There be Bloodline season one and two spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.
The chief complaint about Netflix’s drama Bloodline, the second season of which debuted May 27, is that there aren’t any likable characters. Kyle Chandler’s John Rayburn is duplicitous, Linda Cardellini’s Meg Rayburn is manipulative, and Norbert Leo Butz’s Kevin Rayburn is a putz. Why should we care about these people, especially with every terrible decision they pile on to all of the terrible decisions they’ve already made?
Perhaps that’s not the real question that Bloodline raises. Perhaps the question that Bloodline actually raises, the question it forces the audience to ask itself, is why do we root for any characters in today’s world of American crime drama?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOBrUPASutc
“This is all about Danny still. He won’t fucking go away.”
In the second episode of season two, Meg Rayburn utters those two lines in a summation of the entire season. Despite the fact that oldest brother Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) is dead and buried, at the hands of his three living siblings no less, his ghost refuses to stop haunting the Rayburn family.
When we last left the crumbling shell of a well-respected Florida Keys family, everyone was attempting to put the effects of Danny’s death behind them. John was in the beginning stages of a run for county sheriff. Meg took a high-powered lawyer job in New York City. Kevin remained focused on turning his marina into something more while also reconnecting with his wife. Family matriarch Sally (Sissy Spacek) was simply trying to keep it all together following the death of her husband and now her estranged son. Considering the unsettled nature of the murder case and the ongoing issues involving a local drug dealer, any relief was bound to be short-lived.
And so it was, because the first chunk of episodes in season two might as well be a continuation of those events. The walls begin to crumble around the family and whatever hopes each of them have of maintaining status quo becomes less and less likely with every new decision or reveal.
Without giving too much away, there comes a point where the second season pivots and begins a new chapter. However, it never quite leaves the past in the past, which is basically the point of the entire show.
The biggest concern I had coming into season two was whether or not the show could really exist without Mendelsohn’s Danny. Not only did he give the best performance in season one, but Danny was by far the most interesting character in the entire story. The most complex of all the Rayburns, it’s to Mendelsohn’s credit that he came away creating the most likable (relatively-speaking) character in the show. The thought of him disappearing entirely from the show created a void that didn’t seem fillable.
That’s been partially proven true in second two. Mendelsohn still shows up in flashbacks and as an apparition of conscious. His space is also filled by Owen Teague, who plays Danny’s son Nolan. Nolan has some of the same mannerisms and affectations as his father, and his barbs often act as weapons cutting through the facade that the rest of the family has created for themselves. Still, it’s a tough act to follow.
The rest of the cast continues to do the great work they did in the first season, even if sometimes it feels as though they’re spinning their wheels. Much like the weather, the plot often feels thick and uncomfortable, slowing down the pace of everything it touches.
(Speaking of the weather, don’t expect the Florida Keys Chamber of Commerce to showcase Bloodline anytime soon. The show makes it look unbearably uncomfortable, sweaty and gross all the time.)
The show has its faults. Plots sometimes flip-flop from episode to episode. It’s unclear how much time has elapsed, making it confusing when characters make big changes from one episode to the next. And this show never met a “pensive stare into the middle distance while holding back tears” it didn’t like.
Back to the idea that there’s no one to root for on this show. It’s true. The further the show follows its throughline, the less anyone wants to see John, Meg, Kevin, or Sally succeed. Like Sally tells Jacinda Barrett’s Diana at one point regarding Danny’s death, “We all had a hand in it.” The deceit, cover-ups, and shame in the Rayburn family goes back to long before Danny died, however, something the second season digs into. The more it does, the more we root against the Rayburns.
But even beyond that, the people who are “against” them aren’t much better. John Leguizamo’s Ozzy and Andrea Riseborough’s Evangeline are both pieces of work we don’t want to succeed. Glenn Morshower’s Wayne Lowry is a bad man. Even Enrique Murciano’s Marco had a dirty secret that makes it hard to root for him.
Ultimately, Bloodline has revealed itself to be a study of people making bad decisions, refusing to own up to the consequences, and showing us how no matter how perfectly you stack that house of cards, it will eventually come down on someone, even if it’s not the person you intended.
So if we don’t care about any of these people, why do we care? Perhaps the real question is, why do we care about characters who do the same things on other shows? Breaking Bad’s Walter White is a beloved character who was no better than John Rayburn (committed murder, allowed innocent people to take the fall, orchestrated cover-ups, ruined lives). Any number of Game of Thrones characters are guilty of the same, but we don’t consider them unrootable. Countless modern American dramas follow characters who lie, cheat and steal, and we still root for them, consciously or unconsciously, to get away with it.
Maybe that’s the value of Bloodline. It would be so easy for Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor!) to make John Rayburn likable in spite of everything. He could turn on the charm or the show could give him some emotional beats that remind us what a great guy he is.
But it doesn’t, because he’s not a great guy. He’s a shell of a great guy. He’s a terrible guy trying desperately to convince himself the good inside outweighs the bad he’s done. If only he can become sheriff, then he’ll prove to others, and himself, that he’s someone to root for.
But we already know he isn’t. And that’s a fascinating journey to watch. The slow, steady, inevitable decline of the Rayburn Family as they become the real version of themselves and the fake wholesome illusion fades away.
