IGN voted Agent Stahl's death #10 in their list of the biggest deaths, They said: "The ending of Season 3 was one of the more gratifying twists the show ever had. Things seemed bleak when Agent Stahl informed the club that Jax had made a deal and ratted them out. But what she didn’t know was that it was all a setup, one that ended with her dead as Opie got his revenge for her setting him up and getting his wife killed. The season ended on an unexpectedly up note as Clay and Jax smiled and the rest of the guys in the prison van shared a laugh. Sure they were on their way to prison, but Jax wasn’t a rat and Stahl was out of the picture for good."[1]
Zach Handler of The A.V. Club gave "NS" an A− rating, stating; "What worked the best about 'NS' and what allows me to be optimistic about next season's potential, even while having largely mixed feelings on this season overall, is the ending. The episode doesn't manage to make all the IRA stuff feel organic, and Hal Holbrook doesn't pop back in to remind us about that basically innocent housekeeper that got murdered a while back, but it does introduce a new threat to the Sons, and, unlike Cameron and his Disappearing Baby Trick, this threat fits in beautifully with the context of the show overall. Maureen smuggled John's letters to her in Jax's backpack, and Tara found them. Reading them, while Jax and Clay grin at each other in triumph and while Gemma sits with her grandson in her arms, propped up like a queen on her throne, we hear Teller's voice-over again. It's long been hinted at that Clay and Gemma had something to do with John's death. This is a Hamlet riff, after all. And now Tara, the outsider who finally found her way to belonging, has reason to be suspicious. Makes you wonder what else is in those letters. And it makes you wonder what Jax'll do if he reads them."[2]