I finally banged out the entire series “Bloodline” on Netflix, and it’s unbelievably good.
WARNING: THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW. I WILL DO MY BEST NOT TO RUIN ANYTHING.
The plot of the drama is pretty simple. It focuses on the Rayburn family, which is a wealthy and influential group of individuals in the Florida Keys. There’s John (Kyle Chandler) who is a sheriff’s deputy, the idiot Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz), the trouble-making oldest brother Danny (Ben Mendelsohn), the sister Meg (Linda Cardellini) and the mother Sally (Sissy Spacek).
Sam Shephard makes a brief appearance in the first season as the father of the whole unit. It’s his death and the return of Danny that sends the whole thing to hell.
The Netflix show mostly focuses on John over the course of three highly-entertaining seasons, and his struggles to keep the entire family structure from falling apart. As I’m sure you could guess at this point, he doesn’t do an outstanding job.
WARNING: THE BIGGEST SPOILER I’LL BE GIVING IS COMING UP. STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT THE ENDING OF THE FIRST SEASON RUINED.
Danny is such a hateable character in the first season. He’s wrapped up with all the wrong people and is a looming threat for the Rayburn family. Something had to be done. That’s where John, the savior throughout the show, steps in. (RELATED: This Six Minute Mashup Of The Greatest Movie Trailers From 2018 Is A Must-Watch Video)
During a beachside altercation, John kills Danny after snapping on him. It was over before any of us really had time to realize what happened.
The next two seasons follow the group of siblings as they try to cover up the murder of their brother and all the different roles they played. It begins to eat at them in different ways, and John once again has to be the pillar stopping the whole structure from crumbling down.
The introduction of Danny’s son in season two throws a whole different kind of wrench into the plot, and we begin to learn the eldest Rayburn child might have been a much more sympathetic character than we realized.
“Bloodline” only got darker as it went along its 33 episode run, and it was absolutely captivating. It’ll have you questioning just how far you’d go for your own family, and if the Rayburns are actually bad people or just good people who got into too deep.
The ending will also have you debating for days about what happened once the credits rolled. Trust me, do yourself a favor and check out “Bloodline” on Netflix.