Jesus Christ, this episode. I don’t know if I’ve seen a tenser hour of television all year. “Part 12” was definitely Bloodline‘s darkest hour, both narratively and visually. The rain has never fallen on Islamorada like it did in “12.” Everything took on a Stygian hue, and Carl Franklin (a veteran of The Leftovers and House of Cards) directed the episode like it was a horror movie – which in a lot of ways it was.
Everyone is looking for Danny – John, Kevin, and Ralph, Wayne Lowry’s henchman who killed Rafi. Danny is driving around in his father’s truck, which, if we’re sticking with this river Styx analogy, looks like the boat of Charon, the ferryman that led the dead to the gates of Hades. Danny is listening to the tape of John’s false statement, over and over again, like a fucking serial killer. This has been a motif for a while, but Danny has never been shown to be as obsessive as he is here; he even says the lines aloud with his brother, like he’s listening to a song he likes.
Danny gives John an ultimatum: give me back the drugs, and I won’t tell Wayne Lowry that you have them. John turns him down, and so does Wayne, even after Danny goes to him personally. Wayne send Ralph after Danny, who’s shacked up in a motel. Ralph arrives at almost the same time John does, and John just leaves, content but also sickened by the knowledge that he let his brother be killed. At least he thinks Danny’s dead, until he shows up at the inn. Danny has that unkillable quality shared by great villains like the evil preacher in Night of the Hunter. He will always return, and you will always underestimate him.
It’s time for the Rayburns to lay all their cards on the table. Naturally, Danny goes first. He gives a scorched-earth monologue detailing every crime he’s committed on the inn’s property, thereby implicating his siblings and his mother, all of whom are co-owners. “I never felt safe in this house,” he says. “Now none of you will feel safe in this house.” This scene is notable, too, for being the first time since Bloodline began that Danny has raised his voice. “QUIET!” he barks at his family, and Kevin’s reaction tells me that the shouting was improvised by Ben Mendelsohn; Franklin’s camera was just lucky enough to catch the look on Norbert Butz’s face.
The whole thing – not just “Part 12” but the whole season – comes to a head, appropriately, on a beach. Bloodline has done a great job of subverting, and perverting, its idyllic setting, and while at first it seemed too obviously tailored to the dark story that Bloodline wanted to tell, twelve episodes in it’s hard to imagine this show being set anywhere else.
John and Danny meet on a beach, where they sit on a log and try to understand each other, both as brothers and as humans. But they can’t. Danny can’t forgive John for taking Bob’s side; John can’t forgive Danny for threatening Janey. “When does it end?” John asks. “It never ends for me,” Danny replies, “why should it for you?” For the first time all season, Mendelsohn finds himself equally matched in a scene, because the end of “12” boasts Kyle Chandler’s best acting so far, and he hasn’t exactly been phoning it in, so that should give you an idea of how damned good he is here. Frustrated, angry, scared, he attacks Danny with a piece of driftwood. Danny laughs hysterically, having finally drawn John down to his level, but his laughter ceases when John drags him into the water. “When’s it gonna end?” he demands, over and over, pushing Danny’s head underwater. Danny claws at his brother’s face. “When’s it gonna end?” Danny’s hand is still. “Part 12” ends with John sitting on the beach, stunned, in a daze, looking at his brother’s body floating in the water. It leaves us with that image – and incredibly high expectations for “Part 13.”
A Few Thoughts
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Sally just now finds Danny’s speech, the one he pocketed way back in “Part 1.” Now that’s a slow burn. We still don’t know what it says, only that it causes her to break down in tears, only able to repeat “My baby hates me”
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Nice use of silence in this episode. Music was replaced with ambient sound for a good chunk of the running time
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As much as I applaud Bloodline for being willing to kill Danny off before the season finale, I can’t help but wonder what this show looks like without him. And I’m aware that I sound like a broken record
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BEN. FUCKING. MENDELSOHN
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