KIN returns to RTÉ One this Sunday and the Kinsella family face their biggest threat yet. Will they be able to overcome the challenges that lie ahead, or will they crumble under the pressure?
After outplaying Eamon Cunningham and wiping out Dublin's top crime lord, the Kinsella family is thriving in their new position of power and authority.
However, a new threat emerges when members of a Turkish cartel claim that Eamon owed them a sizable debt, and since they killed him, the debt is now theirs. Meanwhile, Viking is released from prison and intends to make trouble, Amanda suffers a personal tragedy, and a looming presence from inside the family returns.
In this season, Amanda (Clare Dunne), who led the final charge against Eamon (Ciarán Hinds), has come into her role as the de facto leader and matriarch of the family. Her husband Jimmy (Emmett J. Scanlan), his uncle Frank (Aiden Gillen), and aunt Birdy (Maria Doyle Kennedy) fall in line behind her, but questions are raised as to whether she will continue to be a suitable leader, not just the family, but the business as well.
However, not all of the family are free to enjoy the spoils of their victory. Michael (Charlie Cox) has been in hiding since carrying out the hits that led to Eamon's defeat, and Viking (Sam Keeley) is on the cusp of release from his prison sentence.
The power vacuum left by Eamon Cunningham may have been filled by the Kinsellas, but there are bigger fish in the deep waters they now find themselves in. The Batuk's, a lavish and generations-old Turkish crime family, have come to Dublin to receive tribute and respect from the Kinsellas, who they view as little threat.
Speaking on the strength of the casting for the show is showrunner and writer, Peter McKenna: "I think the cast is probably the strongest thing about KIN, if you were to say what am I most proud of, I think the performances are really, really, really strong... we have an amazing cast. And I did have a wish list and we went through lots and lots of different actors but we were also quite fortuitous with how the actors all came together."
Dunne, who plays Amanda, agrees that it is important for the cast to be close-knit, especially when playing arch enemies. She says that they did a lot of trust-building work at the start of season two because the scenes are so intense.
"We have to be close-knit, especially when we're playing arch enemies because you have to look into each other's eyes, the whites of each other's eyes and really go to places like fights or squaring off to each other. It's actually quite vulnerable. And, in fact, in season two, we did a lot of trust-building work at the start because so much of it is intense. And so I think it's always important to actually stay close to your enemies. Especially with material like this."
Felix Thompson, the director, describes the new crime family, the Batuks, "as a large exterior threat coming from a Turkish family that is much bigger, much wealthier, much more dangerous, and has much more sway in the world than the Kinsellas do".
Gillen says that his character Frank is "slightly removing himself from the proceedings mentally and isn’t there as part of the decision-making process as much as he used to be". He adds that Frank goes on a whole other trip this season.
Never far from Frank, is his sister, Birdy. As the de facto matriarch of the Kinsella clan, Maria sees Birdy as potentially feeling threatened by Amanda's new position of power: "She has issues around Amanda's new role. But also I think she recognizes in Amanda somebody who is quite like her in a way.
"Birdy in a different time would have done what Amanda did. She sort of stepped back from the men and accepted her role in second position. Whereas Amanda is not doing that, but Birdy has a quiet admiration for that."
KIN returns to RTÉ One and RTÉ Player this Sunday at 9.30pm.
Series one of KIN is currently available to watch on RTÉ Player.
