If gritty crime dramas with hunky men and mommy issues are your thing, theres a good chance youre going to go crazy for Animal Kingdom. Loosely adapted from the 2010 Australian film of the same name though more closely resembling a TV version of Point Break than anything else TNTs Animal Kingdom is steeped in California noir goodness. Theres coke, neon lights, sunny beaches, weed, robberies, violence, and Ellen Barkin. What more could you ask for?
The premiere certainly gets right down to business, with paramedics showing up at an apartment and responding to a woman dying from a heroin overdose while her son sits on the couch with a nonchalant look on his face. Its obvious hes been here before, though this time is different. The boy is Josh, a.k.a. J, and this time his mom, Julia, doesnt recover. After she dies, J ends up calling his grandmother (Ellen Barkin), known affectionately as Smurf, for a place to stay.
Smurf comes to pick up her grandson, and smuggles away some drugs while shes at it. As J is about to leave, hes confronted by his moms dealer, whos asking for money hes owed. J doesnt tell him his Mom died, but he doesnt pay him either. Its a small moment, but one that leads to a bigger turning point later in the episode.
When J is brought back to his grandmothers place, we get a glimpse at the life she and her sons are living. Theres a pool, nice cars, plenty of TVs, and money lying around the house. It seems like theyre living the dream, especially compared to the relative squalor J was used to, but its clear that everythings not exactly on the up-and-up. Still, Js uncles set him up in a room, bring him a TV, and give him some money to buy new shoes.
As it turns out, Js extended family are a bunch of criminals, mostly running robbery jobs. Smurfs in charge and her boys do the grunt work. Smurf wants to bring J into the fold for the next operation, which is set to go down in a few days, but her boys arent so sure. They dont know a thing about J and arent sure if they can trust him.
Still, the uncles are trying to make J feel at home, in their own twisted, criminally inclined way. They take him surfing, where they intentionally p**s off other surfers before getting J to pull a gun and show that hes manly enough, that he can hold his own with the big boys. J is clearly reluctant, but what choice does he have?
Back at home, J discovers the room hes staying in isnt exactly his. It belonged to Pope (Shawn Hatosy), another one of Smurfs sons, who was sent to prison for three years for robbing a bank. Hes back home now and not entirely excited to see J in his room. The feeling seems mutual. J is wary of the man and so is Smurf, whos fairly reserved for someone whose boy just got out of prison.
When J isnt spending time being slightly mystified and terrified of his uncles, hes hanging out with his girlfriend, Nicky. After some foreplay that J isnt into (ya know, because of the whole dead-mom thing), they start talking about his moms death and where hes living. As the episode progresses, its hinted that Nickys about to get roped into this criminal lifestyle alongside J, if shes not careful.
Disney"s Animal Kingdom is The Best Night Time ParK | Night Time Safari & Tree Of Life Show
In his 2010 Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom, writer/director David Michd made a somewhat heavy-handed meal out of comparing the central Cody crime family to that of a pecking-order-obsessed animal kingdom; witness the wild-animal illustrations that dominate its opening credits, and the speech a detective gives in order to convince one of the sons to give up the rest of his family. By comparison, Jonathan Liscoan executive producer of this new American TV-series adaptation, and writer of tonights first two episodesrelegates the metaphor to a simple line of dialogue Craig Cody (Ben Robson) delivers, gun in hand, to Joshua J Cody (Finn Cole) in encouraging him to pull that gun on a bunch of angry surfers: Show em whos king, man.
Such subtlety is befitting of a series that, at least on the basis of tonights first two episodes, appears to be differentiating itself from Michds film by focusing more on being a character drama than being a fatalistic neo-noir. The Cody clan of Lisco and John Wells series offers a study of contrasts. Jintroduced in the pilot sitting next to his dead mother, watching TV in a numbed dazeremains as emotionally guarded as he was in the film. The most memorable of the films Cody brothers, the hotheaded Andrew Pope (played in the series by Shawn Hatosy)recently released from a three-year prison term after being caught in one of the Codys robberiesremains just as dangerously impulsive and mentally disturbed. And, of course, theres the matriarch, Janine Smurf (Ellen Barkin), ruling over this dastardly roost with both Ma Barker-like firmness and parental tenderness.
From left to right: Craig (Ben Robson), Baz (Scott Speedman) and Deran (Jake Weary) Cody / TNT
The other Cody siblings, however, are filled in with more detail. Deran (Jake Weary), the youngest, feels an extra need to prove himself to Smurfa frustration that only increases when J, forced to live with Smurf (Js grandmother) and the gang after his mothers death, enters the picture. No such underpinnings drive Craig (Ben Robson), the middle child, who takes drugs and sleeps with random women with reckless abandon. Perhaps the most intriguing of them all, however, is Barry Baz Blackwell (Scott Speedman). Hes the only Cody brother with a wife and daughter, the former of whom gladly partakes in the fruits of her husband and his clans life of crime. Still, these personal attachments appear to have somewhat domesticated Baz and made him more level-headed than the rest; at the very least, hes the only that treats J with a caring respect that borders on the paternal.
All of these character dynamics are put under stress after a heist at the end of the first episode goes terribly wrong, with Baz accidentally killing a cop in the process. In the second episode, We Dont Hurt People, Bazs relatively idyllic home life is threatened as a result, as hes forced to spend some time away from his wife, Catherine (Daniella Alonso), and daughter Lena, to figure out his next move. A mission to destroy a van full of incriminating evidence brings out Derans resentments in full force; after complaining to Craig about how he feels hes doing all the hard work while Smurf and Baz do all the planning and controlling of money, he goes so far as to propose that he and his brother plan their own crimes if the status quo remains intact. As for Craig, the gunshot wound he sustains near his left shoulder as a result of the heist doesnt get any better, even after all the painkillers he illegally procures; by the end of the episode, Baz is forced to drive Craig down to Mexico to get necessary treatment.
It is in Mexico, by the way, that Lisco unveils his kind-of cliffhanger to close out the episode: a shot of Baz embracing and kissing a Mexican woman he seems to know intimately, suggesting that hes carrying on an extramarital affair, the nature of which will be revealed soon enough. This comes on top of a tantalizing exchange earlier in the episode between Pope and Catherine that implies their own affair. Unrelated but similarly curiosity-piquing is a quick flashback to Smurf as a young girl while the adult version rummages through a bathroom medicine cabinet. Not much happens in that seconds-long flashback: Its just young Janine closing a medicine cabinet and heeding her mothers call to come quickly. But it leaves present-day Smurf momentarily flustered. Perhaps Lisco will dive more into her own personal backstory as the series progresseswhich is something that Michd never bothered to do in his film. Such moments are clever ways of drawing us closer into these characters lives, indicating Liscos desire to explore them as flesh-and-blood people.
Through it all, the emotionally reserved J remains the closest Animal Kingdom has an audience surrogate: the outsider observing these morally suspect specimens from a distance. And yet, whereas the J of Michds film was painted as a paragon of morality in an environment bereft of it, the J of Lisco and Wells series is more ambiguous, if still essentially sympathetic. Certainly, considering how his mother inadvertently killed herself, one can grasp why he would find Smurfs affection more bracing. And despite Popes skepticism of J, the rest of the Cody brothers gradually come to embrace J with open arms. But if Js violent lashing-out towards the drug dealer that sold his mother the drugs that killed her and the smile on his face while he beats up another drug dealer along with Craig is any indication, Ja seemingly intelligent kid who appears to be doing well in schoolmay be on a path to corruption the more he learns about his new family. Its hard to be sure at this point, especially because as J, Finn Cole does such an impressive job of conveying an elusive, mysterious quality through his laconicism. Such aloofness characterizes the show as a whole so far, with only the slick, sunny Oceanside, California, settings offering any sense of glamourthe kind of glamour that the Cody clan repeatedly turns to crime to procure for themselves.
Stray Observations
Only in the second episode do we finally see an opening-credits sequence for Animal Kingdomand, with its gritty Atticus Ross music and intercutting between jagged images of idyllic pleasure and violent pain, it strongly recalls that of David Finchers Seven.
In the pilot, upon seeing J wearing yellow sneakers, Craig suggests, among other things, buying Nike Dunksbut not the orange ones; those are just gay. Then, in the second episode, we get a glimpse of Deran in a beach bathroom stall getting what appears to be a b******b from the drug dealer supplying him with painkillers before he starts beating up on him when he sees J walk into the bathroom. Overcompensating much? But also indicative of the series thick air of machismo thus far.
I never thought Id hear stoichiometrya section of chemistry that measures relationships between products and reactants in a chemical reactionused in a flirtatious context, but J unleashes that gem during his first scene with his girlfriend, Nicky (Molly Gordon).
Another sign of Liscos refreshing ability to suggest meaning through gestures rather than expository dialogue: Js gesture of throwing her mothers smartphone into the sea as a way of trying to put his past behind him.
Well see whether Popes seeming fixation on Nickyas evidenced by the creepy way he picks her up from a couch as she sleeps laying her head on Js lap and puts her onto a bedleads to something much more, um, troubling in the future.
