The Sons Of Anarchy Mystery That Fans Still Want Kurt Sutter To Solve

Sons of Anarchy might've finished its seven-season run back in 2014, but the love for Charlie Hunnam's Jax Teller and the rest of the bikers remains as feverish as ever. But with 92 episodes in total, it doesn't seem surprising that the series left the occasional plot strand behind in the dust. There's a particular mystery surrounding an early villain in the series that fans are desperate to learn the answers to. Cast your mind back to Sons of Anarchy season 2 with the League of American Nationalists and the Aryan Brotherhood. What happened to Ethan Zobelle?

Over the course of season 2, the businessman (played by Adam Arkin) attempted to dismantle the gang in a number of different ways, including a horrific attack on Gemma Teller, the bombing of SAMCRO's garage, and even managed to get key members of the club arrested. When the nefarious figure was outed as an FBI informant, the net started to close around him. Unfortunately, Zobelle managed to hightail it out of Charming, boarding a plane to Sacramento and vowing to regroup. But he was never seen again. How strange.

What makes his escape so surprising is how Kurt Sutter usually kills his characters off with brutal, bloody executions. (R.I.P., Tara.) So why did Sutter let Ethan Zobelle escape alive and unharmed after all his acts of violence against the club? When asked last year about Zobelle's escape, the writer and producer revealed on Twitter: "Because sometimes sh***y people live and the bad guy wins. There's a lot of that going around these days."

But did Sutter change his mind and secretly kill the villain off in Sons of Anarchy season 3?

The first episode of season 3, "SO," saw Gemma Teller on the run after shooting Polly Zobelle and being framed for the death of her boyfriend, Edmond Hayes. Agent Stahl was a little too good at making other people pay for her crimes, wasn't she? The episode saw the club's matriarch lying low in a motel room while a news report on the TV talks about a mysterious plane crash. There's even a moment where Gemma seems shocked while reading the newspaper, but the show doesn't explain why she's surprised at whatever is written on the page.

It does seem a little too coincidental that season 2 ended with Zobelle escaping on a plane, with season 3 starting with news of a plane crash. Obviously, it's not clear whether Jax and the club are the ones responsible for the accident or if fate swooped in to intervene. However, because it was only in 2020 that Kurt Sutter opened up about Zobelle's escape, it isn't impossible that the villain faked his death. Since he was easy for the audience to hate and his wealthy connections made him a formidable opponent for Jax Teller and the gang, it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine him returning in a later season.

Of course, plans always change and perhaps Sutter eventually decided not to bring Zobelle back, letting the villain escape scot-free because as he already pointed out: "There's a lot of that going around these days."