'Sons of Anarchy' season 4: Who killed, who died

Just Business

"Out" (season 4, episode 1)

RIP: Lots of Russians

Death by: Stabbing; Bullets; Stabbing

Reason: After SAMCRO tricked Russian Viktor Putlova (Keith Szarabajka) into handing over Real IRA outcast Jimmy O'Phelan (Titus Welliver) at the end of season 3, Putlova arranged for Jax (Charlie Hunnam) to be shivved in Stockton while some club members served 14 months jail time. To make peace, Clay (Ron Perlman) brokered a distribution deal giving the Russians the lion's share of weapons and profits while SAMCRO was inside.

Result: The season 4 premiere began with those SAMCRO members getting out — and concluded with Clay ending that arrangement. As Opie (Ryan Hurst) and Lyla (Winter Ave Zoli) danced to "What a Wonderful World" at their wedding reception, some of SAMCRO went with Russians to see their operation and turned the weapons on them. Clay took the others to play with the gun Putlova had given Opie as a wedding present and turned that "cop killer" on his crew. Jax stabbed Putlova in the same three places he'd been shivved, and the incarcerated Son Otto (Kurt Sutter) put a blade through the ear of the Russian inmate who'd attacked Jax. Four bodies, including that of an undercover FBI agent, were dumped at the site of Mayor Hale's (Jeff Kober) planned luxury housing development, Charming Heights.

Reverberations: Lincoln Potter (Ray McKinnon), the assistant U.S. attorney heading a task force to bring down the Irish, the Russians, and the Sons, wondered how SAMCRO could be so bold as to take out the Russians. It was their new alliance with the Galindo Cartel.

Related content:

• Start from the beginning of SOA's death tally
• Season 2's carnage
• Season 3 kills and deaths

Cold War

"Booster" (season 4, episode 2)

RIP: Wahewa guy and more Russians

Death by: Bullets

Reason: The Russians wanted back the weapons that SAMCRO had stolen during the execution, so they went to the Wahewa reservation to press the tribe that produces ammo for the club for information. When Jax and Opie arrived, they found a lookout dead in his chair. They were ultimately captured and held hostage. With the rest of SAMCRO tied up as Sheriff Eli Roosevelt (Rockmond Dunbar) tossed the clubhouse, Jax and Opie thought they were dead men until the cartel cavalry arrived.

Result: Romero "Romeo" Parada (Danny Trejo), head of Galindo's ''strategic enforcement unit,'' his righthand Luis Torres (Benito Martinez), and their men shot and killed three Russians to free Jax and Opie. "That's what friends are for," Romeo told Jax.

Reverberations: Bobby (Mark Boone Junior) was quick to note that the club hadn't officially voted in the alliance with Galindo that required SAMCRO to mule cocaine for the cartel to the Mayans, who would chop and distribute, while selling them big Irish weapons. Jax hadn't known about the muling when he first agreed to the deal, which would allow Clay to bank big money for his retirement and Jax to earn enough to leave the club and Charming behind him for a normal life with fiancée Tara (Maggie Siff) and their boys. Jax agreed to back Clay in the vote if Clay would let him leave SAMCRO without recourse and endorse Opie as the next president.

Slow Death

"Dorylus" (season 4, episode 3)

RIP: THE most unlucky Russian

Death by: Suffocation

Reason: Clay took Bobby with him to visit Wahewa chief Charlie Horse (Randolph Mantooth), who explained that families of dead sons ask the gods to choose their revenge, and they chose flesh-eating ants for the Russian — who was buried in the ground with his head covered in them.

Result: Charlie Horse had asked Clay there because he'd heard about SAMCRO's new customer and assumed the club would charge the cartel more for the ammo. He wanted the Wahewa to get a bigger percentage. The dying Russian overheard Clay tell Bobby that even though they were charging the cartel almost 50 percent more for ammo, he wasn't giving the Wahewa a bump. To keep the Russian silent, Clay knelt down and suffocated him.

Reverberations: Clay had just offered Bobby his word that he would endorse him for president, but when Bobby watched Clay give his word to Charlie Horse that the club hadn't marked up the ammo for the cartel, he knew he couldn't be trusted. Bobby ultimately voted against muling for the cartel, as did Opie's father Piney (William Lucking), who'd tried to get Gemma (Katey Sagal) to talk Clay out of the deal. Still, the vote passed 6-5, and Clay threatened to slit Piney's throat.

Suicide Watch

"With an X" (season 4, episode 6)

RIP: Miles

Death by: Bullets

Reason: Once AUSA Lincoln Potter realized the Sons were in business with Galindo, who were in a blood feud over territory with the rival cartel Lobos Sonora, he had Roosevelt pick up Juice (Theo Rossi) and threaten to tell SAMCRO that Juice's father was black unless he helped them build their case against Galindo. Fearing the club would take his patch, scrape his ink, and kick him out, Juice had reluctantly agreed to bring Roosevelt a sample of the cocaine.

Result: Juice snuck a brick out of the warehouse but wasn't able to return it in time. He buried it in the woods. When it was discovered missing, and no one confessed, the club knew they'd have to kill a member in order not to look weak in the cartel's eyes. Juice suggested the club clear out and gave the prospects a window to return the brick. He went to fetch it and member Miles (Frank Potter) happened upon him. Miles pulled his gun and tried to walk Juice back to the warehouse to out him. A struggle ensued. Miles shot Juice in the leg, and Juice shot Miles in the eye. Juice told the others Miles was the thief.

Reverberations: Guilt-stricken, Juice would try to hang him himself in the next episode, "Fruit for the Crows," but the branch broke. Chibs (Tommy Flanagan) would later find out about that and tell Jax. Rather than having the table vote on whether to remove unstable Juice, Chibs said he'd watch over him to see if he could recover first.

Cartel War

"Fruit for the Crows" (season 4, episode 7)

RIP: Some Mayans, a Lobos Sonora, and an innocent lady

Death by: Bullets, car, and more bullets

Reason: Although Romeo had assured SAMCRO that Galindo's rivalry with Lobos Sonora would stay South of the Border because Lobos had no foothold in Northern Cali, they got their first inkling that wasn't the case when a car crashed through the gate as Clay, Jax, Bobby, and Tig (Kim Coates) were leaving their tour of the Mayan cocaine distribution center (tortillas!).

Result: With multiple Mayans down, Jax chased after the shooters, one of whom was run over by his cohorts after Jax shot him in the leg. SAMCRO found the driver in an apartment crowded with children. The second shooter shot the driver's sister in the head as she was about to tell SAMCRO who he was. Chibs shot him. The driver said Lobos had threatened to kill his family in Mexico if he didn't participate.

Reverberations: Bobby formally challenged Clay for the gavel.

Heads Up

"Family Recipe" (season 4, episode 8)

RIP: Armando (and a few others who lost their heads)

Death by: Bullets (we hope)

Reason: While the vote on Bobby's challenge was being held, the clubhouse was shot up. One shooter was hit and left behind — he had Lobos ink. A duffel bag had been delivered during the driveby. It contained several severed heads, including that of Armando (Lobo Sebastian), the president of the Sons of Anarchy's cocaine-selling Tucson charter. When the cops descended on the clubhouse after shots were reported, Chucky (Michael Ornstein) was forced to hide a head in the pot of chili he was cooking for a fundraiser, which remains arguably the series' funniest moment.

Result: Luis arrived to torture the truth out of the shooter, who said a Mayan was giving Lobos intel. They decided to feed that Mayan info that would result in the Sons, Mayans, and Galindo ambushing the Lobos. But the Lobos were one step ahead again — they sent a truck carrying the bodies that went with the severed heads delivered earlier. Luis killed the Mayan traitor.

Reverberations: Jax told Tara to take their boys to an upcoming conference in Oregon, where a hospital was interested in hiring her, and stay there until they figured things out. Piney threatened to show the club the letters Tara had discovered — written by Jax's late father, John Teller, to his Irish lover detailing John's suspicions that Clay and Gemma would try to kill him — if Clay didn't get the club out of the cartel business.

The Bluff

"Family Recipe" (season 4, episode 8)

RIP: Piney

Death by: Bullets

Reason: Earlier in the season, both Clay and Gemma had tasked Unser (Dayton Callie) with taking John's letters from Tara so they could see how damning it would be if Tara ever let Jax read them. After reading John's suspicions that Clay and Gemma would kill him before he could get the club out of guns, Unser realized Clay had lied years ago when he said it would help end the war with the Mayans if he covered up the tampering with John's bike in the accident report — and that Clay might hurt Tara to get the letters. Tara had talked to Piney, John's best friend, about the letters, but he didn't read them.

Result: Believing Piney when he said he had the letters, Clay went to the cabin to find out where they were. When Piney told Clay to leave Tara out of it, Clay said, "too late," and shot him in the chest. Clay wrote "LS" in Piney's blood on a picture of the club, hoping to pin the murder on the Lobos Sonora.

Reverberations: Gemma discovered Piney's body and asked Unser to follow Clay's lead and make it look like Lobos had done it. She told Clay the truth would stay between them and made him promise that he wouldn't hurt Tara. We already knew what his word was worth, but Gemma found out two episodes later ("Hands"), when Clay took money from their home safe to pay off an independent contractor he'd hired through Romeo to kill Tara on her drive to Oregon. Clay hadn't known that Jax and the boys would go with Tara. She was abducted during a picnic stop in a park. Jax got her back, but not before the van door slammed against her hand breaking bones and causing severe nerve damage.

Crossfire

"Hands" (season 4, episode 10)

RIP: Mayan mistaken for Galindo

Death by: Bullets

Reason: In the previous episode, "Kiss," SAMCRO learned that the Lobos were now selling cocaine to the Niners, led by Laroy Wayne (Tory Kittles). Jax convinced Laroy to arrange a meet with the Lobos for Galindo and SAMCRO to crash. While some Lobos were killed, others escaped. Clay was going to let Luis line the Niners up and execute them, but Jax talked him down.

Result: After Tara was attacked, Jax assumed it was Lobos retaliation. Together with the Mayans, SAMCRO went to visit the Niners to find out how to contact the Lobos. The Niners were skittish because the Lobos had already offed three of them that morning and killed a Mayan on site thinking they were with the cartel. Mayan president Alvarez (Emilio Rivera) shot a Niner in retaliation. Jax stopped Laroy from shooting Alvarez, but Laroy told them to leave before he called in reinforcements and all the Mayan and SAMCRO there dropped.

Reverberations: Clay met with Romeo to find out why the hit was botched on Tara. He got his money back, and when Gemma saw him returning it to the safe, she confronted him and they each threatened to tell Jax things. She pulled a gun on Clay and he beat her. Gemma told Unser that Clay couldn't be saved and that he had to die by the hand of the Son.

The Blow Up

"Call of Duty" (season 4, episode 11)

RIP: Kozik (and various Galindo and Lobos)

Death by: Landmine

Reason: Going along with blaming the Lobos for the botched hit on Tara, Romeo and Luis showed Jax the bodies of two dead cartel members, but Jax remembered three men in the van.

Result: Together with the cartel, members of SAMCRO went into the woods and shot and killed four more Lobos before hiking to their main camp. One Galindo member was killed by a landmine and gunfire broke out, claiming another. Kozik (Kenny Johnson) was shadowing Clay when he stepped on a mine. His final words: "Oh, you gotta be s----in' me." A piece of him landed on Juice. To get Clay, Juice, and others out of the crossfire, Jax made the call to use the biggest Irish weapons, even though it would anger the Irish, who hadn't yet agreed to sell that kind of hardware to the cartel.

Reverberations: After walking out of the landmine field with no regard for whether he lived or died, an emotionally fried Juice admitted to Chibs that Roosevelt was threatening to tell the club his dad was black unless he gave him intel. Chibs said as long as Juice's birth certificate read Hispanic, the sheriff had no leverage — meaning Juice had gotten himself into this mess for nothing.

A Little Too Late

"Call of Duty" (season 4, episode 11)

RIP: Georgie Caruso

Death by: Bullets

Reason: Luann (Dendrie Taylor), the wife of death row inmate Otto, had been beaten to death back in season 2 when rival porn producer Georgie Caruso (Tom Arnold) wanted to poach her talent and SAMCRO, Luann's partner, stepped in to stop him. Earlier in season 4, AUSA Potter had informed Otto that Bobby's semen was found on Luann's undergarments and that in 87.9 percent of cases, the person sleeping with the victim was the killer. Otto had demanded that SAMCRO find and kill whoever murdered Luann. Bobby was sent to tell Otto that SAMCRO would take care of Georgie — after they used him to dangle a Japanese family, who produced sex dolls and hardcore toys, as a potential investor in Mayor Hale's Charming Heights. Admitting to sleeping with Luann, Bobby couldn't bear to tell Otto that Caruso had been granted a temporary stay of execution, so he lied and said Georgie had been taken out. Potter had that visiting room wired, heard Bobby's admission, and showed Otto a photo of Georgie alive and well.

Result: After learning that the Japanese family was going ahead with investing in Charming Heights instead of pulling out at the last minute so Hale would lose the land, SAMCRO was finally ready to off Georgie. Bobby, Tig, and Opie put Georgie in the trunk of a car and, after Bobby promised he wouldn't kill him if he told the truth, Caruso admitted he'd sent a few men to just rough Luann up and they'd killed her when she fought back. Bobby shut the trunk and nodded to Opie and Tig, who lit it up.

Reverberations: Not knowing that Georgie was now truly dead, Otto agreed to rat, establishing the Sons' criminal history. Now AUSA Potter just needed Juice to provide the location of SAMCRO's meeting with the Irish and Galindo to establish criminal acts in the present. The sting, however, would never happen: We'd find out in the season finale that Romeo and Luis were actually working with the National Clandestine Service arm of the CIA, which was subsidizing Galindo to destroy Lobos. Potter's RICO case was shut down (but at least he outed Hale's investor to the City Council before he left town). Roosevelt, who'd already apologized to Juice, got to tell him he was free.

The Big Mistake

"To Be, Act 1" (season 4, episode 13)

RIP: Veronica Pope

Death by: Hit-and-run

Reason: In "Call of Duty," Opie found his father's body, and Unser was there to urge him to kill Clay, who'd now essentially taken the lives of both Opie's father and first wife. Tig, who'd resigned as Clay's Sergeant-at-Arms that episode after seeing Gemma's bruised face, didn't stick around when Clay told him he had a bad feeling in episode 12, "Burnt and Purged Away." Gemma had told Clay that Opie knew he'd killed Piney. Opie showed up at the clubhouse and shot Clay in the chest. Jax shot Opie in the wrist to keep him from finishing Clay off. Clay told Unser to say it was two black men who'd shot him. Tig assumed it was Niners, angry that SAMCRO had backed the Mayans and Galindo.

Result: In the first part of the season finale, Tig spotted Laroy and a young woman sitting outside at a café. He drove a car straight at them. Laroy escaped uninjured but the woman, daughter of dangerous gangster Damon Pope (Harold Perrineau), was thrown through the glass of the café's storefront and died.

Reverberations: Laroy and his crew later chased SAMCRO and Laroy lost a couple more men as shots were exchanged. But Tig wouldn't begin to pay until the season 5 premiere. Gemma convinced Tara to give her John's original letters, and she told Jax about John's suspicions that Clay would kill him. She also told him that Clay was behind the hit on Tara and confirmed he'd killed Piney. For his father, for his family, and for his club, Jax had to kill Clay, Gemma said. Tara gave Jax blood thinner to give Clay, so he'd basically drown. Then he was to drive her and the boys out of Charming. In the second part of the finale though, Irish King Galen O'Shay (Timothy V. Murphy) told Jax the Irish would only deal its full arsenal to Galindo if Clay were the point person. Romeo and Luis revealed they were CIA to Jax and said if the Irish deal didn't move forward, or Jax shared their identity with anyone, they would crush the club. Jax couldn't kill Clay, but he did put a knife to his throat in the hospital and strip him of his president's patch. To keep the club from voting down the cartel deal, Jax had to stay and assume the role. He told Tara why he couldn't leave and that she should still move their boys to Oregon. She decided to stay.