Animal Kingdom: What If Julia Is Really Pulling All The Strings?
Hear me out. What we saw in the first episode of Animal Kingdom is what we saw. Julia was dead on the couch with her son Joshua sitting right next to her. After the paramedics took her lifeless body away, Joshua was forced to call his grandmother and tell her the news. With that, we were introduced to not only the leader of the pact in Smurf, but her son’s as well. This is where it gets exciting and as we would later learn, a plan was already hatched.
The first 4 seasons of Animal Kingdom were about heists, family, and buried secrets. However, Seasons 5 and 6 have been about redemption. Not for the crimes that the Cody’s committed, but for Joshua and Julia.
Smurf appeared to be the doting mother and grandmother. Family over everything. But Smurf is far from perfect and the flashbacks reveal that she has always been the main villain of the show from the very beginning.
Joshua was brought into a lifestyle that he didn’t appear ready for. But what if he was always ready? What if this was Julia’s plan from the beginning? If something were to happen to her, what if she told J exactly who to call? There are theories that Julia may still be alive but in essence, I do believe that she is dead. But what we don’t know is exactly why she was alienated from the family to begin with.
We knew the history between Julia and Baz. Smurf made sure that relationship would not work even though Baz was Joshua’s father. She made sure that neither of them formed a bond. As close as Julia and Pope were growing up, what role did Smurf play in keeping the twins apart for so many years? And for Deran and Craig, it was Julia who always took care of them when they were younger. So, what really happened there?
Smurf took an instant liking to J because of his brain. She knew he was smarter than the others much as the same she tried with Julia when she was younger. But things turned out wrong. Julia became hooked on drugs and the rest is history.
But here is J now making a move for the throne to either sit in it or tear it all down. Before Julia died, it’s obvious that she and J talked about the family and what went down. As a fan, I’ve always wondered why J never really pushed for any stories regarding the past where his mother was concerned. There was no reason for him to ask, he knew the secrets.
While Julia may be dead, that doesn’t mean that she’s not pulling the strings from her grave. J did not have to call his grandmother after her death, but he did. He knew exactly what he was doing. This is what his mother wanted. As J once told Smurf while she was sleeping: “I’m going to take it all, Smurf. Everything you have. Everything you’ve ever cared about. Everyone you’ve ever loved.”
Remember, it was J who killed smurf. Something Julia could never do. It was J constantly fighting his uncles. It was J who had no remorse after Baz was killed. It was J who never took a liking to his younger half-sister Lena or Cath. It was J who killed or took down all of Smurf’s old business partners. It’s as if he has a hit list that he’s just crossing names off.
Deran and J had a talk in which Deran confesses that he didn’t have anything against his Julia and J replied that he knows. What that tells me is that the hit list does exist and Deran is not on it. Craig may not be as well but Pope, that’s a different story. As a twin, it should have been Pope who saved Julia from Smurf but he didn’t. That’s why there is so much hostility between the two.
Joshua already put a plan in place to have Pope killed in prison if he can’t act right. Pope is the last piece on the board for J to handle. Or, the last piece on the board for Julia to handle. Either way, J is doing what his mother wanted him to do. This was all planned from the very beginning. Get inside the family and burn it to ashes.
Mark has been covering Sports and Entertainment for the past six years. His work has been featured on Bleacher Report, ESPN, Fox Sports, Teen Vogue, and many other websites.
