Ellen Barkin is one bad mother on TNT's 'Animal Kingdom'
Fagin and his gang of pickpockets had nothing on Janine "Smurf" Cody and her boys. The canny, unsettling matriarch of a Southern California crime family, Smurf (Ellen Barkin) is the most exotic creature in TNT's new Animal Kingdom, and easily the most dangerous.
Fagin and his gang of pickpockets had nothing on Janine "Smurf" Cody and her boys.
The canny, unsettling matriarch of a Southern California crime family, Smurf (Ellen Barkin) is the most exotic creature in TNT's new Animal Kingdom, and easily the most dangerous.
Oliver Twist wouldn't stand a chance.
But for Joshua "J" Cody (Finn Cole, Peaky Blinders), Smurf is a refuge, the grandmother who comes running when her estranged daughter dies of a heroin overdose in Tuesday's two-hour premiere, leaving 17-year-old J with nowhere else to turn.
The red flags couldn't be redder, but for a moment, at least, it might look as if J had fast-forwarded through more Dickensian travails right to the happy ending.
It's only as Smurf settles him into her sprawling ranch house with pool and reintroduces him to his wary uncles that what is meant to be the port in a storm begins to look more like its eye.
Adapted by Jonathan Lisco (Halt and Catch Fire) from David Michôd's 2010 film, which was in turn loosely based on a 1980s Melbourne family, TNT's Animal Kingdom offers Barkin the same opportunity that FX's Sons of Anarchy, Fargo, and Justified afforded Katey Sagal, Jean Smart, and Margo Martindale: to play a TV mother who is not easily overlooked.
Following Jacki Weaver, whose Smurf scored an Oscar nomination, isn't easy, but Barkin brings even more flash to the role. Whether she's kissing her sons full on the mouth, watching her grandson undress, or offering what seems like wildly inappropriate advice on sex, her behavior can't easily be misconstrued.
But, hey, she loves her boys, even Andrew (Shawn Hatosy, Southland), whose nickname, "Pope," seems even less apt in this version. Recently released from prison and off his meds, he's the loudest ticking of the time bombs under Smurf's roof.
Scott Speedman (Felicity) is Barry "Baz" Brown, Smurf's unofficial (and most dependable) son, whose backstory may turn out to have particular meaning for J.
Ben Robson (Vikings) and Jake Weary (Pretty Little Liars) round out the brotherhood as Craig and Deran Cody, to whom Smurf consigns most of what they consider the grunt work in the family's criminal enterprises.
J, still in high school and against all odds a good student, is already a survivor. It's likely his survival instincts, not some latent criminal gene, that keep him from resisting induction into Smurf's not-very-disciplined army.
And yet, take away the heists (and maybe Smurf's more extreme displays of affection), and you're left with a family whose dysfunctions - greed, drugs, mental illness, and the like - aren't so rare, however much they may endanger the species.
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TELEVISION
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Animal Kingdom
9 p.m. Tuesday
on TNT.EndText