Make sure you check out the entire interview in full with Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter as he talks about Jax, and our favorite Charming characters leading into season five over at TVGuide.com

What’s the most immediate problem Jax has to deal with?
Sutter: We begin the season with the pressure that we left off with last year. We threw in the death of Damon Pope’s daughter. That ignites early on in the first episode. We see the ramifications of that and Damon Pope’s response to that. Pope obviously starts out as this very strong antagonist and will remain so for a while. The interesting thing that happens with Pope and Jax is they’re forced to get in bed with this guy Nero as a result of their misstep.

Whose counsel will Jax seek in the club? Last we saw, his right-hand man Opie was no longer at his side.
Sutter: We see Jax really create his inner circle as early as the premiere episode. And Opie will definitely be part of that. I think we’ll see in Episode 2 the beginning of that relationship being repaired. As always on this show, it is done through extreme circumstances, but Opie will make an attempt to be back in Jax’s life. I just felt like it would have been too neat and too convenient for Opie, after everything that happened to him, to sort of take a seat at that table at the end of last season. I needed him to earn it a little bit and put him in orbit for an episode or so. And that’s what we’ve done.

Speaking of Tara, is she fully committed to this lifestyle at this point?
Sutter: Tara’s dilemma up to this point was always, “Am I in or am I out?” I think she’s really made the decision last season that she is in. Her dilemma this season is, “OK, I’m in, and how do I rectify that? How do I be true to this world? How do I serve Jax as his queen? How do I help the club? How do I do the things that an old lady is supposed to do and still be true to myself, and is that possible? Can I still be Dr. Tara Knowles and the matriarch of a motorcycle club?” I didn’t want to suddenly in the course of four weeks have Tara turn into Gemma. [But] we will see her definitely make more Gemma-like choices. We’ll see her struggle with her own impulse and then the realization of what it is that she signed up for