What happens at the end of Animal Kingdom? Not every Cody walks away from the finale
After six seasons of heists, betrayals, and Smurf's long poisonous shadow, Animal Kingdom ended on TNT on 28 August 2022 with an episode aptly titled "Fubar" — written by Daniele Nathanson and directed by John Wells. The Cody family didn't so much end as burn down. Literally. Here's who made it out.
The final heist — and the betrayal
The last job is a jailbreak: J, Deran, and Craig ambush the prison transport moving Pope to a new facility. It works — briefly. Then J reveals his true colours, tipping off the police and abandoning his uncles mid-shootout. It's the revenge he's been quietly building towards ever since learning how the family cast out his pregnant mother Julia decades earlier — the flashback story season 6 finally completed.
Who dies, who survives
- Craig (Ben Robson) — shot dead by a shop owner's son while shielding Deran during their escape, just after getting engaged to Renn. The cruellest exit of the lot.
- Pope (Shawn Hatosy) — escapes, digs a tracker out of his own side, and confronts J at the family house. He nearly drowns his nephew in the pool, then spares him — and sets the house ablaze, lying down beside the pool to die with an old photo of himself and Julia.
- Deran (Jake Weary) — wounded but alive, last seen on the run. His ending is left deliberately open.
- J (Finn Cole) — walks away with the money, glimpsed in the final moments alone at a luxury hideaway. He won. It doesn't look like winning.
Why Pope lets J live
Showrunner Daniele Nathanson explained the logic to TV Fanatic in 2022, pointing to the moment that set everything in motion:
"Pope feels that it was when he abandoned a pregnant Julia," Nathanson said, calling it the story's original sin.
In Pope's mind, J had a right to his revenge — and killing him would only keep the cycle spinning. Burning the Cody house is Pope ending the dynasty himself, on his own terms.
Was that always the plan?
Broadly, yes — and it even echoes the source. The show was based on David Michôd's 2010 Australian film, in which the Pope and Craig characters also don't survive. Six seasons of American excess later, the ending circled right back to where it started.