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DivisionPost
Jun 28, 2006

Nobody likes you.
Everybody hates you.
You're gonna lose.

Smile, you fuck.


Bloodline is a slow-burn thriller from the creators of Damages that mixes elements of neo-noir with family drama. Set in the hazy paradise of Islamorada in the Florida Keys, the story picks up as the deeply respected Rayburn Family is about to celebrate their beloved hotel's 45th anniversary. The folksy Robert (Sam Shepard) and big-hearted Sally (Sissy Spacek) are the proprietors. John (Kyle Chandler, far right), the central figure of the series, is the good son; he's a detective for the local police. His brother (Norbert Leo Butz, center-left) is a overly passionate man who runs a boating company, while his sister Meg (Linda Cardellini, center-right) is a people pleaser who works at a small law firm. By all outside accounts they're the perfect family; that's because nobody likes to talk about their oldest son Danny (Ben Mendelsohn, far left), a perpetual fuckup with a chip on his shoulder, a painkiller monkey on his back, and persistent ties to the bottom rungs of the underworld. He's rolling back into town for the weekend celebration; too bad for everyone, he claims he wants to stay this time.

All this drama gets entangled with a murder investigation involving the burned body of a young immigrant, and flashforwards tell us that wherever this is going...



...it's all going loving wrong.

Look, just to be upfront: Nobody is going to confuse this with Mad Men. The characters are mostly written to type (with Danny being a notable exception, particularly as the series goes on), and some have literally nothing to do despite being series regulars. The first three episodes also have some on-the-nose narration, and given the structure of Damages, one could be forgiven for thinking that there was going to be a fast-forward every episode -- something that got tiresome on Damages over time.

Episode 4, however -- naturally the first episodes that critics didn't get -- pulls back on the flashforwards, cuts the narration entirely, and reveals the tragic history that led to Danny's alienation from the family. From there the show seems to feel like you know enough about where this all ends up, and is content to let these dynamics play out to their damning conclusion. (Disclaimer: I only just finished episode 7 at this point, so it feels like a few things could still go wrong.) It's the perfect binge show: week to week, the pacing would've been intolerable. All at once, everything crackles with the fire of a gripping crime novel.

It's not a rich, groundbreaking show. But it's a very, very good one.

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OldSenileGuy
Mar 13, 2001
Stickying this for a couple days. Watched the first episode last night and it was pretty good. Like DP said, it wasn't anything groundbreaking, but it was a good bit of drama. I'll be watching the rest for sure.

Rocksicles
Oct 19, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo
I'm episode 9, it's really good.

Ben Mendelsohn is crushing it :australia:

Manos del Sino
Apr 12, 2004

Original Pony
Soiled Meat
I'm on episode 11 and boy oh boy do I want to see Danny get his head caved in. Very few television characters get under my skin as much as this creep does.

Also, I could have sworn I saw Mia Kirshner in a couple scenes. If they had her, she is being criminally underused. If I imagined it, then I've had worse fantasies.

DivisionPost
Jun 28, 2006

Nobody likes you.
Everybody hates you.
You're gonna lose.

Smile, you fuck.

Manos del Sino posted:

I'm on episode 11 and boy oh boy do I want to see Danny get his head caved in. Very few television characters get under my skin as much as this creep does.

What's great is that he's not playing your stock sociopath. This is a guy who is operating from a place of real pain; you'd feel sorry for him if he wasn't such an incredible bastard in turn.

quote:

Also, I could have sworn I saw Mia Kirshner in a couple scenes. If they had her, she is being criminally underused. If I imagined it, then I've had worse fantasies.

You did. She's playing Danny's fantasy of the grown-up Sarah.

EDIT: Also, having finished the series? God drat. I wasn't crazy about that last twist, but they tied it all together perfectly. Even the narration seems better in retrospect.

DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Mar 22, 2015

Rocksicles
Oct 19, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo
Can we get a shout for the super MILF that Meg is?

Didn't know she voiced Wendy from Gravity Falls.

CoffeeQaddaffi
Mar 20, 2009
I think there's been maybe one role that I didn't like Linda Cardellini in. The first show I saw her on was Freaks and Geeks and I've liked her ever since.

JIZZ DENOUEMENT
Oct 3, 2012

STRIKE!
Sweet, saw this pop up but wasn't sure about it.


Not bad, but with the addition of the Goon reviews above I'll definitely take a look.

LesterGroans
Jun 9, 2009

It's funny...

You were so scary at night.
Ben Mendolsohn in episode 12 :stare:

So, sooo good.

Tomahawk
Aug 13, 2003

HE KNOWS
Sexy white rich family doing things.

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

Ben Mendolsohn is the standout of this, and that's saying a lot. All the actors are exceptional but by far he's the the one who just takes over when he's on screen.

To me the most interesting things were how in the first couple episodes, Danny's just honestly, a black sheep. You know he's done bad things but you have sympathy for him. Honestly, Kevin was the one I was more concerned about in the first 3-4 episodes. Then it all changes and it's slow but noticeable how he just turns into a monster and by the final episodes, he's just become a methodical psychotic monster. I don't feel he planned it all out but he certainly knew how to roll with everything to keep it going his way.

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair

RevKrule posted:

To me the most interesting things were how in the first couple episodes, Danny's just honestly, a black sheep. You know he's done bad things but you have sympathy for him. Honestly, Kevin was the one I was more concerned about in the first 3-4 episodes. Then it all changes and it's slow but noticeable how he just turns into a monster and by the final episodes, he's just become a methodical psychotic monster. I don't feel he planned it all out but he certainly knew how to roll with everything to keep it going his way.

Yeah, I liked how it went from "Oh Danny just needs some money/is caught up with his bad shitlord friend" to "Oh, Danny is actively trying to ruin the family."

I will say, though, the final "reveal" at the end of the last episode was :rolleyes: vomiting :rolleyes: into a pool of :rolleyes:

DivisionPost
Jun 28, 2006

Nobody likes you.
Everybody hates you.
You're gonna lose.

Smile, you fuck.

LesterGroans posted:

Ben Mendolsohn in episode 12 :stare:

So, sooo good.

WHEN'S IT GONNA FUCKIN' END, DANNY?

WHEN'S IT GONNA FUCKIN' END?

RevKrule posted:

Ben Mendolsohn is the standout of this, and that's saying a lot. All the actors are exceptional but by far he's the the one who just takes over when he's on screen.

To me the most interesting things were how in the first couple episodes, Danny's just honestly, a black sheep. You know he's done bad things but you have sympathy for him. Honestly, Kevin was the one I was more concerned about in the first 3-4 episodes. Then it all changes and it's slow but noticeable how he just turns into a monster and by the final episodes, he's just become a methodical psychotic monster. I don't feel he planned it all out but he certainly knew how to roll with everything to keep it going his way.

The scene that brought home just how great he was is him on the bus, going back home after John, Meg, and Kevin disappeared his cocaine and wrecked his poo poo. He just stares at the yellow pieces of paper in his hands, and says in this little voice, "I just wanted to give my toast..."

It would've been so easy to make Danny a traditional sociopath, and instead he's a guy whose understandable resentment of his family was curdled, through all-too-human actions, into something ugly and dangerous. I'd probably put those last three episodes up there with the end of Breaking Bad's second season...

Inspector_666 posted:

I will say, though, the final "reveal" at the end of the last episode was :rolleyes: vomiting :rolleyes: into a pool of :rolleyes:

...if not for that. I'm not violently allergic to troubled teen characters, but they had a PERFECT ending with the P.I. telling Sally "Your children are lying to you." Bam, closes out the story of season 1 in a way that baits the hook for season 2; they got away with it in every way except the one that counts the most, can't wait to see the kids attempt to dance around their mother.

The twist with the kid, by comparison, just felt empty; thrown in for the sake of having one last "oh poo poo" moment without any concern toward how it fits in the overall narrative of season 1, and it was a disheartening note to go out on.

ymgve
Jan 2, 2004


:dukedog:
Offensive Clock
What was up with the pay they got for stealing the gas? It sounded like it was a really big payday but they are just loving stealing gas and selling it. Stolen items go for less than retail, why was this making them so rich Danny could just ignore his regular paychecks?

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair

ymgve posted:

What was up with the pay they got for stealing the gas? It sounded like it was a really big payday but they are just loving stealing gas and selling it. Stolen items go for less than retail, why was this making them so rich Danny could just ignore his regular paychecks?

They were stealing the gas and then leaving it for the traffickers, not just selling it.

ymgve
Jan 2, 2004


:dukedog:
Offensive Clock

Inspector_666 posted:

They were stealing the gas and then leaving it for the traffickers, not just selling it.

I got that, but I can't see why the traffickers would pay so much that it would be considered a lucrative business. I could see paying a premium to get untraceable gas (send people out to 20 different gas stations to buy it, to not attract attention), but for stolen gas that someone's definitely gonna be missing?

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

ymgve posted:

I got that, but I can't see why the traffickers would pay so much that it would be considered a lucrative business. I could see paying a premium to get untraceable gas (send people out to 20 different gas stations to buy it, to not attract attention), but for stolen gas that someone's definitely gonna be missing?

They were stealing it and leaving it so the traffickers could gas up without having to hit the port which would be unlike coast guard and the like. You pay for someone to steal it so you don't have them at a gas station filling up 30 black gas cans and get people asking questions.

Also they knew the cameras were dead on that tank so if they steal it, it'll be less noticed. It wasn't until they ran forensics on the dead body did they have an idea where the gas came from. If the body never showed up, no one would've noticed it missing.

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair
Yeah, the markup was in the motoring out to the island and staging everything, not for the gas itself.

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

So I'm thinking back on when (last episode spoilers) Kevin and John were loading the cocaine into Danny's Miami house and I remember them specifically panning on someone watching in a Rayburn Inn shirt. What are the possibilities on who that could be? I suspect it'll be Danny's son but I guess it could also be Carlos but I'm not sure what he'd be doing in that area.

I would think whoever it was will be important next season but place your bets.

I was also thinking about all the reviews comparing this to Damages. On the one hand it's really fair because the first three episodes seem structured at least partially like Damages (flash forwards and all) but honestly, after the first couple episodes, this narrative style takes a back seat to pretty straight forward events. It has structure that's similar but the actual telling is incredibly different. I love Damages (just rewatched it in January) but this to me just felt like a different beast. In terms of Netflix originals this year, this is ranking just below Kimmy Schmidt (this year's gold standard for all entertainment). I was bored by House of Cards season 3 (Lars Mikkelsen being the exception) and Marco Polo while pretty just never fired on all cylinders.

LesterGroans
Jun 9, 2009

It's funny...

You were so scary at night.

DivisionPost posted:

WHEN'S IT GONNA FUCKIN' END, DANNY?

WHEN'S IT GONNA FUCKIN' END?

Such a great payoff.

I'm a huge Kyle Chandler fan and it's no mark against him--or Linda Cardellini, or Norbert Leo Butz--that Ben Mendolsohn absolutely blew them out of the water. He was easily the most-nuanced character but the rest of them definitely brought a lot to it. Chandler's vulnerability in the last couple of episodes was really well done and something I'd never seen from him before.

The build up of Danny was great, like most people have said. I felt sorry for him for the first 3 or 4 episodes, and then still kept feeling sympathetic off and on. The show basically puts the viewer in John's head and when he's had enough we have.

That kitchen scene in episode 12 with Danny explaining poo poo to his mom... man, so well-acted. And that's not even the best scene in the episode.

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair
If any of you haven't seen Animal Kingdom, you really need to. Mendolsohn is also great in Killing Them Softly.

I have a feeling he's about to blow up.

rawillkill
Aug 15, 2009

Emma Watson is what runs trivia teams.

RevKrule posted:

So I'm thinking back on when (last episode spoilers) Kevin and John were loading the cocaine into Danny's Miami house and I remember them specifically panning on someone watching in a Rayburn Inn shirt. What are the possibilities on who that could be? I suspect it'll be Danny's son but I guess it could also be Carlos but I'm not sure what he'd be doing in that area.

Danny's son this is the best guess.

Your other guess doesn't make sense (I initially thought it was him) because he looks at the photographs for way too long

This show was great, I hope season 2 can be as good as this season was but I won't hold my breath

LesterGroans
Jun 9, 2009

It's funny...

You were so scary at night.

Inspector_666 posted:

If any of you haven't seen Animal Kingdom, you really need to. Mendolsohn is also great in Killing Them Softly.

I have a feeling he's about to blow up.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the Australian crime dramas (The Square is great too if anyone else liked Animal Kingdom) and it was nice seeing him in small parts in The Dark Knight Rises and Place Beyond the Pines.

Wouldn't he surprised if he gets an Oscar nom within a few years.

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

LesterGroans posted:

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the Australian crime dramas (The Square is great too if anyone else liked Animal Kingdom) and it was nice seeing him in small parts in The Dark Knight Rises and Place Beyond the Pines.

Wouldn't he surprised if he gets an Oscar nom within a few years.

I almost certainly could see an Emmy nom for him off of Bloodline.

DivisionPost
Jun 28, 2006

Nobody likes you.
Everybody hates you.
You're gonna lose.

Smile, you fuck.

LesterGroans posted:

I'm a huge Kyle Chandler fan and it's no mark against him--or Linda Cardellini, or Norbert Leo Butz--that Ben Mendolsohn absolutely blew them out of the water. He was easily the most-nuanced character but the rest of them definitely brought a lot to it. Chandler's vulnerability in the last couple of episodes was really well done and something I'd never seen from him before.

It's hard to talk about Meg and Kevin because they don't play a direct hand in the main narrative until episode 10-11, but they played their parts to the hilt and created some very likable (if deeply flawed) characters with the distance they were given. When they hopefully get called upon to do more in Season 2, I'm confident they'll come correct and deliver turns worth talking about.

As for John...holy poo poo. I'm in the tank for Chandler as well, and I always thought he had something like this in him. But I never thought it'd be this satisfying to watch. The way he charted the emotional course from "trying to help out his older brother" to "drowning him in a fit of rage" was brilliant, and the look on his face after -- staring at the body, completely shut down, you could almost see the Jackson Pollock painting his mind had become -- was devastating. After all the poo poo Danny pulled, it would be so easy for that moment to play as triumphant, but the way it played out, the way Chandler sold it, it felt anything but.

But yeah, all of that great work was nothing compared to what Mendelsohn pulled off here.

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

DivisionPost posted:

But yeah, all of that great work was nothing compared to what Mendelsohn pulled off here.
And this is almost the saddest part of it all. Chandler, Cardellini, and Butz play their characters very well. Hell, much better than 90% of the people on regular TV dramas. Spacek is amazing in her role of just always trying to give Danny the benefit of the doubt and is masterful when she reveals her own secret.

But none of them are near Mendelsohn's performance, it's just so loving next level.

Doktor Avalanche
Dec 30, 2008

Since you're all mesmerized by Mendelsohn's performance, can I recommend Starred Up? A very good British prison movie. Quinn from Homeland has a part, too.

OldTennisCourt
Sep 11, 2011

by VideoGames
2 episodes in and I'm loving it but holy poo poo is Kevin insufferable. Danny's kind of a shithead from what I've seen so far but drat dude, calm the gently caress down. I know Danny's girlfriend was kind of annoying but his enormous shitfit over the seating made me want to slap him in the back of the head.

I'm sure I'm just too early in but drat, my impressions of this dude 2 episodes in is the biggest loudmouth rear end in a top hat ever.

Brock Samson
May 13, 2003

I let you know me, see me. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn't want it.

Kevin gets more tolerable, fortunately.


By the end any time Danny was around John's daughter my loving skin was crawling. Good stuff, hope they can keep it up next season.

Jigglesby
Jan 16, 2015

I really enjoyed this show, but I was hoping they'd go for an anthology type of of format with a different family going forward. I'm not sure it will be as good without a living Danny, even if they use a lot of flashbacks to keep him around in the cast

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


This show is great. It's the gritty reboot of Arrested Development I never knew I needed.

Teriyaki Hairpiece
Dec 29, 2006

I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

OldTennisCourt posted:

2 episodes in and I'm loving it but holy poo poo is Kevin insufferable. Danny's kind of a shithead from what I've seen so far but drat dude, calm the gently caress down. I know Danny's girlfriend was kind of annoying but his enormous shitfit over the seating made me want to slap him in the back of the head.

I'm sure I'm just too early in but drat, my impressions of this dude 2 episodes in is the biggest loudmouth rear end in a top hat ever.

Nah, he's pretty much the Peggy Hill of Bloodline.

Doctor Butts
May 21, 2002

I think I'm up to episode 4 or 5. Some of this stuff is cool but some crap really annoys me.

At this point, I don't think there's a way you can write-in whatever poo poo Danny pulled for him to deserve this level of poo poo he gets from his family. Whatever poo poo he pulled, it was either so heinous that he should have been kicked out of the family completely- or its just such transparent bullshit that it doesn't make sense for the other characters to realize it.

Also, none of these characters have the same accent. Regardless, most of the actors seem to be doing an OK job.

Jonas Albrecht posted:

This show is great. It's the gritty reboot of Arrested Development I never knew I needed.

Don't ask me to explain how I connected the dots. But this is starting to feel like some bizarro alternate reality Royal Pains.

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

Doctor Butts posted:

I think I'm up to episode 4 or 5. Some of this stuff is cool but some crap really annoys me.

At this point, I don't think there's a way you can write-in whatever poo poo Danny pulled for him to deserve this level of poo poo he gets from his family. Whatever poo poo he pulled, it was either so heinous that he should have been kicked out of the family completely- or its just such transparent bullshit that it doesn't make sense for the other characters to realize it.

Also, none of these characters have the same accent. Regardless, most of the actors seem to be doing an OK job.


Don't ask me to explain how I connected the dots. But this is starting to feel like some bizarro alternate reality Royal Pains.

Guilt and anger are exceptional motivators. A lot of irrational actions from normally rational actors are made based on guilt and anger in the real world.

At the base of it, there's a singular event that poisons most of the family to Danny. After which, Danny is basically shunned by the family as a gently caress up. From there he basically spirals and loses touch, only to reconnect for "family holidays" and even then, not with any regularity. Really the only time most people have contact with Danny is when he needs something. Guilt of family bonds and good appearances keep the family from completely writing him off. None of them really want him around, but they're all too nice to outright shun him. They know he's a gently caress up but he's blood. They deal with him in small doses and don't think about him for long periods.

It's only when he's around for long periods and has a chance to root himself does his truly self destructive nature come out. It happened in Miami and it happened again when he comes home.

OldTennisCourt
Sep 11, 2011

by VideoGames
Yeah, aside from Kevin, no one was really like "I loving HATE THIS GUY". It's just a bunch of 'nice' people desperately trying to get it through to Danny that he's not wanted. I think what's interesting is that it shows how that's even more insidious and awful than outright hate. At least outright hate and rage you can understand/process, the rest of the family is just being undercover and sneaky with their apathy/nastiness.

Sheng-Ji Yang
Mar 5, 2014


This show is fantastic if you don't mind some slowness. This is my favorite Netflix show so far.

Gaunab
Feb 13, 2012
LUFTHANSA YOU FUCKING DICKWEASEL
I'm on episode six of this show. I like it and the Netflix model probably has something to do with that; so far I'm watching it in three episode chunks. Don't know how some of you marathoned it over the weekend.

Trevorrrrrrrrrrrrr
Jul 4, 2008

Loved it up until the last 2 scenes, which they seemed to force in to open up a possible second season.

JIZZ DENOUEMENT
Oct 3, 2012

STRIKE!

Trevorrrrrrrrrrrrr posted:

Loved it up until the last 2 scenes, which they seemed to force in to open up a possible second season.

Yeah, those last two scenes left a sour taste in my mouth.


I love slow burning drama but for me the show was merely ok to above average. I'd struggle to recommend anybody watch it. It's too long and too slow considering they give away a bunch of the plot points in the first couple episodes.

I thought Kevin and to a lesser extent, Meg, were acted well but the writing they were given was poor. Sissy Spacek gave the second best actor but she had relatively little material to work with. Without Danny's tremendous acting, I think this show would fall apart.

The flash forwards in the first four episodes weakened the season rather than strengthen it. In a shorter format, like Romeo and Juliet, it's ok because you are rooting against the inevitable. But for a 13 episode season it just kind of makes a bunch of the intrigue fall flat. Especially for such a slow burning show. A bunch of things in the last 5 episodes just don't have any weight because a lot of what we already know.

Honestly I think they should have just started the show at episode 5 or 6, the one where the Dad's funeral happens & Detective Potts shows up and be happy with a 8 episode season. I think the audience would've been able to get everything that would have potentially been removed.



edit:

RanchoRube posted:

I really enjoyed this show, but I was hoping they'd go for an anthology type of of format with a different family going forward. I'm not sure it will be as good without a living Danny, even if they use a lot of flashbacks to keep him around in the cast

Yeah, this show as a 1 season miniseries would have been great. Or a different family every season. The lovely last two scenes to drag out the show is painfully weak.

JIZZ DENOUEMENT fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Mar 26, 2015

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kaworu
Jul 23, 2004

I had a really different interpretation of the ending than you guys. I did *not* really see it as a "Heh here's one big final twist guys just in case we get renewed!" because the show really doesn't need that, and there was more than enough for a second season if they wanted.

To me, it all had to do with where John's character was coming from since the very beginning of the show. He's the responsible son - he's the one with the wife and two kids he's trying to protect, he's the sort of person who is always taking on responsibility and keeping people dependent on him because that's the nature of his character. Much of his deep-seated resentment towards Danny is that he has always felt like Danny got to live this "cool" life of doing what he wants and loving different women and being a perpetual teenager, while John acts like the responsible adult. The scene somewhere in the middle of the show where they go out and John gets drunk and then Danny comes home and acts like a horrifying creep to his wife made this dichotomy pretty apparent. Danny was even rubbing John's face it.

I think ultimately this is how John rationalizes what he does and why he feels like it's even remotely acceptable - because Danny didn't have a wife or kids and was ultimately not protecting anything but on a self-destructive vengeance trip. "WHEN'S IT GONNA END?!" That's what that was all about, to me - the subtext to a lot of that was the difference between a man with a family to protect and a man with nothing to lose. So to me, having Danny's son show up in front of John is all about challenging those basic preconceptions he has always had about his brother's life, and what his brother's real motivations may or may not have been. Or something.

Danny's son was also very very very emo and effeminate. Thought that was an interesting touch. The actor played him with a very vulnerable/sensitive attitude rather than one that even vaguely resembled Danny's demeanor.

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