TNT’s new Animal Kingdom vaults Ellen Barkin into distinguished company as an amoral and creepy female crime boss.
Animal Kingdom, which launches Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET with back-to-back episodes, puts Barkin out front as Janine “Smurf” Cody, who is anything but blue and cuddly as she directs her psychotic sons through a stream of armed robberies.
Television recently seems to have created its own version of Title IX in the crime game. From Margo Martindale’s Mags Bennett in Justified to Katey Sagal’s Gemma Teller Morrow on Sons of Anarchy and Jean Smart’s Floyd Gerhardt on Fargo, we are at this point thoroughly convinced that it’s not only men who enjoy living outside the law.
Each of these women has had different disturbing nuances, of course. Barkin’s include a domestic breeziness straight out of a ‘50s sitcom, as we repeatedly see her fixing elaborate meals just the way her boys like ‘em.
We also watch her control those boys with a mixture of over affection and non-negotiable ultimatums. She nods with maternal pride when middle son Craig (Ben Robson) walks into the kitchen for breakfast naked, or snorts cocaine when the family gathers in the living room.
Manipulative would be an understatement for Janine, but she apparently has sold the boys on the idea that doing things her way beats working for a living.
Naturally there is some trouble in paradise. Her youngest son Deran (Jake Weary) resents being the youngest. Her oldest son Pope (Shawn Hatosy) just got out of prison, where he did three years for a bank job in which he was the only one who got caught.
Pope, who hides his cards, is clearly a ticking time bomb.
All three of the boys feel resentment toward the fourth member of their group, Baz Blackwell (Scott Speedman, left). He was adopted by Janine when he was 12, and he’s now her chief aide. He also has a steady squeeze, Catherine Ortiz (Daniella Alonso), and a 4-year-old son who enables Janine to play doting grandparent.
As Animal Kingdom begins, this core group is joined by a wild card: Josh (Finn Cole, below), known simply as J.
J is the son of Janine’s only daughter Julia, who was Pope’s twin. Julia rejected the family business and tried to keep Josh sheltered from it.
Unfortunately, Julia was also a heroin addict. She and Josh lived on the top floor of a cheap motel and one day she OD’d on $90 worth of smack. Josh watched a TV game show while patiently waiting for the EMTs to arrive and pronounce her dead.
That catapults Josh, at 17, into Janine’s world, which produces considerable culture shock for a kid who rides around on a bicycle and can fit his whole life into a duffel bag.
Josh doesn’t say much at first, even when his uncles start testing him. The fact he hasn’t figured them out works nicely for the show, since viewers will feel the same way.
Still, Josh doesn’t have the luxury of sitting it out indefinitely, particularly when the family latches onto his rebel girlfriend Nicky Belmont (Molly Gordon). She’s drawn to their swaggering outlaw style, and it doesn’t hurt that they can afford some things that Josh previously could not.
The first episodes of Animal Kingdom don’t suggest we should look for a lot of happy endings any time soon. But they leave several doors open for Josh, so we will presumably start to get a sense of whether he breaks good or bad.
Animal Kingdom is filmed to accentuate the creepiness. Janine smiles a little too broadly, and Pope is a little too nice to this nephew he found in his room when he got out of the joint.
Some of the robbery scenes are reminiscent of old-school drive-in features, with heavy ominous background music and regular gangster wisecracks.
Humor is otherwise employed sparingly.
But Animal Kingdom isn’t dark just because most of TV is going dark these days. It’s got things to say, about a family that has bonded for all the wrong reasons and whether a latecomer can avoid catching what the others have.
It’s disturbing and off-center enough that it never feels like we know exactly what will happen next. Except that it probably won’t be good.