A Sons Of Anarchy Death Caused Unscripted Sobbing From The Cast

What are the factors that make up an excellent dramatic TV series like "Sons of Anarchy?" Of course, an engaging and well-written story is essential, as is the level of believability the cast and crew created for the fictional world presented to the audience. But many would say that the most important element of a quality series are the actors' performances. And when these actors express genuine emotions based on what's happening in a scene, that quality hits a whole new level. That's exactly what fans got to see in Season 7, Episode 9 ("What a Piece of Work Is Man") when the fan-favorite character Bobby (Mark Boone Junior) took a bullet to the side of his head, ending his run on the hit FX series.

Before that moment, crime boss August Marks (Billy Brown) has Bobby in his custody, with Jax (Charlie Hunnam) hoping to make a hostage exchange for his release. To teach Jax a lesson in betrayal consequences, August kills Bobby. SAMCRO members eventually see their friend's body and react to his demise. When Boone was asked by EW if he and his cast mates predicted Bobby's death, he revealed that this knowledge could ruin realistic reactions. "Seven years of this show, everybody got in the habit of not trying to predict anything," he said. "I think that was the way to go about life in this world." Taking this plot moment as it came ended up in unscripted sobbing — which was as real as it could be — while these characters stood over Bobby's corpse.

Fans of "Sons of Anarchy" know all too well that the series is never short of shocking deaths. In fact, almost every main character meets his/her demise over the course of the seven seasons. Mark Boone Junior's Bobby "Elvis" Munson came close to lasting the duration but ended up going out with a literal bang a few episodes short of the series finale. Boone validated anyone believing the realistic emotional reaction his cast members' had during his death scene by telling EW, "I just think the scene between Charlie [Hunnam] and Tommy [Flanagan] over the blood is really indicative of how brutal they took it. And then you got DL [David Labrava] literally sobbing in the back of the van. I don't think any of that was acting, really."

As for Boone himself, his reaction to his character's demise didn't really hit him until after he watched the episode when it aired. In fact, since that final day of shooting, he took on work to distract himself from it. "I've been pretty busy. I've done a couple of movies since I was eliminated," he said. But that didn't keep Boone from the "Sons of Anarchy" set, which still had four whole episodes to shoot. "I was there for the last table read and stuff like that. We had a party the last day of the shoot at the stages," he said. No doubt emotions ran high throughout filming the rest of the series, and these types of unscripted emotions — like the scene Bobby was killed — were part of what made the show great.