(Spoiler Alert)

The crow has flown straight for the last time, as the series finale of Sons of Anarchy concluded this December. I dedicated much of my time to SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original) over the past year and a half, and I found myself becoming attached to the characters, making the ending difficult for me to watch. At the end of the series, only five characters from the series premiere were alive. With each character death, my admiration for the writers and creator Kurt Sutter deepened, as they pulled on the heartstrings of their viewers while still managing to introduce new characters that would fill the hole of the deceased.
With death playing a big role in the show, I have come to the conclusion that the homeless lady that appears throughout season seven in fact represents death. A controversial character, there is no concrete definition of her, and Sutter challenges viewers to form their own opinion of her. Her first speaking role comes right before Jax kills enemy of the club August Marks, where all she says is, “It’s time,” and hands Jax her blanket to use to hide himself from August. As the scene pans out, the viewer sees bread dipped in wine, which is a biblical allusion to Jesus’s body and blood. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that her bread and wine are also on the side of the road when Jax commits suicide. During the final scene, a raven flies over Jax’s head, which is in my opinion the homeless lady now in another form being there for his final ride. Multiple pieces of literature use a raven or some other black bird as death, most notably “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. It also makes sense that the bread and wine arrived at the scene courtesy of the raven, as death is always where it needs to be and carries around blood and bodies.
Sutter has said that his epic story is based on Hamlet, so we could expect a bloody ending. Jax had suicide in mind, and there was no doubt he was going down swinging. His entire life was the club, and it was fitting that his life ended with the closure of helping the club be rid of all their enemies.