The penultimate episode on Tuesday which has changed everything came as a huge shocker for everyone. Spoiler alert!
Janine “Smurf” Cody has perished, yes; the episode titled ‘Ghosts’ that aired on 13th August revealed the death of the Badass Janine Cody aka Smurf, the head of the Criminal Cody family.
The American crime-drama series, Animal Kingdom, is right now running its fourth season on TNT. Based on the 2010 Australian movie titled same by David Michod, it’s created by Jonathon Lisco with David serving as the executive producer. The series tells the tales of a criminal family, The Codys, whose matriarch is Janine Cody played by Ellen Barkin. The show begins with Joshua “J” Cody reconciling with his estranged grandmother, Smurf, after the death of his mother, Julia, and goes to live with her. J played by Finn Cole is the only one in the clan capable of challenging Smurf, wanting to have authority over her and control her life.
The Flashback
The episodes of the 2019 season navigate through the past and present of the storyline. We have been introduced to a young Smurf in the year1977 who was robbing a bank with her boyfriend Jake and his gang in the opening scene. This season recounts the youth of Smurf where insight to Smurf’s past is elaborately narrated. While on one side, viewers get to witness the rise of criminal matriarch Smurf and her disturbing childhood where she was sexually assaulted, on the other side viewers are left stumped with the revelation of Smurf getting diagnosed with Melanoma, a skin cancer.
Along with the family dynamics of the Cody family in the present time, the birth of Julia and Pope was also traced, which showed that they were born when Smurf went into premature labor. Smurf was dreaming of a new life with her boyfriend Collin, but her life turned upside down when he was shot dead by Police and his brother, Jed, tried to rape the young Janine.
Ghosts
The episode did the unthinkable, Smurf who was diagnosed with terminal skin cancer diseases that challenged her belief of mortality, didn’t want to spend the last days of her life by lying lifelessly on a hospital bed, she rather wanted to die at doing what does best, being the badass that she has been and plotting a money-heist with her son, Pope Cody. It was a suicide mission for her where she launched a gun-battle against Jed and his sons after the money-heist, but to her dismay, she was rescued by Pope who had no inkling of her ideas. That’s when Smurf ripped out her heart open of wanting to die in the fight. In a heart-wrenching moment next, she instigates Pope to shoot her dead, but he didn’t budge. People had only taken a sigh of relief when the unexpected happened, her grandson, J, pulled the trigger at her killing her on the point.
The penultimate episode has left everyone stunned; people are unable to think what will happen to the Cody sons now when the driving force behind the clan is no more. Cody sons might have been desperate to come out of her shadow, but are they self-sufficient to survive on her own?
What is next?
The executive producer of the show, JohnWells, in a conversation with a leading daily divulges that the team was spending a lot of time in thinking to what to do in season 4 to keep shuffling the deck and mixing things up as they want to keep that real feel alive for the audiences where they wouldn’t know the next occurrence. That’s when they thought of a story behind Smurf being ‘The Smurf’ that she was today and end the way it got ended on Tuesday.
The TNT show that has been renewed for season 5 on 24th July 2019 will showcase the struggle of Cody sons to cope with life in the absence of their mother.
The critically praised show holds 76% ratings on rotten tomatoes and has a score of 65 on Metacritic. The finale episode of Season 4 is yet to be aired. The episode which is to be aired on 20th August is expected to be a bombshell one following the death of Smurf and what implications will it cause to J and the Cody clan.