WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Animal Kingdom Season 5, Episode 13, “Launch,” which aired Sunday on TNT.
TNT’s Animal Kingdom follows J (Finn Cole) navigating his new life with his estranged criminal family after his mother’s overdose. Therefore, J’s mother, Julia, isn’t in the show and the majority of what audiences learn about her involves hearing it from other characters — and just how true some of the stories are is still up for debate. However, Animal Kingdom‘s fifth season changes all that by diving into a young Julia’s (Scarlet Abinante) life and relationship with her mother, Smurf (Leila George/Ellen Barkin), and twin brother, Andrew (Houston Towe/Shawn Hatosy). While fans know Julia struggled with a heroin addiction most of her life, the flashbacks finally reveal a key moment that signifies the start of her downfall.
Season 5’s flashback place the twins at around eight years old, and their lives thus far haven’t been easy. From living in a car to witnessing horrific violence, the flashbacks confirm Smurf’s manipulations extend back into her children’s early years. Smurf’s small army of criminals were trained from their youth, and to get them to go along with her illegal schemes, she encouraged them to push aside their empathy and conscience. While Andrew has an easier time with this, Julia struggles, marking the first crack in the mother/daughter relationship Animal Kingdom fans already know fails in the future.
In Season 5’s finale, “Launch,” Smurf sends the twins to pickpocket wallets — a task Julia has a hard time wanting to do without encouragement from her mother. Julia’s strong sense of right and wrong also appears in Season 5, Episode 11, “Trust the Process,” when Smurf kills Max (Jamie McShane). While Andrew justifies the incident as a necessary means to protect his family from the “bad man,” Julia remains upset. However, instead of comforting her crying daughter, Smurf gravitates to Andrew, rewarding his efforts to help her with a big bowl of chili.
It signifies the first break in the mother/daughter relationship as Smurf would rather put her time into the child she sees as a valuable asset to her growing criminal empire. In the finale, when Julia is once again concerned after breaking into the home, which would later become Smurf’s iconic residence, Smurf offers her daughter what’s left of her alcoholic beverage to help her sleep. Julia readily accepts it and polishes off the cocktail without showing the expected face of disgust most kids exhibit when trying alcohol for the first time.
Knowing Julia’s future as an addict makes the scene hard to swallow. It’s Julia’s first time using a substance to cope with her reality. And since Julia’s often uncomfortable with her mother’s actions and requests, her reaching for alcohol or drugs to cope will only become more frequent. The scene also reinforces what audiences learn about adult Julia throughout the seasons. The only reason J starts Season 1 estranged from his grandmother and uncles in the first place was because of his mother, and Julia pulled away from her family because her morals didn’t align with theirs.
Julia’s exploration of drugs will likely be highlighted more in Season 6, which has already cast Jasper Polish as a teenage Julia. Press details describe teenage Julia as “beautiful, intelligent and edgy.” It also says she’s an excellent student but also “the type of chick who sells tabs of LSD because she thinks it’s cool.” For Animal Kingdom fans looking to fill in more of the blanks from young Julia to Season 1’s Julia, Season 6’s flashbacks are sure to be both exciting and tragic.
Animal Kingdom Season 5 is available on TNT. An official release date for Season 6 has not been confirmed yet.
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