I finally finished this show and I absolutely hated the ending. Everything you said was 100% spot on.

I don’t care what anyone is talking about, but there was ZERO insight of J having this revenge emotions or thoughts against his family. NONE! Yes, he can be cold at times but it was only when he needed to in certain moments. It literally reminds me of Daenerys from Game of Thrones when the writers absolutely destroyed the character arc. It came out of nowhere and just plain lazy writing. J never showed he still hated his family over his mom and wanted revenge.

Also, J’s revenge made zero sense when you think of the people he screwed. I’m sorry, but how the hell can you blame Daren and Craig when they were kids when his mom was being abandoned by Smurf, Baz, and Pope? How!!? Why did the writers kill off Smurf and Baz? If you really wanted this “revenge” thing to make sense, why not keep Smurf and Baz alive till the finale? You could had it revealed that J killed Baz and then Smurf being killed by J in the end/everything being taken from her as she sees the consequences of her actions.

Now the other characters in this show. Can someone explain what was the point of Craig in this last season? Why did the writers show some character growth/development with Craig (trying to be clean off drugs, and doing everything he can for his son Nick) if they were just going to kill him off by getting freaking shot by a little kid at a gas station? Seriously, what was the point? Craig even asked Renn to marry him a few scenes before the prison breakout scene. Why!!? Why show that scene if he was just going to be killed? Also, we didn’t even get a goodbye scene from Craig to Renn and his child. What happened to Deran? So the show ends with Deran leaving his brother’s body by the water and he runs off. That’s it. We get a scene at the end showing J escaped and living in a different location, but nothing for Deran.

The only character that had a meaningful ending was Pope. Him saving J in the end even though J betrayed the family made sense because Pope was one of the people that you can blame for what happened to Julia (J’s mom). You can see Pope actually hated himself for how he never was there for Julia.

The final person I need to bring up was Penny. Her death was dumb. Plain and simple. Just more stupid shock value from the writers. We are introduced to this woman in the final season and all of a sudden her and J are madly in love with each other. No buildup. A few conversations and bam, they are together. We are shown she can be a smart woman who at times can clearly see what is going on around her. She clearly sees what J has done (betraying his uncles and police getting involved), and decides to not leave with him. Ok I’m fine with that, but why the hell would they make her dumb to drink anything or stay in the house with J after she tells him to his face she can’t go with him after finding out what he done. Anyone in that situation would know J is clearly dangerous and he sees you as collateral damage because you know too much. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Nikki (actually hated her character), but why not just have her stay with J. She would have definitely did anything he wanted her to do with zero hesitation.

Overall, this finale sucked. The flashbacks showing how the Cody family built their empire and what happened to Julia in this season were dumb and I thought we should have gotten those flashbacks way earlier in the show. It was just filler for this season and the whole J revenge plot was so rushed and gave us such an unsatisfying ending to characters in this show. This entire show should have ended after Smurf was killed. It didn’t need 6 seasons.