© RTE & AMC+And it is.
© RTE & AMC+
Last year saw Sharon Horgan's Irish Film and Television Award winning black comedy 'Bad Sisters' delight audiences on Apple TV+.
Fran Harris 'The Dry' has made a bit of a splash on Britbox, RTE and ITVx.
© RTE & AMC+North of the border, Channel 4's 'Derry Girls' and BBC Northern Ireland's 'Three Families' and 'Blue Lights' have really impressed audiences.
However over the past eight weeks, one show has muscled its way back to the front of the pack.
'Kin' is a gangland drama made by RTE and AMC.
The first series hit our screens in September 2021 and made an immediate impression with its high production values and gripping storyline.
© RTE & AMC+The tale of a south Dublin crime family, the Kinsellas sucked into a feud with a more powerful gang headed by Ciaran Hinds' Eamon Cunningham, it was tightly written, superbly acted and dazzlingly directed.
It also had female lead characters who were multi-dimensional - unlike the Irish gangland tales we had seen before.
Created by Peter McKenna and Ciaran Donnelly, the first series of 'Kin' had a plot that felt like it could have been ripped from the headlines and a smart cast that included Aidan Gillen, Charlie Cox, Clare Dunne, Emmett J Scanlan and Maria Doyle Kennedy.
After earning critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic and winning six Irish Film and Television Awards, a second series was commissioned.
But as good as it was, a big question remained.
Could 'Kin' really kick on in the second series and become a show that could approach the greatness of 'The Sopranos'?
(SPOILER ALERT!!!)
Series one of 'Kin' ended stunningly with Clare Dunne's car dealer Amanda Kinsella outwitting Ciaran Hinds' Eamon Cunningham who was gunned down in Spain by her brother-in-law Charlie Cox's Michael Kinsella.
As a result, the second series of the show finds the Kinsellas in the prime slot as Dublin's most powerful crime gang.
However two developments threaten their primacy.
© RTE & AMC+First, the Kinsellas are summoned to a meeting with a Turkish crime gang, the Batuks who were the main suppliers of drugs to Cunningham.
Oyku Karayel's Nuray Batuk and her cousin, Kenan Ece's Hazma inform Amanda and her husband, Emmet J Scanlan's Jimmy that as Cunningham owed their cartel 70 million Euro, they have now inherited that debt.
However the Batuks are also smarting that while assassinating Cunningham, Michael shot dead Nuray's brother.
A bounty is subsequently put on Michael's head.
© RTE & AMC+After the killing of a key witness in a supermarket by his cronie Ryan Lincoln's Kem, Sam Keeley's hotheaded member of the Kinsellas, Erik (or 'Viking') as he is known is released from prison.
Greeted by his aunt Maria Doyle Kennedy's Birdy with a car full of cash and by his girlfriend, Yasmine Seky's Niki, he's incredibly cocky, boasting that major changes are coming to the crime gang with Amanda's rise through the ranks about to be halted.
Amanda and Viking have beef because she holds him responsible for the murder of her teenage son, Jamie by the Cunningham gang.
By the end of the first episode, it becomes exactly clear what Viking means about major changes.
© RTE & AMC+Francis Magee's fearsome Bren Kinsella is released from Mountjoy Prison and it's like letting a gorilla run amok in a china shop.
Bren immediately sets about settling old scores on the streets of Dublin, confronting an old enemy and then ordering his hit.
Taking up residency in a grotty pub called The Furry Bog, he starts to throw his weight about the family - insisting Jimmy needs to keep Amanda in check and that they will not hand over a single cent to the Batuks, even though that may spark a war they cannot win.
It also becomes apparent that Bren brings other baggage to the family, with his sister Birdy and Michael particularly wary of his return.
© RTE & AMC+He's particularly bullying and vindictive towards his gay brother (and Viking's father) Aidan Gillen's Frank who served as the family's titular head in his absence.
Frank, though, is oddly disenchanted with his life of crime and increasingly spends a lot of time in his local Catholic church - even though he insists he doesn't believe in God.
Tired of the tensions between various family members and of looking over his shoulder for attacks by rival gangs, he just wants to escape.
With Bren also trying to extend his influence over Jimmy and Amanda's teenage son, Mark McKenna Jr's Anthony and also behaving creepily around Michael's estranged daughter, Hannah Adeogun's Anna, family loyalties are tested while the Batuks try to bleed them dry of cash.
© RTE & AMC+Can Amanda, Michael and Birdy keep the family intact in the face of Bren's aggression and the Batuks' relentless pressure?
Will Amanda also be able to keep the Gardai at bay as they try to build a money laundering case against her?
Having set a high bar for itself in series one, the stakes have been really high for 'Kin' throughout its second run.
Not only is that bar comfortably cleared but it really feels like McKenna and Donnelly's show has gone up another level.
© RTE & AMC+Once again it's superbly directed - this time by Felix Thompson, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor and by Kate Dolan, with stunning drone shots of Dublin by JJ Rolfe whose cinematography really gets the best out of the Irish capital.
However it is the quality of McKenna's writing and the performances it inspires that really stands out.
Having given us a brief taste of his character in the first series, Magee's Bren is a terrific creation.
The most loathsome character to surface on Irish television screens since Roddy Doyle and Sean McGinley's Charlo Spencer in BBC1 and RTE1's 1994 miniseries 'Family,' Bren is a Dublin neanderthal on a rampage through his home city and his family.
© RTE & AMC+Satisfying his need for violence and mayhem, he intimidates those around him and rules by fear.
After a first series where everyone was so calculating, the injection of this element into the story and Magee's willingness to embrace Bren's vindictiveness and villainry makes for nerve shredding viewing.
Dunne is once again terrific as Amanda who's always trying to stay two steps ahead of her enemies inside and the outside the family.
Amanda has a natural flair for organised crime but juggles it with her feelings for Michael and her duties as a mother and Dunne compellingly balances all those facets of her character.
© RTE & AMC+As Michael, Cox continues to imbue a killer with a real softness as he struggles with epilepsy and to maintain a relationship with his estranged daughter.
With his marriage coming under strain while Bren orders him to tell Amanda he's in charge, Scanlan's Jimmy feels even more lost than before and it continues to be the actor's best screen part.
Gillen is as compelling as ever as Frank who struggles to find meaning in his life and dreams of leaving it all behind.
Doyle Kennedy turns in another intelligent performance as the streetsmart Birdy who has good reason to feel uncomfortable about Bren's return.
© RTE & AMC+Meanwhile Keeley and Seky bring even greater depth to their roles, as Viking and Niki's relationship is finally tested by his criminal activities.
McKenna Jr emerges as a character to watch as Anthony is seduced by Bren into a life of crime and his relationship with his mum Amanda becomes strained.
Adeogun brings an even greater vulnerability to the part of Anna.
Karayel and Ece are also fantastic additions to the cast - the former's story arc mirroring Amanda's.
© RTE & AMC+Even the fringe characters are well written, with Lincoln engaging our sympathies as Viking's twitchy associate Kem whose betrayal of the Kinsellas in the first series threatens to come back to haunt him.
The same is true for Shauna Higgins as his girlfriend Jess.
Ben Carolan continues to bring the swagger he had before as Eamon Cunningham's trusted assassin Glen Wright, while George Georgiu catches the eye as a drugs importer Zehab Can.
Paul Tylak as the shifty solicitor Donal Crehan, Danielle Galligan as Michael's flirty pharmacist Molly, Cathal Pendred as Amanda's muscle Rory Hayes, Jack Mullarkey as the Kinsellas' rival dealer Wayne Madigan and David Herlihy as the Garda Detective Paul Breslin also impress.
© RTE & AMC+With its smart, ruthless women, 'Kin' really puts that other Dublin gangland series 'Love/Hate' in the ha'penny place - driving home just how macho that show was and how one dimensional its female characters were.
'Kin' is so brilliantly written by McKenna and riddled with tension, the final episode is a bit like watching your favourite football team in a cup final going into a penalty shootout.
It's dazzlingly executed and it's emotionally draining but you don't want it to end.
McKenna has surely earned the right to see the Kinsella saga through to at least two more series?
Because if he keeps this up, it could turn out to be the greatest gangster series outside of 'The Sopranos' and not a kick in the arse away from coming within touching distance of that show's greatness.
(Series two of 'Kin' was broadcast on RTE1 between March 19-May 7, 2023 and will be available on AMC+ in the United States and Sundance Now on Amazon Prime in the UK)
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