“Part 12” was Bloodline‘s finest hour, and it also killed off its most interesting character, so I guess a little bit of disappointment with “Part 13” was to be expected. It’s almost impossible to follow an episode like “12,” and without Danny Rayburn in the proceedings, the show severely handicapped itself.
Most of “13” followed John, Meg, and Kevin’s attempts to cover up Danny’s murder. John, having chest pains, calls Meg to the scene of the crime; she admits him to the hospital and returns with Kevin. They have to move the body because some boaters are approaching, and that’s when everything starts to go to shit. Meg and Kevin don’t have the knack for this kind of skullduggery, whereas John is better at it because he quite often sees it from the other side. It’s an interesting move on Bloodline‘s part to sideline John for a good twenty minutes, letting Meg and Kevin create something of a mess that he has to clean up (I don’t know if anyone in history has been more reliant on their older sibling than Kevin Rayburn). John peaces out of the hospital, because no one in film or TV history has every stayed in a hospital when a doctor told them to.
John’s plan is actually pretty smart. He and Kevin stage a robbery at Danny’s Miami apartment, which also affords them the opportunity to return all the coke to Danny’s cupboard. John has Kevin call him, from Danny’s phone, so he and “Danny” can talk within earshot of Sally. (The most heartbreaking part of this plan is the amount of lying the Rayburns have to do to their mother.) The only hitch to all this is that someone sees Kevin and John leaving Danny’s apartment – someone wearing a Rayburn House shirt. Consider this Bloodline laying the groundwork for season two, more of which we’ll get to in a minute.
After Danny’s body is found, the cops do most of the work for John. Marco calls John in to question him, and can I just say that Marco has the worst poker face in history. Every question he asks seems designed to unnerve you and put you on the spot, which might make him a good detective, but it makes him a shitty friend and ex-fiancee (speaking of that scene with Meg in the car. She was right to blow up at him). During the entire questioning it seems like Marco is going to accuse John of being involved in Danny’s death, to the point where John acts as audience surrogate and demands “Why don’t you get to the fucking point, Marco?” It turns out that Marco and Clay from the DEA have constructed a narrative that lays the blame at Wayne Lowry’s feet, which is exactly what John wanted (he also called Lowry’s bait shop from Danny’s phone, just so there would be a record of it).
My main complaint about this is that it wraps up a little too neatly. Halfway through the episode I thought, Hey, what if season two is about the investigation into Danny’s death, and the Rayburns coming under suspicion? I’d watch that. I keep having to come up with excuses to watch this show now that Danny is dead, and that’s hard for me to say because for the most part I really liked Bloodline. A kid with stupid piercings shows up at the end of “13” and tells John that he’s Danny’s son – evidently who Danny was sending money to – and he wants to talk. That sounds intriguing, but I don’t know if it’s enough. Bloodline‘s creators are going to have to pull out all the stops to make season two half as interesting as season one – and keep in mind, for all the goodwill engendered by its mostly great latter half, season one still had some issues. I guess my problem is that “Part 12” ended with an exclamation point, and “Part 13” ends with a question mark.
“Part 13” score: 3.5/5 stars
Bloodline season one score: 4/5 stars
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