‘Animal Kingdom’: Everything You Need to Know
The family that slays together stays together” — it’s a phrase might as well be inscribed in Latin on the Cody clan’s crest. Three generations of burglars and thieves come together under one roof on TNT’s rough-hewn new drama Animal Kingdom (an Americanized adaptation of the 2010 Australian crime thriller) and precious little is off-limits: the kids blow lines of coke in front of their elders, the oldest son delivers an extended angry tirade to his relatives while hanging dong, and if someone gets bumped off during a messy jewel heist, you better pray that Ellen Barkin’s Ma Barker-like matriarch is cool with it. Don’t think that power struggles among this blood-related syndicate won’t turn family dinners from awkward to violent in seconds flat.
To fully prepare yourself for the show’s June 14th bow on TNT, take a look over the who, what, and why of this SoCal Sopranos.
Who’s in it, and what’s it about?
The queen bee is Janine, affectionately known as “Smurf” to her brood of no-goodniks. Portrayed in the original film by Jacki Weaver (in a performance that’d net her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress), the role changes hands to Ellen Barkin for the small-screen version. She animates Smurf with the same eerie contrast between matronly affection and unsparing cruelty that made Weaver a trans-Pacific sensation; when the audience first meets her, she growls a muted threat of violence at her own son for letting a perfectly good batch of cupcakes burn.
Eldest son Pope (Fear the Walking Dead‘s Shawn Hatosy) returns from a years-long stay in the clink during the pilot, and the volatile, possibly psychopathic young man is not pleased to see how the shop’s been run in his absence. Receiving the brunt of his abuse is his brother Craig (Ben Robson) and close friend of the family/partner-in-crime Baz (Scott Speedman), who grows unsure of the Codys’ high-risk lifestyle when a wife and child enter the picture. The youngest son, Deran (Jake Weary) scuttles around the family cesspool, trying not to get caught up in the fray.
And then there’s Josh, rechristened “J” (Finn Cole) upon his reunion with his relatives and the de facto audience surrogate. After his mother dies from a heroin OD in the pilot’s opening minutes, J contacts his estranged grandma Smurf, who welcomes him in with open talons. He’s the show’s internal conflict engine, both frightened of his ruthless uncles and weirdly menacing grandmother and seduced by the authority they assume.
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