{"id":305931,"date":"2026-02-19T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T10:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/305931\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T10:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T10:33:09","slug":"rte-crime-drama-kin-is-coming-back-and-based-on-more-recent-offerings-it-cant-come-soon-enough-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/305931\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 crime drama Kin is coming back, and based on more recent offerings, it can\u2019t come soon enough \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9<\/a> hasn\u2019t had much in the way of good news stories recently, so it\u2019s hard to begrudge the national broadcaster as reports emerge of a deal to secure the future of its ratings-winning gangland drama Kin. After two well-received seasons, the show ended on a cliffhanger in 2023 \u2013 but the real twist was to come following the collapse of Canadian co-producer Bron Studios. An unlikely resurrection now seems on the cards, with Montrose and the BBC<\/a> in talks to co-produce a third season \u2013 and cameras potentially set to roll later this year.<\/p>\n

Kin was a long way from perfect. It faced accusations of bad taste over its name, which was interpreted as a reference to the real-life Kinahan cartel<\/a> \u2013 though its writer, Peter McKenna, insisted this was not the case. The really big fumble, however, came at the end of series one, which bore a strong resemblance to the final act of Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s The Godfather \u2013 with Clare Dunne\u2019s Amanda Kinsella taking on the mantle of the secretly ruthless brains behind the operation, as played by Al Pacino in the 1971 mobster classic.<\/p>\n

Yet despite those shortcomings, Kin gave RT\u00c9 one of its biggest ratings hits since its previous big crime show, Love\/Hate. It also did well abroad, where it was heralded as an Irish Sopranos. That overseas profile was boosted by Marvel actor Charlie Cox, who played the dynasty\u2019s quietly spoken black sheep, Michael.<\/p>\n

Cox pulled off a near-flawless Dublin accent, while Kin also benefited from brooding camerawork that depicted Dublin as a noirish den of inequity and gun smoke. At its best, the show had a cinematic lustre, and while that never quite papered over the soapy plot and often ropy dialogue, it was nonetheless a novelty to encounter a home-grown series that at least looked like prestige drama, if you squinted.<\/p>\n

There was also an impressive cast alongside Cox and Dunne, including Ciar\u00e1n Hinds as the Kinsella family\u2019s nemesis in season one and Francis Magee as the bullying Kinsella patriarch who returns from prison in year two.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Monk review: Gerry Hutch\u2019s prologue is not the oddest aspect of this one-man showOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 has deservedly taken a lot of flak recently over the uneven standard of its dramas. Despite a starring role for Love\/Hate actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, the recent dark comedy These Sacred Vows was an atrocious attempt at a home-grown White Lotus. And that was somehow a distinct improvement on the recent Marian Keyes adaptation<\/a> of The Walsh Sisters, which surgically removed all of the charm of the source material and left nothing but a cold void in its place.<\/p>\n

With that sort of track record, you can\u2019t blame the broadcaster for sticking to what it does best, which, when it comes to drama, means crime. It\u2019s just a shame RT\u00c9 doesn\u2019t cast a wider net. Imagine a period drama about the 18th-century secret societies, such as the Whiteboys or a serious attempt to grapple with the rise and implosion of the Celtic Tiger. <\/p>\n

Kin is a thoroughly solid drama, not without its missteps but far from terrible \u2013 and compared to the rest of what passes for scripted entertainment on Irish television, it can\u2019t come back soon enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 hasn\u2019t had much in the way of good news stories recently, so it\u2019s hard to begrudge the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1578,93,61,60,27006,13693,6085,125732,68019],"class_list":{"0":"post-305931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-kinahan-cartel","13":"tag-marian-keyes","14":"tag-rte","15":"tag-tom-vaughan-lawlor","16":"tag-tv-guide"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}