- "That's a natural reaction. The desire for revenge, it's a part of grieving. The difference is in my world, I knew that those violent desires would never become real. In yours, it's a very likely outcome"
- ―Patterson, to Jax
Tyne Patterson is the San Joaquin County District Attorney on the FX original series Sons of Anarchy. Played by Guyanese-American actress CCH Pounder, Tyne makes her debut in the season six episode, "One One Six". She was one of the two main antagonists of this season and was last seen in the finale episode, "Papa's Goods", in season seven.
Biography[]
Tyne Patterson had a son and a nephew, both of whom were killed due to gang violence. As an Assistant District Attorney, she investigated a murder at the Cahill Warehouse in Charming with Wayne Unser.
Season 6[]
Patterson investigates a Catholic school shooting in Stockton perpetrated by an 11 year old boy with a KG-9. She wants to tie the Byz Lats, with whom the boy’s mother is affiliated. Patterson forms a tentative partnership with erratic but effective ex-US Marshal Lee Toric, and they plan to reopen a dormant RICO case against the Sons of Anarchy, allies of the Byz Lats. She will draft an agreement for imprisoned and excommunicated SAMCRO member Clay Morrow to sign against the club. Though bringing down SAMCRO would admittedly help her career, Patterson insists that the four dead children has made this case personal (“One One Six”).
Patterson gives a press conference on the school shooting, pledging to “find the parties responsible for putting a weapon so deadly in the hands of a child so broken.” Darvany Jennings and her Byz Lat boyfriend, Arcadio Nerona, have escaped. She visits Toric at a motel and suggests pressing Tara Knowles, wife of SAMCRO President Jax Teller who is also facing manslaughter charges in connection with the death of Toric’s sister, though he insists Clay is still their best chance. She tells him to press two arrested Byz Lats for information on Darvany Jennings’s whereabouts. Toric informs her the Byz Lats will not give up Nero Padilla, their connection to SAMCRO, and suggests questioning his escorts. Later, she makes him an official special investigator (“Poenitentia”).
Patterson speaks with Toric about Erin Byrne, one of Nero’s escorts who turned up dead after talking to Toric. He believes Lt. Eli Roosevelt might be on SAMCRO’s payroll, but Patterson tells him to focus on Clay Morrow. Later, she visits Stockton State Prison, where Toric has been brutally killed by now deceased SAMCRO member Otto Delaney (“Wolfsangel”).
Patterson meets with Roosevelt to discuss Nero Padilla and the recent fire at Eddie Gerber's ranch, where they discovered cases of KG-9s. She wants to use Tara and Nero to get information on the Sons (“The Mad King”).
Roosevelt updates Patterson, telling her that SAMCRO’s clubhouse has been bombed by the True IRA and that Nero Padilla has likely been framed for murder. Later, she is on speaker phone with Roosevelt when Gemma Teller Morrow barges into their conversation. She tells Patterson that Toric had been having his killer, Otto Delaney, repeatedly raped in prison and that Nero was with her the night of Erin Byrne’s murder. A search of Toric’s hotel room provides a pile of evidence, though Patterson is adamant and wants to wait for the DNA results. However, Nero seems to be a dead end, so she calls Ally Lowen to set up a meeting with Tara. She offers her full immunity in exchange for ratting on Jax, but Tara refuses. In response, Patterson, declaring that it is “time to go hood,” sheds her caucasian-style weave and has Tara’s trial date moved up, which she will be prosecuting personally (“Salvage”).
Patterson meets with Nero and his lawyer, mocking his thinly veiled “escort service.” She offers to let him go if he testifies that SAMCRO sold him the KG-9 used in the school shooting. Roosevelt tries to dissuade her from pressing Nero because the DNA results will exonerate him soon, and also tells her that SAMCRO and the Byz Lats may have a connection with Charles Barosky, an extremely corrupt ex-Stockton cop. They pay him a visit at his bakery, though he denies everything, and she threatens his cash flow (“Sweet and Vaded”).
Patterson visits Nero and threatens to flood the Byz Lats’s territory with cops unless he gives up SAMCRO before someone else does. She summons Barosky to her office, threatening to place the Stockton docks under the jurisdiction of the Sheriff Department unless he finds her information about a Byz Lat getting run down. She meets with Nero again, and he tells her he bought the gun on the street, and she gets treatment for his son, Lucius, who has spina bifida. Roosevelt informs her that Tara miscarried during a physical dispute with Gemma, which disgusts Patterson. He also tells her that the DNA test confirmed Toric as the killer of Erin Byrne, but she refuses to let Nero go free, banking on the assumption that he will still help in order to help his son. Later, she discovers that the Byz Lat run down earlier was killed by the father of one of the school shooting victims. Patterson brings Nero pictures of the dead children, telling him to do the right thing, and lets him go (“Los Fantasmas”).
Patterson visits Roosevelt and gives him reinforcements to put Jax Teller under 24/7 surveillance. Very much to her surprise, Jax himself comes to meet with her and make a deal. He offers to give up high-profile Irish King Galen O'Shay in exchange for immunity for the club and to help Tara get free of her charges. She agrees, but promises that, if he fails to deliver, she will devote the rest of her term to make his life “as miserable as the law allows” and to send Tara to prison (“John 8:32”).
Patterson pushes through SAMCRO’s license for Diosa Del Sur, drafts up an immunity deal for the club, and sets up a plea agreement for Tara, and, in exchange, sets up a meeting to provide information on Galen O’Shay. Later, Tara comes to visit her, and Patterson is concerned because she seems very worried. Tara tries to accept Patterson’s previous deal and get her sons in witness protection, but Patterson informs her that it is no longer an option. She offers to help her, but Tara leaves her office (“Huang Wu”).
Patterson meets with Jax, who gives her a time and location on O’Shay. She goes with Roosevelt and dozens of Deputies to stake out the warehouse. She is enraged when it turns out to be a diversion so SAMCRO can hijack Clay Morrow’s prison transport on the other side of town, in which a guard is killed. Patterson arranges to meet with Tara in her office at St. Thomas Hospital. Because of recent events, she wants to move forward with the old offer, planning to reopen RICO against the Sons. Tara can give her a bullet she pulled out of a SAMCRO member after he was shot during the hijacking. Later, she learns that Clay Morrow and Galen O’Shay have been found dead, voiding her deal with SAMCRO (“Aon Rud Persanta”).
Patterson meets with Jax, who insists he held up his end of the bargain. Later, she calls Tara and tells her that her witness protection has been arranged and that she just needs the bullet. When she runs into Gemma in the hallway, she covers up the meeting by claiming to be visiting a deputy. She brings ATF agent Raymond Bowman to discuss the deal with Tara, but she wants to take it to her lawyer, then agrees to meet with Patterson that night. Patterson sets the deputies to look for Tara when she fails to show up (“You Are My Sunshine”).
Patterson talks with Roosevelt and Bowman about Tara, and Bowman thinks Jax might have killed her. When she finds Jax, she finds a despondent man missing his children and speaks to him like a mother, trying to get through his anger and convince him to do the right thing. Later, Patterson is informed of Tara’s location by her lawyer. When she goes to her Stockton motel room, Patterson is shocked to find Jax there also, having heeded her advice. He offers to turn himself in as the KG-9 source so long as Tara can go free and he can spend one last day with his sons. When Patterson goes to pick up Jax that night, she finds a shocking and bloody scene: Lt. Roosevelt shot to death, Tara lying in a pool of her own blood, and Jax holding her body and wailing in agony (“A Mother's Work”).
Season 7[]
Patterson investigates Tara’s murder, but cannot find any evidence, suspects, or anyone willing to talk. She fruitlessly questions everyone in SAMCRO, Teller-Morrow, and St. Thomas. Later, she speaks with Gemma before visiting Jax in the San Joaquin County Correctional Facility. She tells him she understands the nature of revenge, but that more violence will only destroy everything he has left. Then she visits retired Police Chief and SAMCRO longtime associate Wayne Unser, asking him to use his expertise to help Roosevelt’s replacement, Lt. Althea Jarry (“Black Widower”).
Patterson gets Unser, a cancer patient, on the county insurance plan and also the title of “Consulting Investigator” (“Toil and Till”).
Later, Patterson puts out an APB on Juice Ortiz, the only SAMCRO member she was unable to interrogate, for the entire northwest United States (“Poor Little Lambs”).
Patterson, along with federal authorites, are called in to investigate when yet another mass shooting happens in her jurisdiction, this time at Diosa Del Sur in Morada, with 16 victims (“Some Strange Eruption”).
Patterson is pressured to offer Henry Lin, who was arrested in Stockton, a deal because the Lin Triad is at war with SAMCRO and a suspect in Tara’s murder (“Smoke 'em if You Got 'em”).
When Juice Ortiz is captured, Patterson has him placed in administrative segregation at Stockton because Jarry and Unser believes he knows about the murders of Tara and Roosevelt (“The Separation of Crows”). She later removes Juice from AdSeg because Jarry believes he is there to get close to Lin (“What a Piece of Work is Man”).
Patterson gets a statement from Loutreesha Haddem, a woman with evidence implicating Oakland drug kingpin August Marks in a murder, and he is arrested (“Faith and Despondency”).
Later, Patterson informs Jarry that Henry Lin has been killed in prison (“Suits of Woe”). Patterson visits Jarry to discuss the murders of Tara and Roosevelt.. Juice Ortiz has recently been killed and Gemma Teller is missing. Patterson tells Jarry to put out an APB and assures her that she is still the right fit for the job. Jax meets with Patterson to confess everything on record. He tells her that Gemma killed Tara and Juice killed Roosevelt, and where she can find Gemma and Unser. He promises that the violence in Stockton and Oakland will be over by the end of the day. She asks what happens at the end of the day, and Jax enigmatically replies “The bad guys lose.” When Gemma and Unser are found dead in Oregon, Charles Barosky is shot to death in his bakery, August Marks is gunned down on the steps of the county courthouse, and Jax himself commits suicide by driving his motorcycle into an oncoming semi, Patterson seems to finally understand what he meant (“Papa's Goods”).
Trivia[]
- On the episode "Sweet and Vaded" in the series' sixth season, Tyne's name is spelled "Thyne" in the newspaper prop which appears onscreen.
Appearances[]
Season 6 appearances | ||||
"Straw" | "One One Six" | "Poenitentia" | "Wolfsangel" | "The Mad King" |
"Salvage" | "Sweet and Vaded" | "Los Fantasmas" | "John 8:32" | "Huang Wu" |
"Aon Rud Persanta" | "You Are My Sunshine" | "A Mother's Work" |
Season 7 appearances | ||||
"Black Widower" | "Toil and Till" | "Playing with Monsters" | "Poor Little Lambs" | "Some Strange Eruption" |
"Smoke 'em if You Got 'em" | "Greensleeves" | "The Separation of Crows" | "What a Piece of Work is Man" | "Faith and Despondency" |
"Suits of Woe" | "Red Rose" | "Papa's Goods" |