‘Bloodline’ Lacks A Single Protagonist — But That Only Makes It Even More Groundbreaking

I’ve previously touted why Bloodline is the best Netflix Original series to date (yes, even better than House of Cards). And that bold claim was made after watching just three episodes. Over the weekend, however, I finished the series and stand by that opinion, but it took me awhile to figure out what makes Bloodline an arguably perfect drama. On paper, it might not necessarily read like a show you’d find yourself completely enthralled with: it’s a slow burn, there’s little to no comic relief, and, after the pilot, you already have an idea of how it ends. Yet, what makes Bloodline so captivating aside from its arguably flawless writing and gripping noir mystery is the ability to make its antagonistic main characters not just watchable, but wholly relatable.

Warning: Contains spoilers

Bloodline follows the Rayburns: tight-knit family who run a successful beachfront resort in the Florida Keys. While preparing to celebrate the resort’s forty-fifth anniversary, Robert and Sally Rayburn (Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek), along with their three grown children John (Kyle Chandler), Meg (Linda Cardellini), and Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz), nervously await the return home of their oldest brother, Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) — the black sheep of the family. Thanks to Mendelsohn’s commanding performance and the unrelenting hypocrisy of his holier-than-thou parents and siblings, Danny quickly emerges as an empathetic, deeply flawed protagonist whose desperation comes from a place of decades’ worth neglect and mistreatment. Despite their glowing local reputation, the Rayburns carry a troubled past with wounds that are still fresh and infectious — especially when Danny is around. The loss of Sarah, the mysterious fifth Rayburn child, pit the family against each other roughly thirty years ago, making it easy for the abusive Robert Rayburn to scapegoat his oldest son who was at the wrong place at the wrong time when his favorite child drowned — something he continued, both physically and emotionally, even in his dying hours as a bitter, sickly old man.

Flash forward thirty years: John feels responsible for failing to stand up for his brother, Meg resents her father for favoring Sarah, and Kevin nurses his deep-seated hatred for Danny with his alcoholism. Sally Rayburn, who we later discover told her children to lie to Detective Potts after Robert nearly beat Danny to death all those years ago, is still coming to terms with her guilt — not only for covering up her husband’s abuse, but for the hatred she felt toward Sarah. If Sally had never pushed her daughter away that fateful day, Danny would have never taken her out on the boat, she would have never drowned, and Danny could have possibly lived a normal life. Possibly.

“You were a fuck up before Sarah,” John seethes at his older brother during their final moments together in the penultimate episode of the season. At this point in Bloodline, creators Glenn and Todd Kessler and Daniel Zelman have had Danny take a 180-degree turn before the season finale, forcing you to switch your empathy over to the equally manipulative, yet unjustifiably horrible, remaining Rayburn siblings, who felt their only choice was to rid of their brother for good for the sake of the family. Yet even in their darkest hours, even when they’ve unanimously decided to do the unthinkable, John, Meg, and Kevin fail to be honest with themselves, with each other, and with their mother, who believes Danny was killed by the drug lord to which he was indebted. In any other series, characters this unredeemable would have encouraged you to move on to another show long before the finale, but what Bloodline has done is so unique, one can’t help but stay along for the ride.

David Canfield over at Indiewire claims that Bloodline, along with The Affair and Rectify, are creating a new way to watch television by indulging in unprecedented “family noirs.” While I certainly agree with certain aspects of his piece (the haunted paradise settings, the dysfunctional dynasties in their respective areas of the Keys, Montauk, and Georgia), I can’t help but think about how The Affair‘s Noah and Alison and, to that point, Rectify‘s Holden family are unlikeable enough, but it’s daunting for series creators to go all the way and proverbially (and perhaps unintentionally) say, “We’re going to make you hate every single one of these characters at some point, but you’re going to have to understand why.” Just before the series premiere, I got to chat with Kyle Chandler and Daniel Zelman about the teasing character development of Bloodline. Chandler explained, “A lot of us on the show really, truly look forward to getting the next script to find out exactly what’s going to happen to these characters. Because you have two choices: you can ask what’s going to happen and get all the information you want or you can ask nothing. And many of us — because the writing is what it is and it’s so exciting to get that script — a lot of us choose not to ask.”

After finishing Bloodline, it became clear that the honesty of the series stems from the rather bleak outlook on instinctual human nature. The Rayburns represent the antagonists in all of us: the abuser in Robert, the coward in Sally, the martyr in John, the liar in Meg, the addict in Kevin, and the vengeful Danny. Yet, its pitch-black scope on what it means to be family, is made binge-able by the over-arching noir mystery. Like the best town gossip you’ve ever heard after coming home from college, you simply can’t stop listening. But don’t dare look down on or judge any member of the Rayburn clan, because, to quote Danny, “Your life won’t always be this perfect.”

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Photos: Netflix/Everett Collection