The premiere of the final season of the FX drama Sons of Anarchy scored the best ratings of any program in the 20-year history of the cable channel, with 9.25 million viewers between the live telecast and three days of playback.

The show also attracted 6.1 million viewers among the 18-to-49-year-old audience, which, like the total audience, ranked second among all series premieres on cable this year, topped only by The Walking Dead, the enormous hit on AMC.

FX pointed out that Sons of Anarchy had more viewers for its premiere than the huge HBO hit Game of Thrones — though, to be fair, HBO is available in far fewer homes than FX.

But another comparison was entirely fair. Last Tuesday, when Sons of Anarchy played on FX, it was the most-watched show of the night on any channel in the 18-to-49 group, topping CBS’s Big Brother by almost three million viewers.

Taking a page from AMC, which has turned its talk series, “Talking Dead” — about “The Walking Dead” — into a separate hit, FX also added a commentary show to follow “Sons of Anarchy” on Tuesdays. That show, “Anarchy Afterword,” attracted just under four million viewers.

Episode 2 could break that record, as fans are consumed with all things SOA after what can only be described as a draw-dropping, bloody, mesmerizing premiere.

Sons of Anarchy Season 7 Episode 2, titled “Toil & Till” airs tomorrow night (Tuesday, September 16) at 10 P.M. (EST) om FX and is an hour and fifteen minutes long.

“Toil & Till” will deal with the fallout from Gemma lying to Jax (Charlie Hunnam) and fingering a member of Lin Triad for Tara’s murder.

That lie led to Jax torturing and murdering the innocent man and will cause a domino effect of chaos and death for everyone.

Part of that fallout will probably be the end of Jax and Nero’s (Jimmy Smits), friendship, as Nero had just brokered peace between the clubs before the murder.

In the trailers Jax tries to explain to Nero why he did it, but Nero isn’t buying it and warns Gemma the Chinese are going to start a very bloody war.

Gemma is also seen telling Juice that no matter who finds him he’s dead, which may be what makes him go to Alavarez, leader of the rival Mayans!, offering intel on SAMCRO in exchange for protection.

It seems that wherever there is death and destruction there’s Gemma, pulling the strings to make it happen. From J.T. to Clay and now this Chinese man, all these deaths have come as a result of Gemma’s machinations.

It will be interesting to see if and when her lies catch up with her who will pay the ultimate price for them.

What do you think will happen to Gemma? Check out the trailer for episode 2 and share your thought on her fate in a comment.

——————————————

In other news Sons of Anarchy star Theo Rossi says it’s total chaos and full survival mode ‘coming up for Juice. (Source: http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/09/15/sons-of-anarchy-theo-rossi-juice-podcast/)

Ever since he turned on the club back in season 4, Juice Ortiz has been the Sons of Anarchy character you love to hate. Or is it hate to love? Or is it both? Because while Juice is a man that has made some downright terrible decisions as a member of SAMCRO, he also seems like a good guy deep down. As a result, viewers have been left to alternate between wanting to see Juice pay for his sins (like killing a fellow Son) and hoping he can get a fresh start. Theo Rossi, the man who plays Juice, loves hearing the back and forth fans feels about the character, because at least they are feeling. “I believe any character you play on anything…as long as you feel something,” said Rossi when he called into Entertainment Weekly Radio (SiriusXM, channel 105). As long as you love or you hate.” Rossi also discussed much more and now you can hear the entire chat right here on the InsideTV Podcast.

While Rossi also has conflicted feelings about his character, he does point out one thing he thinks all viewers should keep in mind: “The thing with Juice — he’s never ever done anything without trying to protect the club in mind. Everything he did was to try to help the club. And then his conscience just gets the best of him.” With show creator Kurt Sutter confirming that there will be some big deaths in this final season, many can’t help but assume that Juice will be among the casualties. Obviously, Rossi will nether confirm nor deny that, but he does note that, “There is a lot a lot a lot of death this year on the show. Obviously the cuffs are off. This is the last season. There is no tomorrow, as they said in Rocky. So every episode is kind of like a finale just like that first one was. And there’s a lot of characters that are not long for the world.”

What kind of send-off would Rossi like for his character? “If there was anything what I’d like to see for him, it’s peace,” says Rossi. “Because he’s been a disaster since season 4. So some kind of peace, some calmness to it all.” But things will be far from calm for Juice when the show returns on with the season’s second episode on Tuesday night. “For him it’s just total chaos and full survival mode at this point. And as he gets more cornered, and like you saw at the end of tat first episode, it really starts to gets to a place — if you noticed, he’s pretty shaky in that first episode. And when someone’s shaky like that — and one thing we know about Juice is he’s been taking people out left and right the past few seasons — so as that starts to build, Kurt just really paints this amazing picture with this character, and it starts to really get into some murky, murky waters.