TNT’s Animal Kingdom
6×07: “Incognito”
Directed by Nick Copus
Written by Heath Corson

* For a recap & review of 6×06, click here.
* For a recap & review of 6×08, click here.
At home, Pope continues playing Smurf, except he’s making food for kids at skatepark who don’t have much of anything. J brings up filtering their money through the skatepark as donations; they don’t need anybody outside of the family to actually give any money. They’re interrupted when Pope gets a call from Amy. They’re going to meet again. Can their relationship continue after everything that happened? We’ll see. It’s hard to deal with Pope as a character because he’s a terrible person who’s done awful things, and yet he’s so damaged by how he was brought up that it’s tough to not also feel sympathy for him.
At the bar, Deran’s finding the work day tough because he’s bruised from his fight with Craig. And Craig’s busy fucking Brittany over at the gym despite his own wounds. He mentions going to see his boy Nick later, which surprises Brittany. It’s not like Craig seems as if he’s a father. We then see Renn out somewhere with her baby. She’s attacked from behind by a bald man. The guy’s friends take off with Renn’s vehicle, along with her child, and he rushes off, too. Looks like Renn’s involvement with the drug world hasn’t stopped, and it’s obviously now led to terrible things.

Flashback to Smurf and Baz together working on their latest potential score. They were scoping out at an electronics warehouse. Smurf advised young Baz not to “shit the bed” this time. She urges him to get a good night’s sleep since he’s so tired. She didn’t know it was because he was up banging her daughter late the night prior. We also see Janine interrupting her naked son as he was getting out of the shower. They discussed his new nickname, Pope, given to him by Baz. And Smurf brought up Julia hanging out alone with Baz a lot, trying to sow jealousy between her own children. More of the weird psychosexual stuff here, again showing how it’s easy to sympathise with Pope.
Craig rushes to the bar to see Deran, explaining they have to go find Nick. It seems Renn had a “big load” of coke, which is what provoked the attack. This new chaos is what brings Deran and Craig back together, at least for now. While they’re dealing with the latest family horror, J’s off trying to get romantically intertwined with a married woman and accidentally meeting her addict sister, and Pope’s skateboarding a little while the skaters take a break for burritos; neither of them have a clue yet what’s going on with the baby in the family. Pope eventually runs into Taylor’s mom, except it’s Dt. Thompson doing some sketchy undercover work. She claims she had a fight with Taylor and now can’t find him. She asks Pope to help her look for her supposed son, and he obliges. They go together in his car. While he heads into a hostel looking for Taylor it gives the detective a chance to put on gloves and do more of her snooping around in the car. She finds a gun under the seat, snapping a photo before Pope returns. That’s about the time Amy calls Pope to cancel their date. But she changes her mind suddenly, so the date’s back on. After that Pope decides it’s time to cut Taylor’s mom loose.
Renn’s in rough shape. She gets a visit from Craig and Deran. She apologises to Craig for what’s happened. She wants to fix things, but she’s in no shape for it. Craig promises to find their boy. He then discovers the guy who did this is a neo-Nazi called Cole Lidden, so they have a target for revenge and a hopeful way to recover little Nick. The Cody brothers will get things done, one way or another.
When J goes on a date with Penny they go to the new restaurant in the neighbourhood, he goes back to see one of the owners about late payments. He punches the guy in the face, busting his nose open. Nasty stuff. And after all the free food they’ve been getting at the table, too! Ungrateful. J goes back to the table with blood on his sleeve like a dummy, and Penny notices, though he passes it off as sauce from the kitchen, likely ketchup. Yeah, good one, J! The date between Pope and Amy will probably be just as awkward as this one. Pope does his best to create a good atmosphere, scoping out the spot before they actually meet for the date. He and Amy catch up a little. It’s not long before Amy apologises for judging Pope. She says it’s “God‘s place” to judge people. Yet Pope’s guilty conscience doesn’t allow her to just apologise. He knows he ought to be judged.

Deran and Craig find their way to Cole. They’re suited up with bulletproof vests and the necessary guns. They head into a building slowly, making their way upstairs where music’s blaring. The brothers take their time trying to get an eye on somebody. They find one guy in a makeshift lab, grabbing him before he can say anything. They ask him where the baby is, before knocking him out. But really quickly, the violence erupts when a guy busts in out of nowhere, surprising the Cody brothers. They find Cole and Deran sacrifices himself, taking several bullets in the bulletproof vest and allowing Craig to get the jump on Cole. They manage to get baby Nick safely. Craig orders his brother out and then blows Cole’s head off with a shotgun. GODDAMN, BOY! What a sequence. Deran just showed exactly how much he loves Craig and loves his family. He was willing to potentially die and took several rounds in the chest; even with a vest on, that hurts. This eases the brothers back towards brotherly love.
For some reason, J thinks it’s a good idea to keep getting closer to Penny, not only with her having a husband but also with her having a good idea he’s up to no good in terms of business. She asks if it was “a flinch test” today at the restaurant. J claims it wasn’t, though it’s becoming clearer now that he’s looking for a romantic partner with whom he can share that part of his life since it never works out otherwise when he has to hide that side of his family life.
When Pope and Amy’s date is over, he runs into Taylor’s so-called mom again. The undercover detective keeps playing anxious mother looking for her missing child, taking time to note Amy’s license plate, too. She lost her phone in Pope’s car. Or, y’know, misplaced it purposely. Same thing for the detective. It’s starting to make Pope suspicious, too. He’s already paranoid most of the time anyway, but his spidey senses are definitely tingling.

When Pope goes home he prepares to make a bowl of cereal, but he notices one of the cereal boxes isn’t in the same place he left it last time; one is facing the wrong way. He knows something is out of order. Along with the microwave blinking the other day, he knows somebody’s been messing around in their home, and he’s probably going to try getting to the bottom of things.
At Craig’s place, he and Renn arrive that night with their baby. He offers her the bed while he plans to sleep on the couch. She brings baby Nick in and lays him down in the crib, safe and sound once more like a happy little dude. Craig calls his child “a little hero” for being brave “like a Cody.” That’s not actually something to aspire to, though. Nobody should want to be a Cody. The whole situation leaves Craig half shattered emotionally. He’s joined on the couch by Renn, who offers him comfort just by being there. Is this perhaps the catalyst they both need to make big changes in their lives? Excellent use of Michael Kiwanuka’s “Solid Ground” here.