YMMV / The Black Donnellys

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Dokey's Moral Event Horizon. It isn't referenced at all in the next (and final) episode despite ample opportunities to bring it up as well as how it should have shaped his interactions with the brothers a lot more.
• Cargo Ship: Kevin/his jacket, Kevin/cereal, and Kevin/Sean's car have their supporters.
• Crowning Music Of Awesome: Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes" played at the end of the pilot, in its entirety, to a montage of Kevin and Tommy killing the mob bosses, Jimmy being arrested, Sean in the hospital, sad Jenny, and Joey Ice Cream narrating.
  • Even better is the unaired version which used Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)."
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Two separate plot points ended up, probably coincidentally, coming up years later in longer-running, higher-profile TV series:
  • The Reveal that the Donnellys' mother may have set up Bobby to be killed is reminiscent of a similar reveal on Sons of Anarchy
  • Nicky pulling a coup in which he poisons both his boss' drink and his own, vomiting his own up later was almost exactly the same thing Gus Fring ended up doing on Breaking Bad.
• Moral Event Horizon: Dokey Farrell is aways a sinister character, but he can seem vaguely sympathetic for most of the show, as he is right to distrust Tommy, does want to avenge his brother (who Tommy did kill) and actually comes across as less brutal and mean-spirited than Jimmy and Kevin can at times. Then comes the second to last episode, where we find out that he killed their dad years before the series and did so somewhat gleefully.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Joey Ice Cream and Samson are Marine buddies.
  • Young Jenny is Jade West.
• Tear Jerker: A few times, notably Tommy, Kevin, and Jimmy finding Sean after he's attacked, and the ending of the last episode.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • While his falling out with Jimmy was foreshadowed from his first appearance, Whitey made an entertaining addition to the Donnelly's circle, being fairly competent, and resisting a chance to sell them out to his Evil Uncle. It would have been nice to see him survive and be part of the core group by the finale, maybe even having him and Tommy connect over their mutual missed chances to get out of the neighborhood. His sleeping with Janie also came out of nowhere.
  • Although Shawn's second girlfriend Nadine was a great character, Kim, from the first few episodes does feel wasted, given her Violently Protective Girlfriend moment, and how she could have had an interesting dynamic out of having dated Tommy first but ended up with Shawn. The fact that we don't get to see that much of her and Shawn together also means that a lot of the more appealing aspects of Nadine's character could have still been incorporated into hers.

---