahl wiring Opie's truck and his suspicion that Clay had tried to kill Opie. Jax couldn't stand for another innocent woman to die, which is why when the club used Oswald's and Trammel's connections to find out the location of the safe house so Tig could kill the witness to Hefner's murder — a 17-year-old girl. Jax stopped him. He gave the girl money and told her she'd die if she didn't leave the state. Then he and Tig traded punches. At Donna's funeral the next day, Tara delivered Jax his cut, signaling they were together, and Piney handed Jax his copy of John Teller's manifesto and told him it was time for a change. Standing alone at his father's gravestone, marked with the words ''We fight because we believe,'' Jax said a purposeful ''Yeah.''