“Animal Kingdom” was always a show that wasn’t afraid of killing off its main characters with authority. In this world there are no resurrections and there will never be a second chance. So it was for Andrew “Pope” Cody (Shawn Hatosy) — the eldest son of the Cody crime clan — when he finally dies in a way that fans are still processing after being broken out of jail by his brothers. 

Realizing in the series finale, “Fubar,” that young J (Finn Cole) has betrayed the clan to the police, he’s mortally wounded while protecting the rest of his brothers in a shootout with the law. Though he initially tries to kill J by drowning him, he lets his nephew go. Pope then lights the family house on fire and bleeds out next to the pool. 

It’s a very symbolic death for poor Pope. The family member most tortured by the Codys’ criminal legacy, and the one who protected his mom Smurf’s (Ellen Barkin) vision of their family-above-everything-at-all-cost world, in the end he chooses to allow his flesh and blood to survive, even though he betrayed the clan. That he chooses to let J go brings an end to the Cody family’s endless cycle of perpetrating violence for the family name, and even their tendency to leave their own out in the cold, as they did with J’s mom Julia. Pope’s death is a redemption, in the end — of the Cody way, but mainly of himself.

If “Animal Kingdom” is perpetually a story about a mother loving her sons too much — and building such an intense bond with them that no one, not lovers, friends or children, can interfere with it — then Pope finally manages to break free of Smurf’s toxic grip by allowing J and his other surviving brother, Deran (Jake Weary), a chance to enjoy life outside of the family zoo.

Pope always promised Julia that he’d be there for J, no matter what happened between them or to him. Between her death and his mother’s machinations, he almost loses his way. But with his last breath, Pope does his duty as a good uncle. J is left alone, hiding out in the Virgin Islands with the family’s ill-gotten money — a sad ending, but one that gives him a small chance to break free of the Cody legacy and become the kind of man he’d never become under Smurf’s tutelage.