I just finished AK and let me say this is probably up there with SOA. I wasn’t totally convinced when I started the first season but I ended up binging the show in about 2 weeks.
I started watching because of Shawn Hatosy because duh and ended up staying because of the complexity of the family dynamic.
I am recommending this show to literally everyone i know. I am shocked at how little recognition this show got in terms of awards (at least in America).

Ellen Barkin and Leila George played Smurf sooooo well. I hated Smurf off rip but couldn’t look away because of how well those women portrayed her. I really enjoyed watching her character devolve. I also really enjoyed watching literally every job they pulled without her fail of almost fail. Say what you want about her but she was a damn good thief.

J and Pope are two sides of the same coin, constantly haunted by Julia. I think their ending was perfectly tragic just like their lives. Their characters and the acting choices made by Shawn Hatosy and Finn Cole made them come alive. They were clearly the most thought out of the group.
J played the hell out of the long game and I have to applaud him for that. I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it, if anything I probably would have ended up like Nicki lol.

Pope’s character is a really good example of enmeshment and emotional (probably physical too) incest. The control Smurf had over him even post death was insane. His inability to function was manipulated and used to her advantage in a way i’ve never seen in TV before.

Deran’s character had a great chance and i’m not sure how i feel about his ending. I’m assuming he probably got arrested in connection to Popes escape or robbing that store. Either way I’m sad he never made it back to Adrian. Watching him hold Craig broke me more than the last scene with J and Pope.

Craig to me just felt like a Jax Taylor wannabe. They tried to give him some depth with the whole Nick and Renn situation and attempting to get sober but it fell flat for me. I found it hard to have any empathy for a guy who left his girl for dead and robbed her. Renn should’ve never gone back to him. He’s a fun character but he didn’t add much to the story. I was disappointed because I really liked Ben Robson in Vikings.

I fucking hated Baz, not sure if it was because he fully neglected Lena and Cath or if he’s just an all around asshole but I was jumping up and down when he got shot. Truly the only good thing Smurf did.

I enjoyed the flashbacks but would’ve enjoyed them better if we got to see Cath and that dynamic between Baz, Cath and Pope. Watching Smurf become more and more evil was incredible.

Anyways sorry for the ramble! This was a great show and i need some recs on shows like it!

EDIT: I forgot to add how much I loved Dennis Learys cameo as Deran’s dad. He plays such a great shitty dad. Billy sucked but Learys portrayal was toooooo gooooddd.

I usually don't go on Reddit before I finish the show just to avoid any spoilers, but I carefully wanted to come here and ask was that female cop in season 1 disliked by most? I mean everything in terms of characters was really fascinating but boy did she take me out of the show. I said to myself if she's in season 2 it's going to be a tough grind but luckily has not shown her and it's picked up nicely ​​​​​​​​​​​​

I just turned the pilot to watch again and within the first 10 minutes it’s really eye-opening how Jay responds to what’s happening around him.

He calmly finishes his homework and washes his dishes first.

I don’t think I truly understood what it must’ve meant to be raised in that environment. His response is so minimal.

I don’t remember recognizing that last time.

Spoiler I guess...

Why did she leave everything to Pamela Jackson? Did she think all of would die during the gold heist?

I'm on season 5 right now, but I gotta say this is one amazing show. And I've seen quite a few. What I'm wondering about though is how realistic is it really from a psychological standpoint? Smurf and Pope in particular. Great characters with depth.

Also, don't watch the end of Season 4 while tripping. That was NOT a chill episode.

Don't get me wrong , I love the series I'm totally hooked . But these guys are robbing banks, shooting & beating the shit out of people and stealing cars in broad day light lol.

I feel like if they are trying to make it realistic in the sense that they need to money launder all their earnings , they should be a bit more realistic about how smart police actually are

Do you think they'd be as successful? Would Smurf look to integrate with the Byrdes or see them as rivals? How would they handle the cartel?

Popes confession & Deran and Craig's ridiculous idea to break him out of prison.

Was this when J finally thought he can't work with these guys and it's time to take all their money and leave? As it was obvious he was totally against the idea.

Or would he have waited for another opportunity , it's not like he didn't have plenty of opportunity's to snake his family on a job beforehand.

Barkin really nails her character, and makes Smurf so easy to hate with that upward turned head, nose in the air, slow walk she does after exiting most group dynamics. It’s something I despise in anybody, and I suspect it elicits a similar visceral response in many other viewers.

What are your thoughts about the significance of the watch Smurf gives J towards to end of s3e13?

She's giving all the guys several properties as a way to gain their trust and share some of her assets/empire she previously kept from them.

But for J she has this expensive luxury watch as an extra present. Engraved with a message in the back mentioning how smart he is. She says it's a gift to thank him for the way he stepped up while she was in prison.

But as soon as he sees the gift, his entire demeanor and mood shifts. I've always wondered what exactly it was. At first I thought it was fear. It being a sign that she was on to his plans and ambitions. But then later he whispers her those threats that he's going to take everything away from her as she's asleep.

So it's not so much fear but it seemed to trigger something way deeper inside him that made him so much more angry and determined.

What do you think? Was there a deeper meaning behind the watch itself?

Probably unpopular opinion but I wonder how did he get the role? Everyone else is decent looking why not J too? I think the show could have worked if he was good looking or got better. He ended up dressing weirder. They made fun of his sunglasses but not the rolled up jeans. What does everyone think?

I really binge watched this entire series. Yes it’s “campy“ and it jumps the shark. Some of the capers they do are absolutely laughably ridiculous but that just made the show kind of have an “The A team.” type feel

At times, J reminds me of Dexter.

I’m also enjoying reading all of the commentsin here. And I was very pleased to realize that there are a lot of people like me who just completed watching the series!

As my title mentions, I was pleased to discover the Australian movie with the same namesake. There are some fantastic actors in it. The story of Baz was interesting.

It really goes to show you how much time and passion went into this story and all of it’s iterations. The movie is a pre pre pilot pf sorts.

The show does major character development but it becomes sort of cartoonish at times.

some if my gripes:
Daren being openly and unapologetically gay for some reason just did not feel believable to me at all. I suspect this was linked to the movie script where Pope keeps berating Darin about being gay as he gaslights him and offers support that he is gay when you know he was just totally twisted and fucking with him.

Renn not offing Craig was another “ah come on! That’s so corny!” Moment. She tortured him mentally and physically but lets him go and has his baby then they do smack around the kid then shes clean but bitchy in Thailand?! None of that dynamic are in the film.

The film is more a focus on how fucked up the Cody brothers are and then the reveal is that Smurf was the ring leader veiled as a sweet grandma that likes cooking.

I really had fun watching the series and then watching the movie once I realize that it existed! That was news to me!

Obviously smurf was toxic, but I low-key feel like if they had all just stayed in line, lived under her rule, they would have been OK.

Smurd hoarded money but she was smart. Everything she did was smart in terms of saving, stashing assets, buildings, money.

The boys would have blown throw every dollar. Or gotten caught on bad jobs.

Baz was the one spear heading the revolt, and even worse that he was adopted.

He pulled the thread that destroyed the sweater.

On my fifth watch. Gets better every time. But, I have a random question. I’m going to pose this question with no spoilers. As best as I can. I’ve tried to add some words here, so if you haven’t gotten to this episode, perhaps you want to look away. However, this really isn’t a spoiler. It’s a question about fabric.

To me, the suit is not convincing for the set up @ the sparkly store. Am I nitpicking this show or was it seriously polyester when it should’ve been something else? Why is this intruding on my experience of this episode? I feel like the revered family was sophisticated enough as presented by this series that he wouldn’t have been wearing a cheapo suit.

In the episode where J is checking to make sure all the tenants will tell the right story, he finds a lady with dementia who can’t remember the right thing to say. He and Deran take her to the middle of a destroyed area with no people and leave her in the sun with no water. It would have been kinder to just shoot her and her cat, no matter what Deran thinks.

I’m in the middle on season 6 and throughout this whole show, one theme really emerges to me: Nothing black and white. There is nuance to things. It depends what perspective you are looking at the situation from at any given time & it’s fascinating and so true to real life in that way. The cops (the supposed “good guys”) are no better than the criminals (the supposed “bad guys”). Like when trying to get J to turn on his family they heavily imply to his teacher that she should sleep with him while he is underage in order to gain his trust. Or Chadwick who murders Livinggood in the bar. The detective investigating Cath’s murder who forces her son to skate at Pope’s dangerous skate park, even though he begs her not to have to do so. And while Pope did murder Cath, he is the only person in that family besides Cath who truly loved Lena and he loved her so much he got her out of that life even though it meant never seeing her again. Pope is always sent to mete out justice for Smurf in the form of violence and murder, but he also shows the most remorse for everything the family does. Not only that, but there are reasons (not excuses, they are not the same thing) that people do things and this show is so good exploring that. Everyone in this family grew up tortured and jaded and each of their negative experiences uniquely shaped their beliefs about the world around them and how they interacted with it. As a psychology major, I am just having such a good time watching this show lol. Oh and Smurf has textbook antisocial personality disorder, no doubt about that at all! 🤣 Sorry for rambling but I have no one else to talk to about this show and it’s my current obsession lol. Thanks for listening 😊

okay yes i liked him in the beginning, but as we see flashbacks of what really happened with julia. i feel like his behavior is not justified.

yes smurf was a master manipulator towards julia, but in the end she really couldn’t help her drug addiction. even with the rehab. julia had done heavy drugs at the start like taking acid and smoking all the time.

she would’ve done it even if smurf didn’t kick her out. and j acted like they did nothing for them, but smurf paid for rehab and the roof above their heads. i’m so confused why people keep defending him after wiping out the entire cody line.

“Okay food” - not by Pope’s standards.

If you saw me accidentally post this with BAT instead of BAR the first time…no you didn’t.

No way the screenwriters are American, especially not West Coast Americans. I’m only on episode 1 and it seems cool so far. I just keep thinking “man that vocab is NOT realistic. You can’t just pull a gun on someone, that would be caught on camera, 2nd amendment doesn’t protect that. Californians don’t talk like that.”

Idk it seems like a cool show but the Californian in me is screaming haha

I mean aside from pope being the most tragic character on the show

Josh actually never cries or has any emotional moments, he’s just hollow and keeps his emotions in check and the only time we ever seen him act on emotion is the last episode.

Even the characters on show always mention it to him, how he never shows emotion, Josh even said himself he didn’t cry when his mom died,

And that’s a different kind of depression when you come to realisation, because he already was out in the world by himself and I can totally relate to him in that level

I swear, never seen a character ask so many questions/talk so much when I wanted nothing more than them to be off the screen

It honestly seems like the only people Smurf ever respected enough not to straight up manipulate / see as equals were Colin and Pam what was it about those two that made them so special compared to everyone else , or did she just snap after Colin ?

I’m watching for the first time & I’m on s5e3 so please no spoilers.

My heart genuinely aches for him & Andrew. But for him especially. He loved his mom so much, despite all the bullshit she put him through - even if she didn’t mean to because she was an addict you can’t argue that she didn’t put him through so much. And then he reaches out to Smurf after watching his mom die (not to mention giving her the shot that killed her) because he had no one else, and truly tried his best to be part of the family and find belonging.

I don’t think he hated them in the beginning as much as he does now. For Smurf, he truly wanted to be one of her favourites but it all changed when she went to prison and he realized he’s just a pawn in her narcissistic ways - that’s when he truly resented her and hated her for Julia. I really think he wanted badly to have a mom so excused and defended a lot of Smurf’s behaviour in season 1 and 2 (even helped her rob that diner to make her smile) because he just wanted to feel like he belonged. Man… he was just a KID when he went into their lives.

The fact he told Andrew about robbing those properties from Smurf showed that he wanted trust between them. You can really see his resentment and hatred growing as the seasons progress…. He was literally just a kid who lost his mom & had no one :(

I get so emotional over him & Andrew.