ROUGH RIDER
SMITS EXPECTS PAYBACK IN ‘SONS’ FINALE
JIMMY SMITS isn’t giving up any secrets about Tuesday’s season-six finale of “Sons of Anarchy” (FX, 10 p.m.), but he admits he doesn’t expect there will ultimately be some happy, mellow ride into the sunset for his Nero Padilla character.
“He’s going to take a turn, and it ain’t going to be pretty when that happens,” says Smits. “So I’m kind of looking forward to that myself, because it will be another kind of muscle exercise.”
Nero arrived on “Sons of Anarchy” at the start of season five, as the outsider who came for dinner and then stayed around.
He’s romantically involved with the show’s main female character, Gemma (Katey Sagal), and is a business partner with her son, the main male character Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam).
Along the way, Smits notes, Nero has been pulled much deeper into the lethal underworld of Jax’s Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club than he ever hoped or envisioned. So he has some ongoing discomfort , which ratcheted up last week when Nero discovered Jax had secretly done something Nero considers a betrayal.
That, says Smits, feeds right into the point that “Sons” creator/writer Kurt Sutter has been making since the show began.
“Kurt’s been really good about people getting their comeuppance,” says Smits. “Things you do tend to come back and bite you.”
At this point, Smits say, “Ever ybody’s kind of betrayed. Jax is betrayed, Nero feels betrayed, Gemma feels betrayed. “I don’t know where it’s [all] going. [but] it’s going to materialize in some heav y- dut y fashion.”
That keeps the actors “just where Kurt likes them,” Smits half-jokes. “Off-kilter.”
He’s even a little surprised Nero is still around.
“When I signed on,” says Smits, “I thought we were going to do what we did when I signed on with ‘Dexter,’ which was like 10 episodes and out.
“So I was surprised that it morphed into what it has. Last season I had to shift gears a little bit, because we started having these conversations about the possibility of staying on.
“It’s important for me not to become just a functional character for one specific aspect of the show. I’m not down with that, so we’ve had many conversations about keeping the character's edge.”
However Nero’s role plays out, all the stories in “Sons of Anarchy” will likely wrap up next season, which Sutter and FX have said they expect will be the show’s last.
That means a whole lot of answers, atonement or retribution.
“All the s— you do,” says Smits, “it comes back. It may be two seasons later, but people remember.”