As the Animal Kingdom crew deals with new threats in Season 5, Smurf's (Ellen Barkin) actions in Season 3 could come back to haunt the Cody boys in the future. While she successfully exacted revenge on Lucy (Carolina Guerra), the cartel boss' young son Carlos witnessed the murderous retaliation. Smurf might not have pulled the trigger herself, but it wouldn't be hard to link the crime back to her. As such, it's possible that Smurf inadvertently created another Javi scenario that will haunt her family.
In Animal Kingdom Season 2, an old face from Smurf's past shows up on her doorstep -- Javi Cano (Alex Meraz). Javi is the son of Lou, a now-deceased gangster that Smurf ran jobs with back when her sons were still children. Javi informs Smurf that Manny, another member of Smurf and Lou's old crew, is dying. Javi is resentful of Smurf, who took care of him as a child by reading him to bed and cooking meals. While Smurf initially thinks Javi's angry with her for not wanting to be his "mommy," he also suspects she played a role in his father's death.
Despite Javi's threats, Smurf neglects to visit Manny but rounds up J (Finn Cole) to accompany her to the funeral in the desert. There, she discovers Manny made "confessional" tapes that -- as she feared -- implicate her as Lou's killer. In true Smurf fashion, her story changes multiple times. But she ultimately confesses to her sons that they buried Lou's Body in a construction site with her gun/murder weapon. She convinces them to retrieve the gun and body to eliminate Javi's leverage. Meanwhile, Smurf and Baz (Scott Speedman) meet with Javi to exchange money for silence. In an unexpected twist, Smurf arranges for one of Javi's men to kill him.
While Javi planned on blackmailing Smurf, his scheme was personally motivated. Not only did he think she abandoned him as a child, but she'd taken his father from him when he was only ten years old. As such, justice and revenge were his main driving forces. In Season 3, Smurf has Lucy killed by the Trujillos for stealing the money that Baz initially took. In a brutal gun-down, Lucy meets her fate in front of her son Carlos.
Carlos looks to be around the same age as Javi was when he lost his father by Smurf's hand. While she ordered the hit, it wouldn't be hard to trace back to Smurf, given her ties with Pete Trujillo, whose crew also protected Smurf during her stint in jail. There's also the Codys long-standing history with Lucy and her brother, Marco (also killed by the Codys, albeit unintentionally). Therefore, Smurf's actions set Carlos up to follow a similar path as Javi.
While it's unlikely Animal Kingdom will delve that far into the future, Carlos may grow up and put the pieces together behind his mother's murder. The fact he witnessed the whole thing adds an extra element of trauma that Javi was spared. With Smurf gone, it will be her family that faces Carlos' wrath if he returns decades later to seek vengeance against the Codys.
To see what trouble the Codys have got themselves into, new episodes of Animal Kingdom Season 5 drop each Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on TNT.