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SOA Writers Didn't Know How To Handle Donna's Murder Storyline....

posted 8 years ago by kemcardle
3 replies | jump to latest

They built it up in the first season and parts of the 2nd season which Jax knowing this big secret and his hatred for Tig and Clay, but then they totally botched it.

-- Opie only finds out because Tig takes some bad peyote on the Indian Reservation and spits out after guilt.

-- Piney makes a half-assed attempt to kill Clay, instead of Opie deciding to get revenge, which was the easy choice. Opie is supposed to be a bad-ass outlaw at this point.

-- They're never even a discussion with the other members of the club about whether or not Tig and possibly even Clay deserve to meet Mr. Mayhem.

-- Opie decides to put all the blame on the ATF Agent Stahl and even in the later seasons he doesn't have any building resentment with Clay and Tig over it.

Clearly the writers wrote themselves into a box with this storyline and didn't know how to resolve it successfully -- so they had the Gemma rape come out so the group turns their whole attention on that, like the Donna murder was the equivalent of Tig smashing Opie's car window.

[–] julia-solovjova 8 years ago

They mentioned in the comments, that their original intent was to kill Opie, but because the fans loved Ryan Hurst so much, they kept him, and whacked Donna instead.

And I agree that Opie was too ok with both Tig and Clay, only remembers to mention Donna when Clay kills Piney.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

it did raise a dynamic.

Opie and the club fully proxy the blame for Donna's death to Stahl.
Stahl, a senior federal agent, paints her windshield with her brains which admittedly was a great season finale moment in the show.
Ok,Opie, he busts a couple in Clay, but that is directly re Piney , he also gave the actual order which killed Donna, but anyway still does not manage to kill him..

Why isn't the Sheriff responsible for his Stahling of Juice, and the catalogue of shyt which flows from that?
Instead Juice has to carry all the weight of his actions..

ok, the Sheriff I guess is not as much of a badasse rogue as Stahl is...

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

-- Opie decides to put all the blame on the ATF Agent Stahl and even in the later seasons he doesn't have any building resentment with Clay and Tig over it.

Not that I agree with Opie's actions, but

1) Opie doesnt blame Tig because he knows that Tig is just Clay's pawn who does whatever Clay orders. Tig believes that blindly following Clay's orders is whats best for the club.
2) Opie doesnt blame Clay because Clay was set up by Stahl to believe that he was a rat. These guys take rats very seriously and don't show any mercy and Opie knows that. He believes that Clay is just trying to protect the club.
3) They fully blame Stahl because she was the one who set up the situation to make it look like Opie had ratted. She was warned of the consequences that it could have, but she went forward with the plan.

Also, Opie had somewhat moved on by the point where he learned the truth. Jax had set up the fake story about the rival gang member who had killed her and let Opie kill that guy. Opie was still upset about Donna's death, but he was no longer actively looking for vengeance.

Even if he didnt blame them though, I don't understand how he would be comfortable still hanging out around Clay and Tig. Every time he looks at Tig he is bound to think "thats the guy who killed my wife".