Comic-Con: Last ‘Sons Of Anarchy” Panel Previews Final Season, Talks Prequel, Gets Emotional For Kurt Sutter & Cast

Sons Of Anarchy may be starting its final season this fall but the tales of the FX drama are not over. “We are having serious conversations about our prequel,” said SOA creator Kurt Sutter to loud applause today at Comic-Con. “My sense is right now that I don’t know if it will be a full on-series or a mini-series.” While this is far from the first time the showrunner has talked about going back to SAMCRO’s roots, it had special significance Sunday in the massive Hall H for what is expected to be SDCC vet SOA’s last appearance.

“They’ll be no spinoffs,” added Sutter to talk of continuing the SOA story. “I think spinoffs work well on procedural dramas, which this clearly is not,” he added. The SOA story will also continue in Bratva, the show’s first novelization. The upcoming book picks up after Season 4 with the characters from the show, said Sutter today as he showed fans the cover art.

Earlier in the panel, the often acerbic Sutter teared up when others from the show thank him for creating the series and the experience of working on it. “Sit the fuck down,” a Sutter told the cast and the thousands in the hall who gave him a rousing standing ovation. “I got an image.”

While lead Charlie Hunnam ended up not being able to make it to SDCC due to a Vogue shoot New York, Sutter was far from alone onstage at Hall H. As in past years, the Comic-Con veteran show brought out most of their cast with Katey Sagal, Kim Coates, Mark Boone Junior, Tommy Flanagan, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie, David Labrava, Niko Nicotera, who was making his SDCC debut, and Drea de Matteo all in attendance. EP/Director and DGA head Paris Barclay, who helmed the Season 7 opener, was also there.

“Hello lovely people of Comic-Con,” said the absent Hunnam in a hilarious short video that mocked the actor’s fashion mag photo session and had him being massaged, manicured and waited on by the other members of the biker gang in what looks like a luxury suite. “This is the seventh season of the snow for a show to stay on the air that long requires the massive support of our fans.” Hunnam said as he snapped at Coates, Boone Junior and Flanagan for not serving him as according to orders.

The highest-rated series in FX’s history, SOA’s seventh season starts on September 9 with a 10 PM 1-hour and 45-minute episode that picks up with the aftermath of Humman’s Jax character breaking down after discovering his wife Tara and Sheriff Eli Roosevelt murdered in their house. Seeking vengeance, the SAMCRO leader doesn’t know that his mother Gemma, played by Segal, was actually the one who killed Tara or that fellow crewmember Juice shot the Sheriff.

After a review of the events of last year’s show, fans were treated to a preview of Season 7 that was bookend with Jax brutally fighting a man in prison and carving a swastika on his stomach. It also showed Jemma raising his children, the remaining SAMCRO crew on a ride, the Jimmy Smits character estranged from Jemma and the graveside headstone of Tara. “Rather than being the reactor to chaos, he is the inciter of chaos,” said Sutter of the Jax in the final season. “It’s like writing a brand new character.”

Not that the last SOA season is finished. “Much to the chagrin of my production team I like to backup on my production schedule, said Sutter on whether the finale of the show was locked. “I can never tell what it is going to look like or how we are going to get there,” Sutter said, effectively and self admittedly dodging a question if Hunnam’s character would make it to the end of the last season alive. The show is halfway thorough shooting the final season with Sutter saying he is presently writing episode 7 and editing episode 4. “The writing this year is phenomenal,” said Flanagan. “This season is fantastic,’ he added.

Earlier in the day, Sutter had been teasing fans on Twitter about a “fun guest star announcement” for the biker drama’s upcoming final season but that turned out to just be him messing with people. Regardless, SOA still has Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson joining the show in recurring roles for its closing cycle