In FX’s crime drama serial Sons of Anarchy, there was this beloved character named Harry Winston, also known as Opie, who was played by Ryan Hurst. While Sons of Anarchy had a lot of violence and deaths, few deaths shocked the audience as Opie’s departure. Why did Opie leave Sons of Anarchy?
Well, today, we’re going to explore just that. Of the very few characters that actually escaped death’s embrace in the FX serial, Harry Winston’s death was dramatic. Opie was the son of Piney, one of the founding members of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club, and he was Jax’s best bud from childhood.
Harry Winston Opie Trajectory In SAMCRO
Opie was the best friend to Jax, but since the first season, that character’s storyline development was marked by tragedy. At the end of the debut season, Opie’s wife Donna was killed by Tig in a drive-by that was orchestrated by another Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club member, Clay Morrow. But that death was a mistake because Morrow ordered Tig to clip Opie, not his wife. Morrow thought that Opie had become a snitch to the ATF.
Opie was struck; he never got over the fact that his wife died in such a horrid way. And then, we see him in this relationship with an adult film actress and eventually marrying her. Things didn’t stay smooth, Clay decided to kill Piney because he knew about the hit on Donna and other crimes like the murder of Jax’s dad. With all that bad karma on his shoulders, Clay eventually meets his demise.
Opie finds out about how Clay killed Donna and Jax’s dad and had gone into dark places despite getting another wife. He leaves the club for a while but decides to kill Clay in revenge before taking another leave of absence from the club.
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Why Did Opie Leave Sons Of Anarchy?
Ryan Hurst’s character was written out of the series on season five of Sons of Anarchy. He gets picked up by the ATF and is sent to jail with Jax, Tig (his wife’s killer), and Chibs. We see how life in the pen affects Opie, he has to fraternize with Tig despite knowing what he did and must deal with Damon Pope, a drug dealer who wanted Jax to do something for him.
Pope learned that Tig had killed Damon’s kid when he tried to pull a hit on riva gang member. Yes, Tig is prone to kill other people instead of the chosen target; what a poor hitman he is.
In any case, Damon Pope wants Jax to kill Tig and wants another SAMCRO member’s life in exchange for the lives of two of his motor club buddies. It’s a bit of a gorilla math, that 2 for 2 thing, but that’s how the hammer dropped.
Jax didn’t want to give anyone up, and planned to give his own life, but Opie, having been hollowed out emotionally, decided to sacrifice himself and was beaten to his last breath while Jax, Tig, and others watched in shock from a window, not being able to go in his help. His death, a violent, brutal scene filled with drama, was one of Sons of Anarchy’s most shocking moments. With his death, came the redemption of Opie’s character; the pain was gone, and he finally was free.
For Ryan Hurst, as he later recalls in many interviews, shooting that scene, planning it, and talking it with the showrunners, producers, and scriptwriters was a complex matter. he loved playing that character, and he also gave out one of his best performances while shooting it.
If you ever saw Sons of Anarchy and watched the episode where Opie finally leaves the series, you’ll realize that the character was written up to a logical conclusion, and then everything else came along crashing, since Sons of Anarchy is about motorcycles and bandit life, Opie lived that to its fullest and Ryan Hurst’s performance is one of the best by far in that show.
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