Last evening my younger brother and I watched the final episode of season four of Animal Kingdom ─ the series had become our current favourite, with Game of Thrones coming in second.
We like the three Cody brothers ─ they all have some very good qualities. But I don't think either of us was sorry to see the end of Ellen Barkin's Smurf character in the previous episode. I don't care how much the producers try to garner our sympathies for Smurf by constantly flashbacking to when she was a young woman trying to prove what a standout gangster she was ─ she became vile and an absolutely wretched mother.
I despise how she pitted her sons and grandson against one another; and the idea that she actually had her 'foster' son Baz murdered is unfathomable and unforgivable. It was her own fault that he finally turned against her ─ and only her, for he loved his three step-brothers or whatever the actual relationship was, and he seemed willing to accept that her grandson "J" was probably his son through his involvement with J's mother (Baz's foster sister).
I don't like J ─ he's scheming and selfish. I especially despised him for murdering Smurf's woman lawyer to try and take the spotlight off himself and place it onto her for a huge embezzlement J had enacted of Smurf's holdings while he was her business affairs custodian during her time in prison.
That was unforgivably cold-blooded. The lawyer was innocent of wrong-doing. For him to have taken her out to sea and then thrown her overboard after causing her a great wound to her leg ─ it was horrific.
But at least the prick killed Mia, the untrustworthy, conniving tramp who had been the actual assassin assigned to murder poor Baz the night he and his girlfriend were about to drive to Mexico to live. Mia and another woman later also killed Baz's girlfriend after she had returned to Mexico ─ again, a murder commissioned by Smurf.
My brother actually tries to defend J to me ─ to no avail.
But at least he and I are in strong accord on being very happy that all three of the Cody brothers are still alive at the end of the fourth season.
What we would like to see is for Pope to somehow reconcile with his three cousins, even though Smurf murdered their father in front of them in the same episode in which she was deservedly killed, and even though the Cody brothers and J stole the other family's cache of gold.
Those other three brothers are also virtually 'Codys', are they not? They are to Pope, anyway.
None of the families knew that the other family existed ─ only Smurf knew. It all only came to light when Smurf had Pope go with her to the other family's 'prepper' retreat and the relationship all came into the open. Smurf ─ dying of cancer ─ wanted to be killed in a shoot-out with the sons of the man she killed, and she wanted Pope to be killed along with her.
She definitely had to go.
I detested her in that final scene where she was threatening her sons with a gun, screaming and cursing them out and declaring that she was going to end Pope right there if he did not shoot and kill her ─ J did her the favour, for his uncles just could not.
So the three 'prepper' brothers are Pope's first cousins, although not cousins to his two brothers (the Cody brothers all had different fathers).
What I do not understand at all is where their surname Cody derives? Is it Smurf's maiden name?
Or did she and Colin ─ Pope's father ─ perhaps marry, and it is his family name? If so, then his brother Jed would also be a Cody, as would Jed's three sons.
The Smurf Codys make so much of the fact that nothing else in life matters but family. What, then, of those other three brothers if they are also Codys?
Why is it so damned hard to find out the origin of Smurf's Cody surname in this series? It had to have come from somewhere, didn't it?
Incidentally, Smurf's lawyer that J murdered was played by actress Laura San Giacomo. To his credit, my brother actually pointed out that she was familiar from some old T.V. series when she was so much younger ─ until then, I had not at all recognized her as being known to me.
So I researched and found out that it was the T.V. series Just Shoot Me! that we knew her from. Her father in that series was played by actor George Segal ─ he is so much older now, but is currently very familiar to fans of the T.V. series The Goldbergs as the grandfather figure, "Pops".
Anyway, my brother and I are rather hoping that with Smurf dead, somehow Jed's three sons and the Codys will all accept one another as family. Of course, something will have to be done about the stolen gold that the Codys have. A saving grace there is that they had no idea that they were actually stealing it from "family". Maybe Jed's sons can come to understand that.
Also, I like the Angela character as played by Emily Deschanel. I am hoping that she truly does care for Pope, and that the Codys have all accepted her into the family as seems to be evidenced by the final scene in the finale episode of season four.
When Angela was first introduced, I had a little trouble believing that it was Emily Deschanel from the T.V. series Bones ─ the actress played the titular character 'Bones'. Even my brother ─ who was more of a fan of Bones than was I ─ was unsure if it was her. I had to make the suggestion before he clued in that it might be her.
I grew to lose all interest in Bones because of how unrealistic it became when Emily piled on the flab on her hips ─ 'saddlebags' ─ and looked like she was always wearing the type of pants that flare out alongside the thighs that are known as jodhpurs. (Providing that the link remains valid, you can see the style of pants I mean on this RCMP officer.)
Whatever sex appeal she ever had in the series vanished as far as I was concerned, and it made no sense to me that she had a 'leading lady' role.
But she's looking darned good in Animal Kingdom. The saddlebags are definitely gone.
Anyway, in some ways my brother and I most like Shawn Hatosy's character Pope best of the Codys, but Ben Robson as Craig and Jake Weary as Deran are both doing superb jobs of acting.
As I said, we hope none of the brothers gets killed off in season five.
Okay, enough about T.V.
My wife came home last evening after working at her friend's Thai restaurant, and returned to work this morning, leaving just after 11:00 a.m.
I am not expecting her home again until at least sometime on Sunday, and possibly not until Monday. She tends to spend her weekends somewhere in Vancouver (such is my feeble marriage).
I found myself pleased early this a.m. after I rose and was putting content into the new post I have in development at one of my six hosted websites. I had risen around 2:00 a.m., I suppose; and as I always do, I sought not to disturb my wife as I got up.
After maybe an hour, she rose to use the bathroom, and noticed that the light was on where I was seated here at my computer in the small room next to our bedroom.
I think that she must have assumed that she had left the light on, for she expressed wordless surprise when she attained the open doorway and saw me here, and then explained that she did not even realize that I was not still in bed.
That made me feel good.
The day has been mainly cloudy. And there really is nothing more to report.
No comments:
Post a Comment