Animal Kingdom season 3 episode 11 recap: Baz’s killer is revealed

Smurf’s plan of forcing Lucy’s hand backfires and someone is shot and another is kidnapped on Animal Kingdom.

First of all, let’s give a round of applause to Shawn Hatosy on his directorial debut and giving us a fantastic episode of Animal Kingdom. Hopefully he’ll be sitting in the director’s chair again. This was an intense episode and like all serious and intense episodes it eases us in with some fluff.

And what fluff is better than Adrian and Deran domesticity? They make PB & J sandwiches for breakfast as Adrian hints around at Deran to get his own place. It’s just about the only cute moment in the whole freaking episode, because everyone else has a rather strange morning.

We have Smurf walking in on J in the shower and practically eyeing his naked form in a Game of Thrones sort of way. And while everyone else is either being visually molested or eating breakfast, Pope is asking Craig to help kidnap Lena and get them both fake IDs. When the favor is denied, Pope then musters up his best puppy-eyed expression to ask Craig to adopt Lena.

Craig wanted to be Renn’s baby-daddy just last week on Animal Kingdom. Maybe this is some kind of hint towards fatherhood in Craig’s future. Cue the distress signals.

Lucy + Smurf = disaster

The easy mornings are over and it’s all emotional trauma from here. Last episode, Smurf kidnapped Lucy’s brother Marco and forced him to tell her where the stolen money is. After, who knows how long, he admitted that he and Lucy took the money and now Smurf wants the boys to go get it. However, as we all have heard from them many times, they don’t want to do it. So instead of going to Mexico, they decide to bring Lucy to them, which is a horrible idea. Really Smurf, did you think that kidnapping the brother of a dangerous woman who runs a cartel would come out good in your favor?

Smurf preaches on and on about how the money is theirs and that she only wants it back for them. Yet no one but her seems to care that it’s gone. They all woke up that morning worrying about their own problems and then comes in mommy whining about their stolen money that no one misses. She’s a little shocked upon finding out that the cash part of the $7 million was already divided among the boys when Baz was still alive and they never said anything.

When Lucy agrees to meet with them, Smurf sends J to pick her up without a bullet-proof vest or backup. According to Smurf, J is the only one no one considers a threat and  “we need her to believe that we trust her” but J knows its because she doesn’t care whether he lives or dies. He’s expendable. Meanwhile, J is also telling everything to Mia, who is the actual shooter but continues to act like she doesn’t know anything. It’s going to be explosive when J finds out, or maybe not since J has as much emotion as a kitchen sponge most of the time.

Lucy arrives and gives back what she stole, and that’s when everything goes South. Marco is handed over to his sister, but being such an impulsive hot-head, he can’t just calmly get in the car but instead, he grabs someone’s gun and starts shooting. Everyone’s guns come out and bullets start flying. J is the only one who bothers saving Smurf while everyone else takes cover. At the end of the bullet storm, Marco gets shot and Pope is kidnapped in the back of Lucy’s truck.

Codys are falling apart

When the Codys get home to re-cooperate, they start arguing and turning on each other. They’re afraid of what’s happening to Pope but don’t know how to save him without getting themselves killed.

In the mist of their finger-pointing, Craig turns to J and accuses him of being in on everything and proceeds to blame him for everything that has gone wrong since Animal Kingdom season 1. I mean he’s right about J knowing more than he does, but blaming him for Cath’s disappearance? That’s pushing it. But he noticed the way J acts and how he looked at Pete and Tina (Smurf’s gang protection squad) who made a brief appearance at the beginning of the episode and realizes that he knows them.

J gives him a murderous look for the accusations. It’s a frightening look of untapped rage. When J’s not expressionless, he’s either angry or angry and he looked angry.

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Who killed Baz?

The talk of Baz is heavy for the rest of the episode as Lucy continues to blame Smurf and Smurf continues to blame Lucy. Marco is dead and Lucy now has lost two people that she loved because of Smurf. After giving herself a moment to grieve for her brother, she has a harsh and brutally honest talk with Pope. She claims that he’s secretly happy about Baz’s death because he hated how everyone loved Baz and hated him. That he never forgave him for stealing Cath and without his more charming brother around, he now has his mother’s full attention.

I think we can offically clear Lucy’s name off the “Who Killed Baz” list because the way she blamed Pope for not caring about his brother, it’s hard to believe that she never loved him. As for stealing the money, she admits that she took it because Baz was already dead, and she only did it to rip off Smurf.

All those months with the stolen money and she never once tried to fence it, she even kept it all in the original suitcases Baz put them in. I think she stole it for Baz, in his honor, because she was so convinced that Smurf called the hit the moment it happened.

Smurf confesses

Who killed Baz? The answer is…Smurf. Honestly, it was a forced half-hearted confession but it’s really the only viable answer. The two woman meet at a public place and have a tense conversation about Baz where everything comes clean. Smurf blames Lucy for poisoning Baz against the family and recalls a memory of when a teenage Baz had stolen $200 dollars from his mother’s bedroom drawer to buy Lucy a necklace. This memory shows how Smurf really saw Baz, a thief she both loved but couldn’t completely trust.

In exchange for Pope’s safe return, Lucy demands that Smurf admit it. Admit that she killed her son, and she does. In Smurf’s own words, when someone steals $7 million from you, you handle it and Baz stole $7 million from her so she handled it.  As promised, Lucy returns Pope and gives a threatening farewell to who could have been her mother-in-law.

Smurf and Pope are reunited but it’s not a warm reunion. They barely speak to each other and only once they get home does Pope turn to her and say, “I know it was you.”

She doesn’t deny it, and gives a slight nod of her head. If this is her way of confessing then it’s as smart as kidnapping a cartel woman’s brother. Let me tell my mentally unstable son that I killed his best friend, brother and emotional caregiver, that’ll end well.

I thought Lucy was going to meet her end here but instead it was only Marco. She seems to have announced her goodbye to the Cody’s and now that Smurf has her money back, she no longer has any reason to go after Lucy ever again. Bye Marco, you certainly will not be missed.

Only one more episode left until the Animal Kingdom season finale, don’t miss next week on Tuesday night at 9 p.m. on TNT.