Janine Cody

"We never set out to hurt anyone. That's not the way we work. We don't take stupid risks. We're not greedy. But we're human. - Smurf" Janine Cody, known as Smurf, is the tough matriarch of her family and J's estranged grandmother. She is one of the main characters of the show.

Smurf is protective of her family and presents a borderline-incestuous love towards them.

A seemingly legit businesswoman in Southern California, Smurf is really the provocative matriarch of a close-knit crime family composed of her four grown sons. One moment coddling, the next menacing, the unpredictable and manipulative Smurf has a warped emotional hold over "her boys" that makes them fear and resent her while still vying for her love and approval.

Janine 'Smurf" Cody is portrayed by Ellen Barkin.

In Season 4, a younger version of Smurf in her 20's is portrayed by Leila George.

Season 3
In season 3, Smurf continues to run things from behind bars through J while attempting to get out of prison. J pays Pete's gang for Smurf's protection and she is outraged to learn that Billy is back and orders J to get him out of the house. As the DA and Detective Pearce attempt to make a case against Smurf and the boys, she works with her attorneys to prove her innocence. Smurf pushes for the ballistics report which proves that Javi was shot with her gun after the murder, but Pearce and the DA claim to have found a witness. After Pearce gives her a hostile cellmate, Smurf almost makes a deal before realizing that Pearce is bluffing and has no real evidence against her. With Smurf's attorney having set up an evidentiary hearing and with the ballistics report providing too much doubt, the DA is forced to drop the charges against Smurf and she is released. She then learns from Pearce, who drives her home, that the boys are using her properties to launder their money.

After her return, Smurf resumes a brief sexual relationship with Billy and revokes J's power of attorney. She then demands a twenty percent cut for the boys to launder their money through her properties and sets out to recover her stolen money from Lucy. Smurf uses Pete's gang to kidnap Lucy's brother Marco and demands an exchange of her money for Marco. Though the exchange goes through, Marco instigates a firefight that leaves Marco dead and Pope kidnapped. Lucy, who continues to maintain her innocence in Baz's murder, insists to Pope that Smurf is the true culprit. During a meeting in a courthouse between the two women, Smurf confesses to having Baz killed to get Pope back. Pope subsequently believes Lucy's insistence that Smurf was the true killer, but Smurf uses Lena as leverage to get Pope to stay.

Having discovered the theft of several of her properties by her lawyer Morgan, Smurf sets out to investigate with Pope, particularly after Morgan is found dead. Smurf begins to realize that J is the true culprit in the thefts though he destroys the evidence linking him to it. Smurf is implied to have Lucy killed by Mia and divides her properties between her sons and J. As Smurf sleeps, J vows to take everything away from her.

Season 4
In season 4, flashbacks depict a young Smurf (played by Leila George) running jobs with her boyfriend Colin's gang. Colin proves to be the father of Julia and Pope who was killed in a shootout with the police. In the present, Smurf becomes increasingly ill, leading to a collapse. Following her collapse, Smurf undergoes testing and learns that she has developed melanoma, skin cancer. The cancer has spread to her lymph nodes, bones and liver, suggesting that Smurf's condition is stage 4 and ultimately terminal.

Throughout the season, Smurf plans to rob Jed, Colin's brother and a paranoid survivalist who took her in after Colin's death and then tried to rape her, causing Smurf to go into labor at eight months pregnant. During the robbery, Smurf suddenly kills Jed in revenge for the attempted rape forty years before and instigates a gunfight with his sons that Pope rescues Smurf from. An enraged Smurf reveals that she had intended it to be a suicide mission for her and Pope from the start, not wanting to waste away from her cancer. Taking Deran's gun, a deranged Smurf demands that Pope kill her, even grazing the side of his head with a shot in an attempt to force him to shoot. Finally, J shoots Smurf through the head from the side, killing her and her family makes plans to make it appear as if Smurf died peacefully in her sleep from the cancer. Smurf's death creates a power vacuum that her friends and enemies seek to exploit. During this time, Billy and Jake also return, but Jake decides against telling Craig that he's his father. Despite her death, Smurf appears in "Janine" through continuing flashbacks to the 70s. In the flashbacks, she escapes from Jed with the help of his wife and seeks the help of her friend Pamela Johnson who refuses to work with Smurf when she so recently gave birth, but gives her money. Smurf then returns to Jake. After ignoring Pope's cries, throughout the flashbacks, Smurf eventually picks him up and sings to him, proving that as everyone said, she really did love him.

J discovers that Smurf cut her family out of her will except for a nominal amount of money and left the rest, including the house, to her friend Pamela Johnson. With the help of Frankie, J identifies Pamela who was arrested in 1983 for a string of armed robberies with an unidentified partner who was never caught. Frankie and J both suspect that Smurf was the unidentified partner. After being kicked out by Pope for his lies, J reveals the truth about everything he stole from Smurf to Pope and her will, suggesting that they work together to lead the family and redo the will to get what's rightfully theirs rather than allowing Smurf to cut them out as she had planned. The letters sent after her death suggest that Smurf didn't expect Pope to outlive her and planned to cut everyone out even before Julia died as one of the letters was addressed to her. Baz was, however, missing from the letters.

Trivia

 * Pope and Julia's father is a man named Colin. Craig's father was Jake and was in a crew with Janine and Colin. Deran's father was Billy.