I want to start by telling you that a) I don't normally recap or promote shows on this blog and b) I was not compensated, or even asked by
Netflix to discuss this show. I'm discussing this show because it kicks major ass. No one paid me, no one bought me dinner (although if
Kyle Chandler or
Bill Kelly want to do so, I'm not gonna argue). By the way, Bill and I have favorited each others Tweets on the Twitter, so we're totally besties now. Right Bill? Call me!
Anyway, this show is intense. SO intense. I've wanted to watch it since I first heard about it, but you may or may not be aware that life is busy. The show was released in its entirety on Netflix in April and at that time we were planning my Father In Law's funeral, my daughter's high school graduation and party, our band banquet (
I'm the Chairperson) and about a million other things, so I didn't actually get around to watching. Over the summer I did finally catch up on all the episodes of Bones that I'd missed and when I finished the last episode of Bones Season 10 I thought, "hmmm, what can I watch now?" Then it hit me! I'd been wanting to watch Bloodline and BOOM! NOW IS THE TIME!
Buckle up, Snarklings because this show is a roller coaster. It's extremely well-written, the acting is superb, the story is addictive and the secrets! SO MANY SECRETS! On the outside, the Rayburn family appears to be your upper-middle class tight-knit warm and fuzzy family. A large family gathering starts the show as friends and family gather at the family's Florida Keys Inn, aptly named the Rayburn House. Seriously, I want to vacation there.
The ne'er do well oldest brother Danny (played amazingly by Aussie actor
Ben Mendelsohn) comes in on a bus from out of town and you immediately want to hate him because he appears to be a good for nothing failure. Every family has a Danny. He's your lowlife cousin, your slacker brother in law, the one who is always looking for a get rich quick scheme that involves the least amount of work. As the show goes on, we learn why Danny was on the outs with the whole family. And it's a doozy. Second oldest brother John, the detective, the keeper of the family, the one who holds it all together is played by one of my all-time favorite actors,
Kyle Chandler and he is perfection in this role. He has officially left
Coach Taylor behind and is dark, brooding and super sexy in this role.
Linda Cardellini plays Meg, the Rayburn daughter who is engaged to John's detective partner Marco (
Enrique Murciano) but is getting some booty on the side. And little brother Kevin is played exquisitely by
Norbert Leo Butz. Seriously, every family also has a Kevin: a hot-headed immature guy who will fly off the handle with his short fuse, drink and get high but at the end of the day, he's committed to his family and will do anything for them. Sissy Spacek and Sam Shepard round out the case as Ma and Pa Rayburn (actually as Sally and Robert Rayburn).
There are drugs, human trafficking, lots and lots of drinking and smoking and that's just the first 20 minutes of the first episode. The kingpin leading the bad guys is Wayne Lowry, who is played by a guy I'll ALWAYS love as Aaron from 24,
Glen Morshower. No kidding, he could play Satan and I'd love him because Aaron was such a great character in 24. But I digress.
If you don't want to know anything more than I've already told you, stop reading and watch the damn show yourself. Because SPOILERS are coming. Go on, go. Go get on the Netflix and watch.
For those of you who stayed, HEY what's up?! So yeah, Bloodline! As the show opens, John is narrating and it sounds like he's giving a confession to the cops (and DEA Agent Clay Grunwald played by the uber-talented and really fine-looking Bill Kelly). As the episode comes to a close, we see a scene where John and Danny are dressed in seer-sucker suits (no lie) in a mangrove in a torrential thunderstorm. Danny's looking kinda dead. John puts him in a boat, gasses him up and lights him on fire. What?
Yeah, intense. "We're not bad people. We just did a bad thing" is what he says. And the whole time, you're thinking he's talking about killing Danny as the bad thing they did. Won't you be surprised to learn what he's talking about.
Second week in, Pa Rayburn suffers a stroke but you're led to believe that maybe Danny had something to do with it because he tells Pa that he has something he wants to tell him "Before you die." Meg (who is the family lawyer) was supposed to change Pa's will to cut Danny out, but guess what! She never followed through with it. So now Pa's hanging on by a thread and she's torn. Does she go through with filing the paperwork? To do so she'll need Pa's signature, and we don't even know if he's in his right mind, because he wakes up from his coma and calls her Sarah. What??
As the days go by, we learn that Sarah was the OTHER Rayburn daughter. Pa's favorite, the golden child. Poor Sarah. Here's one of the major secrets revealed: Sarah overheard a big fight between Ma and Pa Rayburn, and Danny ran upstairs to get her away from the wickedness. He took her by the hand, led her out to the docks and took her out on the family's boat. He was 16 and very much NOT a legal, responsible adult. And while under Danny's watch, she died. When Pa Rayburn learns that Sarah, his favorite child, has died, he beats the ever-loving snot out of Danny. Ma Rayburn coaches the remaining Rayburn kids to lie to the cops when they ask what happened. And one by one, each child tells the same story: Danny was hit by a car while Dad was at the hospital with dead Sarah.
It makes you want to feel badly for Danny, it really does. He didn't do anything wrong except be 16 and try to help. I was so torn for those first few episodes wanting Danny to be accepted into the family again because really, he was 16, and it wasn't his fault. But as the episodes go by, Danny gets harder and harder to feel sorry for. He pulls some epic douche moves (like moving drugs using the family's boat and storing them on the expansive family property). That ensures that, if caught, Danny's not going down alone, he's taking all the Rayburns with him.
I finally stopped feeling sorry for Danny when he took John's daughter Jane out on the family boat without telling anyone in the family. John become frantic, searching all over the Keys for Jane. He finally speaks with a staff member at the Rayburn House who tells John that "Danny said to tell you it's okay, she's with a responsible adult." BOOM. I hated Danny from that point on. I just really wanted him to leave, get on a bus and FINALLY leave town for good. But that doesn't really make for compelling TV so he stays and we get to watch the family fall apart.
I'm not going to give much more away because if you've stayed with me up to this point, I'm hoping you'll say to yourself: "Damn, Snarky, that sounds like a great show and I totally want to binge watch it right now!" I will tell you this: pace yourself. The show is so good but if you make a pig of yourself like I did, and watch it almost all at once, you'll be sorry. Because once you've finished your little binge, you'll have to wait until April 2016 for the next season. THAT'S the part that sucks. I want instant gratification. I want to know NOW what happens after the fallout.
I will also say this: I'm going to miss hating Danny, and I do hope they keep the actor in the show for flashbacks. And I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did and will be watching when it comes back on in April.
