WARNING: This article contains spoilers about the Sons of Anarchy season six finale.

This Tuesday, FX aired the dramatic and violent season six finale of Sons of Anarchy. Many viewers were left in shock and tears, but they weren't alone. Stars Katey Sagal and Maggie Siff also cried when they watched the finale for the first time.

Sagal, who plays Gemma on the show, and Siff, who plays Tara, watched the season finale for the first time at a small press viewing hosted by FX. Show creator Kurt Sutter was also present. According to Today, during the graphic scenes when Gemma brutally kills Tara, Sagal was weeping louder than anyone else in the audience. Siff was also sobbing.

"Watching it was really hard," Siff said minutes after the episode ended while wiping tears from her eyes.

"Really hard," Sagal added.

The episode was especially hard for Siff, whose character reached her end, a decision that Sutter (who is also Siff's husband) made several seasons ago.

"Shooting it was really hard because the character kind of ends, so my experience shooting was feeling everything around me," Siff said. "Katey and then Charlie [Hunnam] and that was really painfully hard. I was so aware of their loss. It wasn't about me. It was about them, and at the same time digesting that this character I've been so long is gone."

Sutter said he decided to off Tara in order to give Jax Teller, who is played by Hunnam, a "major and psychic emotional shift."

"First of all, I love Maggie," Sagal said. "We've been this female island in this testosterone world, but as an actor, it was kind of awesome to do things you haven't done. I've never killed anyone violently in anything that I've done before."

Before Tara died, she reunited with Jax, and he told her that she did not have to become an informant to keep her and their sons safe from him. According to Siff, this scene was "a hard day at work."

"I feel like that was the most important thing for me seeing the episode," she said. "I knew that was the only moment for Jax and Tara to really penetrate each other in a sense. It was about saying all the things she had to say to him and reckoning herself and saying goodbye to her children ... Whenever I work with Charlie, I feel like we find our way together."

The death of Tara has mixed fan reactions. Siff feels that those who love Jax should want Tara around to a certain degree in order to keep Jax happy. Still, many Jax lovers are complete Tara haters and wanted her to die. Sutter described this confusing fan reaction as "disturbing."

"I understand that she breaks the code these people live by...and she has also served as a portal for the audience to love these people and understand these people, but ... if you root for Jax, then you sort of root for Tara and Jax because they love each other. She's a big part of his happiness. So, I don't know, I think the Tara haters are a little bit irrational."

Sagal is not too scared that fan hate will shift toward Gemma became Gemma is "a lovable murderer."

Now, Siff is left trying to accept the loss of Tara.

"I really didn't want the series to end for me or for Tara with this kind of continued alienation into distrust, into enmity, into hate and into death between Jax and Tara," she said. "That felt wrong to me. Given how much they've been through together and everything they've been fighting for ... and there's this romantic center to these people. The Jax and Tara love story is a real piece of that. It's part of what makes the series work in a way that you really believe this family and these people love each other passionately."

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