
Netflix
Spoilers for Season 3
The first season of Netflix’s Bloodline still remains among my favorite seasons of Netflix original dramas. It is slow-burn greatness, a noirish family drama that ends with a phenomenally bleak, intoxicating final four episodes that go down like whiskey: They burn, but they feel so good.
Daniel Zelman and the brothers Kessler — Glenn and Todd (Damages, The Sopranos) — would’ve been smart to leave well enough alone. The first season fetched both Kyle Chandler and Ben Mendelsohn Emmy nominations, and propelled Mendelsohn to a flashy role in Rogue One. Mendelsohn made that first season work, and with his character dead, the best the series could do was to conjure up a long-lost son (Owen Teague, who is very good but no Mendelsohn) and repeat the same motions until the inevitable murder at the end of the second season. In the moment, I liked the second season (though not nearly as much as the first), but it didn’t sit well in the weeks after it aired. Critics were also considerably less kind, and were it not for the acting awards the series brought to Netflix (Chandler and Mendelsohn were nominated for Emmys again in the second season, with Mendelsohn winning for Best Supporting Actor), I doubt there’d be a season three. Netflix lost its tax credits in the Florida Keys, and a third season was left very much in doubt, despite the second season ending on a brutal cliffhanger.
Six weeks after its premiere date, however, Netflix finally approved a third and final season, cutting short the showrunners’ hopes of dragging out the Rayburn story into an unnecessary fourth or fifth season. Nearly a year later, only the most passionate fans of an already presumably small fanbase, of which I include myself, have stuck around.
Was it worth it?
Not really.
Yeh it was great until the final 2 episodes. They seemed to raise more questions than they answered and left most of it unresolved. I still think the show was amazing at being able to make me feel the guilt and anxiety of all their lies and dysfunction. I even loved all of the second season because they kept all of the tension up. But jesus they really fumbled the ending.
I agree. And I HATED episode 9. It was a mess that really just had me rewinding going WTF over and over again. Waste of an hour in what was already a short season. And UPROXX? Danny’s son’s name on the show was NOLAN not Owen. Sheesh. Not happy with the ending at all.
I totally agree. Loved all three seasons until the crazy stuff started in last couple episodes. I thought I was going crazy trying to understand what was going on and still think I don’t know. Not at all surprised to learn one of the writers worked on Sopranos because of that God awful ending. I hate when these shows do this to loyal viewers!!!
For anyone who has traveled the Keys knows the chalange of navigating the landscape. Unfortunatly the writers shipwrecked with season 3 leaving a treasure trove of talent gasping for air…
I think you’re too harsh on John. I don’t ever see him really going full villain, he constantly tries to save his increasingly idiotic family. I certainly never rooted against him. And…
“on an innocent man guilty of only being born poor and to the wrong family”
….and being a drain on his family, a career criminal, and supplying a drug syndicate that happens to enslave or burn women.
Easy thing to forget.
I agree, season 1 as a self contained series makes Bloodline Prestige TV. Seasons 2 and 3 unravel it. I was disenchanted after season 2 but like you, needed to watch until the end. Obviously there were many problems and most of it comes back to the writing that even the performances of the cast can’t get beyond. I am mixed on episode 9. I love the angle of John’s guilt descending him into madness but the episode felt like a rerun of “The Test Dream” from the Sopranos, another episode I saw the genius of, but was irritating to watch.
Overall I love the concept of a family’s desire to preserve themselves is their ultimate undoing. Season 2 and 3 could have been great. But there were too many problems:
1. Ozzy was a mess in season 3. What was his purpose?
2. Belle going all rogue with Kevin (John has to fix it even if he sacrifices his wife and his kids). Not a major point but one that annoyed me greatly. This is a character who for the run of the series has been one of the few people with a good moral center. And then for no reason whatsoever (except maybe to keep her family in tact) she is now going to look past her husband being a murderer and demand that John fix it even if he has to sacrifice himself, his wife or his children for it?
3. As much as I enjoy David Zayas in any role, his character’s arc made no sense in season 3. For much of the season they were setting him up to be the guy to actually discover the truth. He suspects John at different intervals. And then when he confesses, Aguirre blows off the whole thing, for what? A job in Boston?
4. Loads of critics love Meg’s ending. But seriously, why does she deserve a happy ending? Because her fiancee was murdered by her brother? So now she is happy and carefree with a new identity and a house with a pool? Isn’t the whole point of this show that you cannot escape being a Rayburn?
I need to know how the hell Meg afforded that house.
The whole season was just depressing as hell. It also seemed just thrown together. I felt bad for Kyle Chandler, but now that it is over I hope to see him in something more deserving of his talents.
Also, the wig Mendelson wore when they brought him back was so distracting I couldn’t get passed it. It was made worse because they reused preshot footage along with the new footage shot in the wig.
Todd Kessler. I’m doing my best to ensure I never forget his name, like memorizing the name of an herb that caused me to experience an allergic reaction I wish to ensure I do not accidentally ingest again.
I’ve written his name down on a piece of scrap paper multiple times and have asked my family to ask me his name off and on throughout the next week to make absolutely sure I do not forget that I do not want to waste my precious time ever again on a project he is involved in with.
I appreciate this site letting me know he has ended a series in this manner before, and to an outcry of upset then also. I will not be a victim of his inability to conclude a series properly again.
What a waste of time! (I saved two family members that planned to watch it upon my prior recommendation before I watched the final episode–One of them just in time, they were going to start it tonight!)
Boo!
This is why I quit Netflix sucks you in and then quits a very great show. F off netflix