How do you solve a problem like Danny Rayburn? Even now, a year after Bloodline‘s series debut, the name alone is enough to spike my anxiety, fueled by memories of Ben Mendelsohn’s terrifying performance. So with Danny dead and gone, how do you do Bloodline? More importantly, should you do Bloodline?
The answer to that is twofold. I don’t want to give the wrong impression here: “Part 14” is not a train wreck. It’s not even a bad episode. It’s a pretty good premiere to a season of television that has to work really hard to justify its existence. Maybe that sounds like an impossibly high bar to hurdle; if it is, don’t blame me, blame Ben Mendelsohn. Without Danny, Bloodline is fundamentally a different show. But it still succeeds at the things that made season one work.
I really like the idea of the Rayburn siblings as conspirators. They’re all unraveling in different ways – Meg is drinking too much, Kevin is wracked with guilt and dabbling in cocaine, and John is distracted and preoccupied. All understandable reactions. It’s fun – maybe not the right word – to watch three talented actors participate in the dissolving of their characters. Linda Cardellini in particular wrings maximum discomfort out of a scene where Meg gets too drunk at a work dinner.
John is trying to hold things together, and doing an increasingly poor job of it. Kyle Chandler excels at this incarnation of John: the man who has to be in charge, but is in no way equipped to be. He talks about running for county sheriff, even though he’s not in the right headspace for that – but appearances must be kept up. This is where Bloodline succeeds, in spite of the Danny-shaped hole in the cast. The show is pivoting into more of an outright thriller, but with an air of familial intimacy that guarantees it will be gut-wrenching down the line, something in the mold of A Simple Plan.
Further complicating matters is the arrival of Danny’s son Nolan (Owen Teague), who – based on his emo haircut, piercings, leather bracelets, chain necklace, and plaid shirt – appears to be a time traveler from 2005. He’s sullen, combative, and obviously shifty as hell. He’s not likable, but Teague does good work in the role, which is all that’s required. He’s in league with Eric O’Bannon (Jamie McShane), who’s hiding out in a shack in the forest, which is so perfect for Eric’s character it’s amazing that it took this long for us to see it.
The pacing problems that plagued the first season are still here. “Part 14” is an hour long, but it’s a long hour. Maybe it’s the glut of characters, maybe it’s the absence of flash-forwards for the first time in the show’s run, but something about the episode was scattered. There were a ton of conflicts introduced, some of which could have been held off until later – like, say, Marco’s burgeoning suspicion of the Rayburns and their involvement in Danny’s death. That’s a plot point I’m excited about, but here it just served to clutter an already overstuffed episode.
The most exciting development is the war brewing between John and Wayne Lowry. I’ve always liked Wayne as a character, and I love Bloodline‘s depiction of a suburban Florida dad who’s also a drug lord. Glenn Morshower’s prickly, no-nonsense performance really makes his scenes crackle when opposite Chandler, who plays John as trying to be both tough and reasonable. But John’s life is about to get very unreasonable, as Wayne has a tape from Danny that could really make things difficult for John.
There are some good foundations laid in “Part 14,” but the show is smart to recognize its best component, and bring back Danny by any means necessary – even if from the dead.
A Few Thoughts
- Welcome back to our Bloodline coverage. I’ll try to be more consistent here than I was with Daredevil, House of Cards, Sense8, Orange Is the New Black…man, I am shit when it comes to reviewing Netflix shows.
- I really liked the way this episode was shot. The interior and exterior scenes have a nice contrast, not just in color but in camera movement. Inside, where John’s lies can come crashing down, everything is shot handheld, giving the scenes a note of uncertainty.
- Those douchebags summed up Florida pretty well: Jai Alai and alligator wrestling, that sounds about right to me.
- Nice ominous line, courtesy of John’s wife Diane: “Who knows what else is out there?”
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