NOTE: This will spoil all of season one of “Bloodline”. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
A slow burn approach to building tension can be very effective. By gradually building to the climax, it can make the payoff so much more rewarding if it justifies the time it took to get there. On the other hand, if the gradual build isn’t handled correctly, the story can feel like it is spinning its wheels and stalling. It is a tricky balance to strike, and creators Todd A. Kessler, Glen Kessler, and Daniel Zelman, who also created the show “Damages”, take this approach with their latest show “Bloodline“. The result showcases both the great sides and the frustrating sides to a slow burn.
The latest Netflix drama focuses on the Rayburn family, led by Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek, who run a hotel in the Florida Keys. There is the golden boy, detective son John (Kyle Chandler), the family lawyer daughter (Linda Cardellini), and the youngest boatyard operator son (Norbert Leo Butz). When the family name is about to be commemorated as the name of a pier, the oldest child (Ben Mendelsohn), the black sheep of the family, comes into town, and you know instantly, doom is on the horizon.
Part of the reason we know this, is due to the flash forward technique employed. We get glimpses of how this story will play out, accompanied by Kyle Chandler’s voiceover. And guess what? It does not end with sunshine and rainbows. The show runners, however, have no intention of rushing to that conclusion, letting the dread crawl under your skin. Or, at least, that is the intention. It’s not entirely successful.
Coupling a known conclusion with a long buildup is tricky because it can easily be frustrating, which “Bloodline” certainly is at points. Sometimes you will watch an episode filled with both flash forwards and flashbacks, and the story feels stalled. You could argue this is for the sake of character development, which I will agree with to some point, but so many of these flashes are repetitive and no progress seems to take place. These segments are not helped by Chandler’s voiceover, which is the most expositional and on the nose voiceover I’ve heard in a long time. Chandler’s delivery makes it palatable, because he is such a skilled actor, but the writing is pretty bad.
However, there are the slow elements that really help these characters, akin to a show like “Game of Thrones”. There are conversations between the family members that may not necessarily move things forward, but the intensity of the relationship between the conversing parties is astounding, particularly if Mendelsohn’s Danny is involved. Seeing how these people react to one another and what information they are willing to reveal to one another is extremely important and riveting to watch. It’s when the show strips everything down to two people talking that it works best.
This is because the strongest element of “Bloodline” is its cast. Ben Mendelsohn is obviously going to be the one receiving the most acclaim for his performance as the brother you can never trust. Since Animal Kingdom, Mendelsohn has perfected the art of playing horrible people, and he’s given that, plus so much more to play here. I would not go so far as to say he is a tragic anti-hero, as other people have when writing about the show, but you certainly empathize with the man who always chooses the exact wrong thing to do.
