S01.E07: Goddamn Animals

[lazylou]

On July 19, 2016 at 9:44 PM, Laurie4H said:

How old is Smurf supposed to be?  She didn't seem much younger than that man.  I was figuring her character around 60, Baz and Pope late 30's/early 40's, Craig early 30's  and Deran about 25.  So Baz is turning out to be the most evil of them all it seems?  On a side note, does every episode have to have an unnecessary sex scene?  I'm not a prude but it just seems to be there to get people to tune in.

Age came up on an earlier show-forum.  People seem inclined to want to go by actors' real ages...which would fit pretty well with your proposed ages if you subtract about three years from most everyone... The man who had apparently been her mother's boyfriend and a sort of surrogate father to her might have been in his late sixties.  Did she seek him out to get revenge and then, when he asserted he had stuck around because he had loved her (the kid), change her mind?  

[lazylou]

On July 20, 2016 at 6:24 AM, NorthstarATL said:

So was the teacher just always owing the cop a favor, and it was just a "happy coincidence" that J's mother died and that he wound up being taken in by his Grandmother? Because I didn't get the sense in the beginning that she was new when he returned to school in the first episode. That is a lot of speculation  and a long con for the cop to be playing.

Interesting question.  Really, on reflection, the situation is maybe unbelievable.  The teacher seems to have been there since before J's mother's death and his move...  the cop would have had to have caught the teacher with the drugs after J moved to Smurf's... a pretty fortuitous circumstance for the coop.  

[lazylou]

On July 20, 2016 at 2:53 PM, topanga said:

IJ shot up his mother with a fatal dose of heroin? 

Not on purpose.  He shot her up because she couldn't find a vein.  He confessed this to Bax in a later season.... the overdose probably had to do with the heroin she was using.  He feels guilty anyway.

[iMonrey]

Quote

of course the photograph of the surfer who was moms boyfriend puzzles me time wise. 

Not to mention you can't even make out a face in that photo. It could literally be any surfer. Hell it could be Deran. It was probably done that way on purpose so they wouldn't have to pay the model who posed for it but maybe they should have added a distinctive tattoo or something.

Edited July 25, 2016 by iMonrey

[NorthstarATL]

On 7/22/2016 at 3:43 PM, iMonrey said:

That's a pretty good point. I'm not nearly as invested in J and Nikki or J and Alexis as I am with the uncles and their stories, but if they were to throw J into his uncles' orbit it would mean an instant slide into criminality and probably drug abuse. So for the sake of the character it's probably for the best if J continues to keep his distance from his family as much as possible. Otherwise there's really nothing to differentiate J from any of the other family members, and the story loses that "outsider looking in" perspective.

A storyline I could get behind is seeing J become a part of it all despite his initial misgivings. We came into the story with the players more or less intact, so we never saw any choices made by the uncles. IMO the writers have made the family too unwelcoming of J at this point for him to have any conflict over whether to embrace their life or turn on them. It ought to be more nuanced, where he knows right from wrong, but the lifestyle that Smurf and his uncles offer is too enticing to pass up. At this point he just seems stuck, which is less interesting.

[sugarbaker design]

Quote

A storyline I could get behind is seeing J become a part of it all despite his initial misgivings.

I'm hoping that's the thrust of season 2.

[atomationage]

I think J has been pretty involved already, doing whatever Pope tells him to do. 

[sjohnson]

armed robbery of surfers; aggravated assault during an auto theft; grand larceny stealing the safe; receipt of stolen bicycle; aggravated assault on Adrian

plus numerous violations of drug laws, not just his and Nikki's weed, but Mom's drugs too and numerous violations of underage drinking laws

and if Nikki's verbal assault was based on anything real, silent about Mom's prostitution, though as a minor it's doubtful he could be accused of profiting by the prostitution

and on a personal note, he's a damn good liar, certified by an expert

Edited July 26, 2016 by sjohnson

[Dowel Jones]

5 hours ago, sjohnson said:

armed robbery of surfers; aggravated assault during an auto theft;.....

And yet, the title of the episode is uttered by the guy cleaning up after the pool party.

[lazylou]

On July 26, 2016 at 11:08 AM, sjohnson said:

armed robbery of surfers; aggravated assault during an auto theft; grand larceny stealing the safe; receipt of stolen bicycle; aggravated assault on Adrian

plus numerous violations of drug laws, not just his and Nikki's weed, but Mom's drugs too and numerous violations of underage drinking laws

and if Nikki's verbal assault was based on anything real, silent about Mom's prostitution, though as a minor it's doubtful he could be accused of profiting by the prostitution

and on a personal note, he's a damn good liar, certified by an expert

Thanks for reminding us that J is not such a good boy.  Some of these crimes may have been committed based on fear of Pope or later, of Deran...but on the other hand he probably knew from his mother that the Cody's were criminals and that he might be expected to participate...so the minute he called his grandmother he more or less consented to living on the wrong side of the law.  And he showed a certain family recklessness when he sawed through the wall to get the safe when Deran refused to do so.   The weed, the beer...well, that's not surprising.  The surprising things are that he is such a great student (without study, evidently, like Flip on Shameless) and also, actually, a great athlete.  How does a kid whose mother is a heroin addict and probably a prostitute get to be proficient at surfing, for instance?  Doesn't that involve expensive equipment? (Just asking.)

[topanga]

On 7/29/2016 at 0:15 PM, lazylou said:

Thanks for reminding us that J is not such a good boy.  Some of these crimes may have been committed based on fear of Pope or later, of Deran...but on the other hand he probably knew from his mother that the Cody's were criminals and that he might be expected to participate...so the minute he called his grandmother he more or less consented to living on the wrong side of the law.  And he showed a certain family recklessness when he sawed through the wall to get the safe when Deran refused to do so.   The weed, the beer...well, that's not surprising.  The surprising things are that he is such a great student (without study, evidently, like Flip on Shameless) and also, actually, a great athlete.  How does a kid whose mother is a heroin addict and probably a prostitute get to be proficient at surfing, for instance?  Doesn't that involve expensive equipment? (Just asking.)

But did J know about the illegal things Smurf and his uncles did before he called Smurf? I have a feeling J's mother didn't talk about her family much other than to say she's glad she kept J away from them. 

[wayne67]

I just wanted to post that I thought the cop did a terrible job of trying to motivate her only source of information into this criminal family by calling her "weak and selfish". 
It's like she sucks at her job. 

I still can't tell the bearded brothers apart, unless they're both in a scene and then I can use their hair colors to tell them apart but I know one is gay and the other is ?  unknown ? 

[sugarbaker design]

On 8/21/2017 at 8:34 AM, wayne67 said:

I still can't tell the bearded brothers apart, unless they're both in a scene and then I can use their hair colors to tell them apart but I know one is gay and the other is ?  unknown ? 

They don't remotely resemble each other in any way.  They don't look like brothers.

[wayne67]

8 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

They don't remotely resemble each other in any way.  They don't look like brothers.

They both look like scraggly bearded guys to me, now I remember them as blond gay and black bearded drug addict now that I'm up to season 2.