Series / Kin

Kin is an Irish television crime drama series, that first broadcast on 9 September 2021, on RTÉ

The Kinsellas are a small family of criminals operating in Dublin. After Brendan Kinsella went to prison, the gang was taken over by his brother Frank (Aidan Gillen) with his son Eric and nephew Jimmy acting as his lieutenants. Brendan's younger son Michael (Charlie Cox) has recently been released from prison after serving a long prison sentence for murder. The Kinsellas main competitor is Eamon Cunningham, Dublin's biggest drug dealer. The two gangs maintain an uneasy business relationship with neither side wanting a costly Mob War. However, a street level feud escalates too far and one of Cunningham's lieutenants kills Jimmy's son. Frank wants to maintain the peace but Jimmy's wife Amanda (Clare Dunne) wants blood and when Frank and Jimmy hesitate to act, she goes to Michael for help.

This series includes examples of:

• Archnemesis Dad: Brendan to Michael due to raping his sister and planning to do the same thing to Michael's daughter, Anna.
• Bad Guy Bar: Brendan buys The Furry Bog in Season 2 which, with bullet-proof windows acts like a fortress, and becomes a headquarters of sort for a lot of the Kinsella's plots, schemes, and illegal deals.
• Big Brother Bully: Brendan certainly treats Frank as his lackey and views him as weak and incompetent. Frank recalls that he doesn't have a single positive memory about his brother. Brendan's treatment of Birdie, his sister, is even more unsettling.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Where to start? The oldest generation of siblings consist of Brendan, Frank, and Birdie. Brendan's sons Jimmy and Michael. Frank's son Eric and his partner Nikita. Jimmy's wife, Amanda, and sons Jamie and Anthony. Michael's daughter Anna who has remained seperate from the rest of the family. Needless to say a lot of them working together is Teeth-Clenched Teamwork.
• Boom, Headshot!: In the Series 2 finale, this is how Brendan dies.
• Brother–Sister Team: Frank and Birdie work together closely and well. Frank holds more power in the family but Birdie is his closest confidante and he appreciates her advice and guidance. It's also clear they genuinely love and worry about one another. Their relationship with Brendan meanwhile...
• Conflicting Loyalty: Season 2 sees Jimmy torn between his father, Brendan, and wife, Amanda, as they struggle for control of the family.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: The patriarch of the Turkish Batuk crime family is dying and hooked up to life support.
• Driven to Suicide: In the Series 2 finale, Frank shoots himself in the head after murdering his brother.
• Easily Forgiven: Played with. Jimmy actually takes figuring out that his wife, Amanda, and brother, Michael, have been in love all this time surprisingly well. If anything he's more disappointed nobody told him sooner so they wouldn't now be trapped in such a position. Although, Season 2 shows that there is clearly still some resentment on his part about it.
• Entitled Bastard: Eric "Viking" Kinsella is the son of Frank Kinsella and thinks he can get away with doing whatever he wants. He denies that the problems his family faces throughout the show can in any way trace back to his own violent and impulsive actions.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Eamon Cunningham is a ruthless drug dealer who supplies for most of Ireland. His wife, Angela, has cancer.
  • Isaac "Kem" Kemela is a ruthless hired killer able to find reliable men to kill for money (and has the skills to finish the job himself should they mess it up). He also has a baby daughter called Chloe that he winds up having to bring to many of his meetings with dangerous criminals in Season 2.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Eric and Jimmy are fairly willing to go along with Brendan's rule of the family. Until Eric turns on him after he threatens Nikita, and Jimmy does too when he learns the truth about what happened to his sister.
• Evil Matriarch: Nellie Wright is the leader of the Wright Clan. She actively encourages her children to murder for money and walks around the supermarket, grabbing whatever she likes and not paying, knowing nobody can do anything to stop her.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Amanda and Jimmy are both deeply embroiled in the criminal lifestyle but neither are completely omfortable with Anthony getting into the family business.
  • Michael also keeps his daughter, Anna, at an arms length from the rest of the family precisely because he thinks it'd be safer.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Glen Wright is a baby-faced teen who is also an assassin who won't hesitate to kill and takes glee in taunting his intended targets with his friends with online videos.
• Gayngster: Frank Kinsella is secretly gay.
• Hate Sink: Brendan Kinsella. All of the cast are pretty morally reprehensible on one level or another but Brendan has zero redeeming qualities, is a misogynist, homophobic, sociopathic and perfectly fine with raping his own family members.
• Henpecked Husband: Jimmy feels like this as Amanda increasingly gains a leading position in the family.
• Hitman with a Heart: Michael was a ruthless enforcer for his family which got him sent to prison. But he still proves to be one of the more emotionally intelligent members of the Kinsella clan.
• It's All About Me: Eric. Nikita calls him out on it when his actions finally get him thrown in prison and how its going to change not just his life but also hers. Eric seems to realises that his actions can harm others... so has Nikita hire a hitman to kill the witness to his crime. This way he can walk free and nobody has to feel bad about it.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Jimmy cannot understand why Michael loves their mother who abandoned the family while Jimmy and Michael were children and has nothing but contempt for his father Brendan who stuck around and raised the two boys on his own. He is finally brought in on the family secret: Brendan repeatedly raped his daughter, Jimmy and Michael's sister, and their mother took the girl and fled Ireland to protect her from Brendan. Now Brendan is starting to make inappropriate moves towards Michael's teenage daughter and the family needs Jimmy's help to stop it once and for all.
  • In Series 2, it is Frank who is the only member of the Kinsellas not told about the plan to kill Brendan. It causes him to take matters into his own hands, shooting Brendan in the head publically and messily rather than the professional hit that Jimmy, Michael & Eric would've pulled off.
• Mama Bear: Amanda responds to Eamon Cunningham sending Con Doyle to Anthony's school to threaten to set the boy on fire by threatening to burn his drugs to lure him out and having Michael kill him.
• Mirror Character: Nuray Batuk ends up being one to Amanda Kinsella. Both are fully capable of inheriting and successfully running their respective family's criminal empires but struggle against the patriarchal nature of the industry favouring rivals like Frank, Brendan, or Hamza to the leadership position.
• Moe Greene Special: In the Series 1 finale, Eamon Cunningham receives one of these from Michael.
• Not Blood, Not Family: Amanda struggles against this idea a lot. She married into the Kinsella family and faces a lot of opposition from the blood-related family members when it becomes clear she's the one most capable of running it.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Jimmy and Amanda Kinsella outlive their son, Jamie, who is tragically killed early on.
• Papa Wolf: Michael, once he's out of prison, meets his daughter Anna and it's clear he'll kill anyone who might hurt her.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The whole cast are all various shades of evil, but Brendan is a rapist and of his own daughter no less!
• Replacement Goldfish: Amanda does not take kindly to the suggestion that she wants another baby to "replace" Jamie.
• Revenge Before Reason: Jamie's death is a tragedy but it was Eric who escalated the feud toward deathly violence. Cunningham's gang is much stronger than the Kinsellas and going to war with them would most likely get all the Kinselllas killed. Frank is trying to negotiate peace but Amanda and Micheal want blood no matter what the consequences.
  • First thing Brendan does when he gets out of prison is have a man killed who crossed him in prison two years ago. This very same man was one of the Kinsella's best customers and would've been very helpful in paying off the Batuks.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Averted. Kem betrays the Kinsellas to Eamon Cunningham, which gets Fudge killed, but Amanda keeps it between her, Michael, and Jimmy and lets him live because of how useful he is and since he's no longer a threat. Then played straight in Season 2, when Brendan finds out and has Eric kill him.
• Satellite Love Interest: Molly the Pharmacist is a love interest for Michael. They go on several dates, have good chemistry, and she doesn't seem to mind that he's a criminal. Then he goes into the pharmacy one day to learn that she was apparently engaged and has gone on leave to get married.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As Frank becomes increasingly superfluous to the running of the family business, suffers a near-fatal overdose, faces constant belittlement from everyone but Birdie, and grows increasingly lonely and depressed. He eventually gets the idea to just take his money and leave. Too bad Brendan finds out about it.
• Sibling Triangle: Amanda is married to and has children with Jimmy but is having an affair with Michael.
• Sketchy Successor: Frank Kinsella took over as head of the family business after his brother, Brendan, went to prison. Whilst competent enough in other roles, he lacks the reputation, ruthlessness, and cunning to be very effective as the leader. He eventually settles into a backseat to Amanda, who does have the chops to run a criminal enterprise (but he still feels bitter about it).
• Snakes Are Sinister: Jimmy likes to keep snakes as pets.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: After Eamon Cunningham is dead, Amanda feels this way. She uses it to advise Nuray Batuk to stick to taking money as compensation for her brother's death rather than trying to wipe out the Kinsellas.
  • Anthony learns this first hand too when Brendan convinces him to kill Glen Wright, killing an innocent bystander in the getaway and watching Brendan murder his accomplice afterwards. He suffers a full Heroic BSoD and later confesses to his mother.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Jimmy wants Brendan's approval and strains his relationship with Amanda and Michael to get it. Eric wants Brendan's approval arguably even more than Jimmy does and becomes his uncle's lackey.