Animal Kingdom: [Spoiler] Dies in Series Finale — Season 6, Episode 13

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Warning: The following comprises spoilers for Sunday’s collection finale of Animal Kingdom. If you’ve but to observe, chances are you’ll wish to accomplish that earlier than you learn any additional.

As a lot as Animal Kingdom followers could have hoped that poor, tormented Pope would get to dwell fortunately after, c’mon. In our hearts, we knew, didn’t we, that no approach was he going to outlive the TNT drama’s intestine punch of a finale (recapped right here). Certainly, showrunner Daniele Nathanson, who additionally wrote Sunday’s “FUBAR,” knew. “He’s a killer,” she reminds TVLine, “so there must be an ending [that’s fitting].

“You don’t get away with it. You shouldn’t. And even he knows,” she provides, “because he’s the soul of the show, which is sort of a perverse concept, considering who he was at the beginning.”

If we squint onerous sufficient, these of us who’ve every now and then sympathized with Smurf’s twisted oldest son can nearly see in his premature demise a cheerful ending of a form. “That wasn’t necessarily what we were thinking, but it is a peaceful place… that freedom from Smurf, freedom from what he did to Julia,” Nathanson observes. “I can’t argue that him being out of the type of psychic torture that we’ve all seen for just a few seasons [wouldn’t be] a reduction.

“With that said,” she continues, “he didn’t commit suicide, and I want to be very clear about that, because that’s very important. He didn’t. People might ask, ‘What did he die of?’ He was shot at and he dug [a tracker] out of his side. I think [he succumbed to a] heart attack/heartache. The poetic feeling was that. And he’d been losing blood all day!”

Were you happy with Pope’s bittersweet sendoff? Grade the finale and the collection, then hit the feedback along with your emotions on the topic.