Forget ‘Tulsa King,’ This 16-Episode Crime Series Is the Perfect Replacement
Billy is a Senior Features Author for Collider. Having written over 300 articles in just over a year, Billy regularly covers the biggest TV shows and films releasing while also analysing some of the most underrated properties that may slip your attention.
Having studied for an MA in Screenwriting at UAL in 2023, Billy honed his writing skills and also developed his ability to critique the work of other creative minds.
Before that, Billy studied politics at the University of Nottingham, which helped him to bring nuanced and scholarly analysis to the frameworks within which filmmakers and writers have framed their thematic messages.
Sign in to your Collider account
For fans of Tulsa King, the appeal of a good crime series goes beyond the violence: it is about loyalty, shifting power, and whether life after prison can ever mean a fresh start. With 16 episodes across two seasons (with a third returning next year), Kin delivers those same tensions through a Dublin crime family. Most fans will recognize Charlie Cox from the original Daredevil on Netflix, but that doesn't mean it's the only great TV series he has been a part of. Though many missed the underrated series, any fan of Cox's work will love Kin, where he plays part of the complex central family, which happens to be an Irish crime family.
This violent and gritty crime drama explores the chaotic interpersonal dynamics of a family and how different people can be even when they are related. Charlie Cox brings a lot of what makes him great in Daredevil to his role as Michael, the prodigal son who kicks the series off by being released from prison. However, that isn't the only thing that Kin has to offer. The rest of the cast that make up the Kinsella family are equally fascinating, as their polar opposite dynamics create more threats from within the family than from the outside. Like Dwight in Tulsa King, Michael discovers that leaving prison means navigating criminal loyalties and a fractured relationship with his daughter. Kin takes a darker approach, but that conflict makes it a compelling next watch.
Charlie Cox Teeters Between Violent and Gentle as Michael in 'Kin'
Whilst the English-born actor may sport an Irish accent, fans will still notice many similarities between Charlie Cox's performance as Daredevil and Michael Kinsella. In both roles, Cox holds back a deep rage and violence behind the veil of a mild-mannered gentleman. When Michael first comes home from prison to his raving family, with cocaine and alcohol abundant, the biggest shock is how Michael no longer partakes in any extracurricular activities. Despite the Kinsella family's obsession with respect and their organized criminal efforts, Michael is only focused on winning back the love of his estranged daughter, Anna (Hannah Adeogun).
Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh
Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived.
🍷Lecter
🃏Joker
♟️Moriarty
🪙Chigurh
01
What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention.
02
How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next.
03
What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most.
04
What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan.
05
They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are.
06
What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them.
07
What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is.
08
How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you.
The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…
Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter.
Hannibal Lecter
Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is.
- Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
- You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on.
- The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
- He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.
The Joker
Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.
- The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
- He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for.
- His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong.
- He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.
Moriarty
Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.
- Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way.
- You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room.
- This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing.
- It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.
Anton Chigurh
Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.
- Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
- You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are.
- No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
- Call it. He will wait.
It begs the question of why Michael was ever in jail in the first place. Therefore, when it is revealed that Michael is actually the most effective hitman the Kinsella family had and only went to prison because he killed his own wife, Anna's mother, he becomes an extremely conflicting character. On the one hand, Cox's softness in his performance and the way he reluctantly uses his superior skills to protect his family make him highly sympathetic. However, the fact he cannot escape from the violent world his family inhabits means he is also selfish for trying to force a relationship with his daughter, no matter how much he loves her.
'Kin' Provides a Fabulous Cast of Chaotic Characters in the Kinsella Family
As previously stated, Cox is not the only star in Kin, as there is a wide range of colorful characters that pose different challenges within the family, which often means the Kinsellas' greatest conflict comes from within, not the outside world. Aidan Gillen, Clare Dunne, Sam Keeley, Emmett J. Scanlan, and Francis Magee all give phenomenal performances as a thoroughly opposed set of characters. Gillen plays the current head of the family, Frank, who is seen as too passive; Keeley is his impulsive son, Eric; Magee is a horrible and violent thug, Bren, who returns from prison to try and take over the family; and Dunne is given the standout role as Amanda, a mother with the best brain in the family as she tries to steer this chaotic syndicate in the right direction.
Scanlan arguably has the role that demands the most extreme of reactions as Jimmy, Bren's son and Amanda's husband. If looking for a comparison to another chaotic crime family, Jimmy would be Kin's version of The Godfather's Fredo (John Cazale), as he is both too innocent for this world and desperate to be accepted. This means that when Bren and Amanda become closer and closer to an all-out war, he is forced into the most difficult of choices: being an active contributor to a violent family with Bren or a largely ignored supporter of Amanda.
'Kin' Is Returning for a Third Season in 2027
While the series has already released two seasons that are well worth watching, its future was uncertain for years. RTÉ confirmed in July 2026 that Kin will return for a third season in 2027. Season 2 of Kin leaves us with so much still to explore — though any further discussion would be a spoiler. At first, it seemed that, because of how most of the cast’s stars had risen, scheduling was seemingly impossible to coordinate, and the contracts had run out, as The Irish Sun reported in February 2024. However, subsequent reports offered early signs that a third season was not an impossibility.
In September 2024, Scanlan told Radio Times that there was a “bidding war” ongoing, with the show's co-creator, Ciaran Donnelly, confirming that there was a wide "interest in reviving" the show that December to JOE. On top of this, Cox told LADbible in January 2025 that he would "jump at the chance" to return as Michael. Those reports suggested potential buyers and actors were interested in a return, while Donnelly said the show was meant to go for five seasons in the same interview with JOE. The confirmed third season finally gives the Kinsellas another chapter.
Even before that return, Kin is certainly worth watching as a show on its own. Cox and the rest of the cast are all brilliant in it, and they create a family that seems more dangerous to itself than anyone else, exploring fascinating topics around loyalty and what it means to be a father, brother, mother, sister, and so forth. For Tulsa King fans drawn to the personal cost of criminal loyalty, those fractured family bonds make these 16 episodes an especially rewarding replacement.
Kin is currently not available to stream or rent in the U.S.
- Release Date
- 2021 - 2027-00-00
- Network
- RTÉ One
- Directors
- Felix Thompson, Tessa Hoffe, Diarmuid Goggins, Joseph Lawlor, Christine Molloy
- Writers
- Ciaran Donnelly
-
Frank Kinsella
-
David Herlihy
Detective Paul Breslin
-
Michael Kinsella
-
Danielle Galligan
Pharmacist Molly
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.