In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dayton Callie revealed that he was made aware of Unser's fate before getting his hands on the script for that fateful episode. While eating lunch, Callie casually asked co-star Katey Sagal if she had read it yet, and her unintentional facial reaction told him everything he needed to know.
"The look on her face said I was dead," he recalled with a laugh. A little later, Callie received more evidence of Unser's demise that was more concrete than Sagal's sorrowful expression. Someone from either the props or wardrobe department assumed Callie had already gotten the script and told him, "Oh, sorry, man." Callie replied, "Sorry about what?," to which they answered, "Your death."
According to Callie, Unser's death wasn't a huge surprise. In his opinion, if "Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter could kill off his own character of Otto Delaney, nobody is safe...especially when they're involved with Gemma. On Reddit, u/insertgoodnamehere23 said of Unser, "I thought he was a great character who tried to do the moral thing at all times but was pathetic when it came to Gemma."
If Callie had his way, Unser's life would have ended in a slightly different fashion. He shared one idea ahead of "Red Rose" in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, suggesting that his death would occur in a non-brutal fashion at the escort service. He said, "If I know Kurt, it ain't going to happen. But maybe he could, and he'll [Unser] just die on the massage table."
