It appears as though Bloodline is going to have these place-setting episodes every few hours. The Netflix original has been content to move along at its own leisurely, sun-baked pace, but up until “Part 5,” that’s worked in its favor. “Part 5″‘s glacial pace reduces the whole hour to something of a slog, even if it does deepen the mysteries of the Rayburns.
It’s weird to have such reserved praise for an episode in which a character dies. But Bob Rayburn, for all the life imbued in him by Sam Shepard, was never in Bloodline‘s previous four episodes enough, so his death is far more important to the characters than it is to us. But okay, show, we’ll play by your rules. After Bob collapses – not showing his death is by far this episode’s wisest, most tactful move – we’re treated to a grieving episode, which more or less takes the form of several vignettes.
As usual, Kevin and Meg get short shrift with this approach. They’re both going through relationship woes; Meg breaks things off with the developer Alec Morris, who really shouldn’t be calling her at a funeral, and Kevin gets drunk and pissed off at his wife Belle, who he asked not to attend the service. By episode’s end, though, Kevin and Belle have reconciled, and for all Kevin’s bluster it’s nice to see a softer side to him.
John and Danny have the meatier material once again. John continues his investigation into the dead girl, with the help of his dad’s old friend Lenny Potts, whose arrival, like everyone’s arrival, throws everything into disorder. Potts, as it turns out, was the detective investigating an accident Danny had when he was younger, and from the way it sounds, Bob Rayburn was no angel and the accident probably wasn’t an accident. We finally get some more backstory on the girl with the seahorse necklace, about whom Bob couldn’t stop dreaming. As I – and I’m sure many of you – suspected, she was the fifth Rayburn sibling, whose name we don’t yet know, but whose death led to the strained relationship that Danny had with his father until his death.
That’s about all the backstory we get in “Part 5”; the rest of the episode is made up of character beats. This is probably Sissy Spacek’s strongest hour, because she gets more to do than she has up to this point. Sally absolutely exists on the periphery of Bloodline, but once again, if she’s important to the main characters, I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt – provided the material justifies her inclusion. Spacek gets a strong scene where she tells John a story from Bob’s youth, but after that she kind of fades into the background. It’s a testament to Spacek’s skill – she has an Oscar, remember – that she can make even her small scenes seem important, and the way she dresses, moves, talks, and even stands shows us that she knows Sally better than Bloodline is allowing us to.
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Uhhhh how closely are you watching the show? They’ve been saying the deceased sibling’s name (Sarah) for a few episodes now….