The MC matriarch talks to Ian Cullen.

M&C: One thing that had a lot of play in the first season, but not so much the second. Was Jax having come across his late Father’s Journal, and during the first season, and a little in the second. I’m just wondering if you could give us a little insight as to why Gemma is so conflicted about the Journal?

Katey Sagal: You’ll find out as the series goes on, and this is where I can’t talk too much because it speaks to the historical nature of the club, it speaks to what happened before we even got to where we are in season one.

So it’s all the back-story, but that journal… there’s a lot of secrets tied in with this world, and a lot of things that she’s trying to protect her son from.

She looks at her son a little bit like his father who was sort of an idealist. He felt the original vision of the Motorcycle club was to be free, but not necessarily to walk down such a dark path.

Jax’s conflict in season one was all about reconciling where they are now with this new knowledge found in his father’s journal. What the original vision for the club was. Gemma’s conflicted in how far she wants him to realize that because she knows. I think I can say this without giving away anything.

John Teller who was Jax’s father started to kind of come away from the workings of the club. Because he wanted to see it go in a different way and Gemma did not agree with that. So, she’s protecting her son from walking down that same path.

M&C: A relationship that really evolved as a result of Gemma’s rape was your onscreen friendship with Tara.  Where do you think Gemma is now with Tara?

Katey Sagal: Gemma’s very smart. In that she loves her family, her first motivation is always to protect her son, and to keep her family safe.

I think at this point in season two she realized that Tara is here to stay, and if you can’t beat them. You might as well join them. Gemma’s tact is that she will now teach Tara how to be in this life, and she’s kind of moving beyond the historical part of her relationship with Tara, which was really that Tara was Jax’s high school sweetheart, and she broke his heart. She left. She left this world.

So that’s why Gemma at the beginning was very trepidatious about letting her back in. You know it’s sort of like, “Your back!” Now in season two we start to see them bonding, plus we see that Gemma with everything she’s going through needs an ally. She needs help. She reaches out, and Tara shows up. She steps up to it. So, right there I think a woman like Gemma that it just shows, you know.

The alliances, and that’s what’s most important to Gemma is that kind of loyalty. She’s slowly starting to embrace Tara.

M&C: Do you think that Gemma is grooming Tara to maybe step up as the Matriarch at some stage to succeed her?

Katey Sagal: I don’t think she’s thinking of it like that because I don’t think Gemma has any concept about getting older [Laughs] or time marching on.

I think Gemma really likes her position, and doesn’t think in terms of handing it over to anybody, but I think she does realize how serious her son is about Tara. So she needs to learn a few things, which is why Gemma is teaching her those things.

Read the full interview here.