What will happen in Animal Kingdom Season 5?
By Rachel Roth
What will happen in the next season of Animal Kingdom? Will Smurf die or will she live for another year?
Hooray! Animal Kingdom will live to see another year. The TNT crime series has officially been renewed for a fifth season and I for one couldn’t be happier. It was looking like the show wouldn’t make it, having gone all the way to late July without any good news, but now that it has we can finally start speculating.
What will happen in Season 5? Will Adrian go to prison? Will Craig be a good father? Will Angela continue to annoy us with her presence? But the big question is, who will die this season? To lead the characters into another drama-filled story, Season 4 has to end with an explosion. It’s likely that Season 5 will be their last and right now we’re heading towards the end game and anyone who’s seen a crime series knows the end is usually a bittersweet one.
Once upon a time storybooks, TV shows, and movies liked happy endings but apparently, that’s not edgy enough anymore and everything’s got to make us cry. So let’s take a look at some of the ways Animal Kingdom might make us cry next year, shall we?
The boys without Smurf
No one is ever truly safe on Animal Kingdom, the deaths of Lucy, Cath and, most importantly, Baz proved that, and right now, all signs point to Smurf. There were rumors of Ellen Barkin leaving the show, but are they true? Smurf’s cancer isn’t going to miraculously disappear by Episode 13, especially since she’s no longer interested in chemotherapy, and let’s be frank, her purpose has run its course.
Before Season 4 aired, there was some Twitter drama featuring Barkin and her costars, and while I personally think it was part of a promotional tactic for the show, it raised rumors of Barkin’s departure.
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The show has grown a lot from what it was in Season 1. No longer are the Codys a pack of momma boys ready to come running the minute Smurf starts calling.
The original focus of the series was the manipulative hold Smurf had over her children, the ways she controlled them and her cruel treatment of them. They’d try to leave and she’d pull them back in. This dynamic was changed during Season 3 when Baz died, and Smurf went to jail.
The guys have made it clear that they don’t need her anymore and any further attempts to return to their former relationship would just set the show back. Smurf dying would be the logical choice. The first episode of Season 4 was titled “Janine” and the final episode is titled “Smurf”, indicating this may be her final run as we’ve seen her full arc.
The end of Pope and Julia
Pope falling to pieces is not anything new but if Smurf does actually die, I can’t see him taking it very well. Deran, Craig, and J are socially functional, but Pope is a whole other story.
He’s already lost Baz and Julia, and if he loses Smurf to, he’ll have no choice but to venture out in the world on his own. The others see Smurf’s death as the last chain of their confinement finally broken free but no matter how much Pope wishes for her death, he’s the one that actually needs her. The damage she inflicted on him has become irreversible.
There’s a chance that Season 5 might showcase Pope’s mental deterioration and if that’s the case, we might get some more Julia references. When Animal Kingdom first started, we knew almost nothing of Julia other than Pope was her twin, she dated Baz and that she was a drug addict. The Cody twins, though we never got to see them together, seem as if they were one person cut down the middle. J is her son, yet her memory seems to exist stronger within Pope.
Before their other siblings were born, they only had each other and since the beginning, it’s been heavily suggested (never confirmed) that the two had an incestuous relationship. This season introduced flashbacks, most likely as a way to say farewell to Smurf, so will Season 5 introduce flashbacks featuring Julia as a farewell to Pope?
J’s role in the family
Joshua “J” came in this show with a goal and that goal was revenge. He’s going to punish Smurf for abandoning her only daughter, but if she’s gone, what will J do then? Without revenge fueling his motives, what would J’s new role in the family be?
J wanted to be in charge in order to remove Smurf from her position of power, but in this most recent episode, “SHTF”, J admits that he liked being in charge and wants to remain so. Up until joining the Cody family, J didn’t seem to have any real ambition. The first episode of the series portrayed him as an intelligent if not bored high school student honing a look of numbness in virtually every scene. That changed when he got a taste of power and figured out what he’s good at, running a small crime syndicate.
If Smurf dies, J will likely want to take over but he’s faulted by an unfortunate heavy amount of arrogance. His mistakes are commonly caused by the way he underestimates certain people, assuming he’s the smartest person in the room. His demand for control might bring about a rift in the family. Right now, neither Deran nor Craig want to be in charge, but the show might change this is they want J to have a rival.
Deran and Adrian
I have no idea how Adrian’s drug problem will play out but logically it can go one of two ways, either he goes to prison or Deran gets the case dropped and they go on with their lives. Either way, they’ll be repercussions to pay.
In the tradition of Animal Kingdom love interests and supporting characters one might suggest that Adrian leaves the season in a body bag, but thanks to some resourceful fans, we know that Spencer Treat Clark and Jake Weary were on set together filming on the final day of the last episode. Nothing about the scene suggested a violent altercation, but this still leaves a big question mark on their relationship.
Even if Adrian remains a free man, some significant damage has been done and it’s already driven Deran to murder. He already killed someone back in Season 1 when he accidentally killed a cop in the pilot but that was unintentional. Colby was shot point-blank in the face without remorse.
This probably won’t affect the plot directly, but it could put a strain on Adrian who has more of a conscience than the other characters. The D x A romance, if expanded beyond a side plot, could be a unique route for the show. The contrast between the two, violence and (sorta-kinda) innocence could offer up some intense drama.
Craig might go straight
Poor Craig is not a natural-born criminal nor is he someone who thrives in crime life. He’s impulsive and needs direction, knowing this, it’s easy to see that had he been given a “normal” life he probably wouldn’t have ever committed a crime outside of vandalism and drug abuse.
The same way Adrian is the calmness in Deran’s life, Renn is the calmness in Craig’s. Renn has been a sporadic guest star since her Season 1 introduction, appearing as Craig’s drug dealer/unattached girlfriend until she vanished for most of Seasons 2 and 3. That’s about to change now that she’s the mother of Craig’s son.
In the past, Craig’s been treated like a glorified extra as he’s the Cody that’s typically the least involved in their criminal activities. The show makes it pretty clear that Craig probably wouldn’t commit many crimes (if any) if his family wasn’t influencing it. He usually needs someone to go to, someone to tell him what to do. Without this direction, he’d spend all his time playing video games and hanging out with friends. He’s not a violent person unlike Pope and J or even Deran who has an explosive temper.
If Animal Kingdom is going to end after Season 5, the way John Wells originally intended, then the boys need to get their acts together soon and for Craig, that’s probably going to involve Renn and their new son.
Don’t miss the next episode of Animal Kingdom on Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m. ET on TNT.