Unravelling the Matriarch: A Lesson in Character Development in RTE’s ‘Kin’
Kin is a crime drama series that debuted on Ireland’s RTÉ in late 2021. It recently wrapped up its second season, with a third and fourth already underway.
While I tend to be a picky content consumer, this is one of the shows that has kept me on the edge of my seat, eager for more. Coming off a very strong start in Season 1, Kin creators Peter McKenna and Ciaran Donnelly managed to deliver an even more nuanced and complex Season 2 (where many other strong-starting series tend to falter).
The show is packed with action, conflict, and gives you no shortage of sides to root for. The part I like best, however, is the character work.
Note: The below analysis contains spoilers for both seasons of this show. If you haven’t watched those, this is your sign to switch off.
The Vulnerable Matron
The mother-hen, matron figure is a long-standing staple of crime drama. Gemma (Katey Sagal) in FX’s Sons of Anarchy is an example of that, as is Polly Gray (the late, great Helen McCrory) in Peaky Blinders.
Kin follows in that tradition, with not one, but two mother-figures, neither of them what you’d think. Front and centre, you’ve got Amanda Kinsella (Clare Dunne), a mother grieving a lost son. What’s admirable about her character’s development is that, rather than stooping for the trope of power-hungry manipulative matriarch, it reaches for the finer super mom.
Amanda Kinsella isn’t desperate for power or cash. Rather, she acts as the tribe’s mother, rising to the job, not for her own credit, but because the men around her are vastly incompetent. When the series begins, the two characters who might be trusted to lead, Michael and Brendan Kinsella, are both imprisoned. So it falls to Amanda to pull the ropes, when the men left on the outside are crumbling, and lost in their own personal battles.
But even Amanda pales held up to the true matriarch of the show, I believe, Birdy Goggins (Maria Doyle Kennedy). Poor Birdy. For much of the first two seasons, she’s delegated to the role of caring, servile aunty. She’s the one who’ll give you a ride or fix breakfast when no one else will. Yet, in a violent, bloody show, that only serves to mark Birdy as weak.
Deceptively so.
In Season 2, when her brother and the series’ main antagonist, Brendan Kinsella, gets parole, we discover a dark secret in Birdy’s past. Namely that her brother sexually assaulted her. Even in that revelation, McKenna and Donnelly show such superb class, only hinting at the violence. They manage to capture such a vivid and vicious portrayal of what happened by only hinting at it, showing writing mastery.
For much of the second season, Birdy is submissive, cowed by her manipulative brother, and trying not to further rock the boat that is their family. Yet over the last couple of episodes, when her truth becomes apparent, Birdy sees this wonderful flourishing, a very impactful reversal from her previous role.
There’s a scene towards the end, where one of the hapless Kinsella men, Eric, comes to her with a problem, to which Birdy mournfully replies,
Why didn’t you come to me? I would’ve arranged it all for you.
… Like she always has.
While Birdy comes across as submissive, tame, and easily manageable, she is a mountain of stoicism and loyalty to her kinsmen that marks her out as the show’s true matriarch to me.
With both characters, I feel, Kin paints a wonderful picture of motherhood, as well. Both of the characters reach new depths on that plane in Season 2.On the one hand, you’ve got Amanda, still grieving the loss of her son, and desperate to get pregnant. Her doctor on the show writes it off as wanting to replace a child, which is a natural, well-documented impulse following the death of a child.
Yet what Amanda’s going through is much deeper than that. Although grieving for her boy, you also get the impression she’s grieving a loss of self. As her head honcho position within the criminal family escalates, it deepens her longing for kindness, for tenderness and compassion. We see this in her quest, almost obsessive, towards a new pregnancy. To make herself the caregiver, the loving mother, not the crime boss capable of atrocity and violence.
Birdy acts as mother to the whole clan, but in line with her characteristics, an older mother. An empty-nester whose children often turn resentful, dismissive, unappreciative. Rather than strike out to correct that, Birdy keeps quiet, absorbing the family’s pain and reproach, internalizing it, while also doing what needs to be done.
One aspect of Kin’s writing I particularly appreciated is that it didn’t reach for the easy conflict here. In other shows of this nature, the conflict between the established matriarch and the young newcomer (typically, the son’s lover) is apparent. For shows like Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy, this conflict plays a vital role in the plot’s development (and does so brilliantly).
But not here. Rather than reject or try to sabotage Amanda, Birdy takes her side as often as disagrees with her, recognizing in Amanda’s quiet leadership a healthy addition for the clan. Rather than react in fear at her own imminent deposition, Birdy sacrifices personal standing in favour of her family’s safety and welfare, thus acting like a true mother.
While these two characters strike me as the most praiseworthy, the whole series is packed with intense, clever imagery. The visual of Season 1’s antagonist, Eamon Cunningham (the brilliant Ciaran Hinds), collapsing dead while still clutching a gift for his child is a striking portrayal of human duality. The freedom on Frank Kinsella’s face, as he shoots himself in the head, in Season 2’s closer, again is haunting. But then, I could write a volume at least attesting to Aidan Gillen’s masterful acting.
Kin, far from being a mere entertaining crime drama, is an example of attention to detail and character development. And if, like me, you have no patience for lazy writing, it’s a show you need on your calendar.
Thank you for reading.
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