‘Bloodline’ And The Complications Of Slow-Burn TV

As we bid farewell to Netflix‘s Bloodline, what the show will perhaps be best remembered by (aside from Ben Mendelsohn‘s stunning breakout performance) is undoubtedly its disciplined employment of a slow-burn storytelling style. While the series was certainly not the first to require patience from its viewers – Twin Peaks and The Sopranos did it in the 1990s and early 2000s – the fact is that this “Golden Age of Television” largely acts as an umbrella for more shows that utilize shock factor and faced-paced storytelling than a steady construction of suspense. In an age where instant gratification is king and attention spans are short, series are often desperate to hook audiences and respond to the pressure of being great from the very beginning. In their haste to impress, they often lose stamina and sight of the story at hand, and the show falters. Series that demand our patience, like Bloodline, The Leftovers, True Detective‘s first season, and Top of the Lake, among others, can be frustrating, but are evidently more rewarding in the long run – if they keep their eyes on the prize.

The slow-burn model is a risky one, especially when thrown into the current chaos-ridden landscape, and a lot of factors have to come together to ensure that the series is a success. With Bloodline, the first season threw together the perfect formula; a fresh setting (the Florida Keys make for a near-unparalleled atmosphere), an intriguing mystery at its core, and an extraordinarily compelling cast featuring a stellar balance of seasoned actors like Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek opposite TV vets like Kyle Chandler and Linda Cardellini and the relatively unknown Mendelsohn and Norbert Leo Butz. True to form, it takes a few episodes to get hooked, but once you’re in, it’s almost impossible to shake. It’s apparent from the first scene – which opens in medias res as John narrates that they’re “not bad people” but they “did a bad thing” – that we’re bound for the destruction of a family in the style of Greek tragedy. The manner in which that will play out, however, largely remains a mystery, as we are fed small glimpses of a vague flash-forward while Mendelsohn’s electrifying performance drives John to an unspeakable place.

The first season of Bloodline is a true testament to the power of the slow-burn model; its magnetic, noir-flavored story grips you in uncomfortable ways, ways that can lead to an unsettling examination of one’s own choices. The pacing, leisurely as it may feel at times, gives the layered, troubling familial dynamics higher stakes, and makes watching the Rayburns unravel a complicated, disturbing process – one that feels entirely too close to home. By the time we lose Danny, however, it’s evident that this candle can’t burn the same slow way anymore – and unfortunately, season two struggles to maintain the gloriously glacial pacing in the digestible way the first did. By eliminating Danny – the most spellbinding, disquieting presence on the series – so early, the series essentially condemned itself to a story of keeping secrets rather than creating them, which sadly can’t be supported by a slow-burn formula. The third season does its best to rectify its sophomore mistakes, and it’s not bad – but it will simply never match the impact of the first season, largely due to Danny’s premature murder.

Slow-burn storytelling can be a beautiful thing, and Bloodline‘s first thirteen episodes (and a few after) is a mesmerizing manifestation of the model at its finest. Things get complicated, however, when a story isn’t sustainable, and suspense can no longer be built. Danny still looms large over the show’s second and third seasons, and the series fully acknowledges the obvious void created by his absence – but somehow, even with the ever-growing family drama, the slow-burn just doesn’t pack the same punch it did with Mendelsohn – and his contentious, beguiling chemistry with Chandler – at its core. This plight is a tough one to avoid for series of this nature, and Bloodline does its best to cope (with results that are still largely riveting). Perhaps a slow-burn only works when you’re building up to something, rather than wrestling with the fall. For a series that exercised such stunning restraint in its first thirteen episodes, Bloodline evidently got in the way of itself by disposing of its most gripping asset in a hurry and expecting the same formula to keep working. Watching a permanently-agitated John do damage control in slow motion sadly isn’t sustainable – especially when most shows these days are killing off key characters on a bi-weekly basis.